I’ve been reading this book every night at bedtime during Lent. I wanted to do something that would lead me to the cross and remind me what this season really is. I never do the “give something up” for Lent; I don’t really know why. Perhaps because such goal-setting only feeds my tendency to “do” the Christian life on my own and to “do” it to please God or impress others. Not such a spiritual motivation for the Lenten season, huh?
Anyway, as a well-bred Baptist, I have grown up in churches that didn’t really do much for Easter. They didn’t ignore it, generally, of course. And I do remember a particular sermon Pastor Jackson preached on the fact that Jesus was buried at all (which was unusual for those who were crucified). It was a very interesting way of getting into the Easter story. But, I have come to realize that I do not, mostly from lack of practice, have a real sense of purposefully pursuing the cross and resurrection at Easter in a meaningful way.
My current church, which has many good things about it, has pretty much ignored holidays this year. We didn’t have a Christmas service, and two Sundays before Christmas, we sang one medley of Christmas carols. And that was it. Now it’s Easter, and we are having an Easter sermon (which we are supposed to invite people to, according to the letter from the Pastor that we got last week). No Good Friday service, no communion. Just a Sunday morning sermon. It seems oddly insufficient for the magnitude of all that the cross represents.
I only started thinking this way in the last few years. My husband was raised Methodist, and my in-laws are part of a wonderful Methodist community church. It was that church, and my MIL, which introduced me to my first experience with Advent at Christmas and a full-week celebration of Easter. They do services on almost every day of Passover week. They aren’t long services, but they come together, and they walk the road with Jesus, one day at a time. I’d never seen anything like it.
Last year was the first year it really struck me how shallow my own celebration of Easter usually is. So this year, I decided that a daily visit to the Cross would help me prepare my heart more appropriately. The book is a marvelous one (I’ve owned it for years and read it through every so often), and I’d highly recommend it. But I do think it’s important to spend time this week really looking again at the walk to the cross: Gethsemane, the trials, the tortures, the agony of becoming sin. Jesus did all of that because he loves me. Moment by moment, he chose to continue on the path because if he didn’t, he would lose me forever. I want to let that reality seep into my soul this week and change me forever.
Thank you for this post. I have read parts of it to several people in the office – wishing that a larger focus was put on the meaning and reason of Easter – I work in a church and we feel some of the staff have lost the focus you s how in what you have said today.
I am of the opinion we should celebrate Easter with the same fervor as Christmas. I am not always successful at that, but I LOVE those Holy week services. Maundy Thursday services can be sooooo powerful. Thanks for the book recommendation!
I think I am going to read that book, too. And thanks for helping us all remember “the Reason for the Season”. We would do well to remember it more often!
Sounds like a book that I need to read. Thanks for sharing!
Thanks for this post. Lenten season can be full of meaningless tradition or it can be such a heart thing. Every year, I mean to invest more of my heart into this time, and every year, I end up crowding it out. I’ve done it again this year, and it makes me sad. I have six days to turn my heart toward Christ–thank you, Jesus, for your sacrifice and for second chances.
Grace does a whole Holy Week thing, starting on Palm Sunday, which I thought was kind of weird when I first started going there. Okay, I still kind of do. Part of me thinks, “I’m not CATHOLIC, why am I celebrating this?” Kevin does not understand my attitude at all. I guess, like you, I’m just not in the habit of it.