On Easter

As Easter approaches, I've been doing a lot of thinking about its meaning. To some it means dyeing and hiding  Easter eggs, filling baskets  with candy and treats, eating said treats, having Easter dinner, and spending time with family and friends, maybe even going to church, what the hay?

To me, Easter is the most significant holiday there is. It begins on Good Friday when I mourn my Savior's gruesome and horribly torturous death. I remember the price He paid to save my lowly soul from captivity in hell due to my sin. How could someone love me so much to do such a thing? It's amazing. And it is TRUE.

I wish I would've known this when I was in my teen years and felt that the world was ending on a daily basis, that my life was over, or sadly wasn't over soon enough and I wanted to help it along. But everything in its own season. I learned the truth when I was meant to and not a second sooner.

My church's Good Friday services are always so beautiful. I remember one year entering into the sanctuary that was filled with fog. The lights were dimmed. There was a cross in front of the stage. I literally felt as if I was in the Garden of Gethsemane. On a prior Good Friday, each person that wanted to could write their sins on a slip of paper and then literally nail the list onto the cross. Although beautiful, Good Friday services are heartrendingly sad. It is on this day each year that I truly remember the price that was paid for me. I'm horrified anew by what was done to Jesus. Last weekend my pastor said something I hadn't known before. Jesus was scourged 39 times. For those of you that don't know what scourging is...here you are, but be warned--it isn't pretty:

"A scourge (from Italian scoriada, from Latin excoriare = "to flay" and corium = "skin") is a whip or lash, especially a multi-thong type used to inflict severe corporal punishment or self-mortification on the back."

But it wasn't the fact that He was scourged that caused me pause...it was the number. Why 39 times? I mean wouldn't it make more sense to do it in "tens" (not that this type of punishment could ever make sense)? Then my pastor gave the reason...the ones who had designed the punishment had found that a person could more often than not survive 39 scourges, but forty would usually kill a person. Wow. I don't understand how anyone could inflict a punishment that would leave another bloody, scarred, and to the brink of death. How could they live with themselves? Yet it had to be done...

I tend to leave the Good Friday service with tear streaked face and heavy heart.

And then Sunday comes...

Easter Sunday is a celebration. I wake up with such hope in my heart. Hope that I'm not alone, that this is not the end, that there is more to come...

Our Easter service is a joyful celebration that although Jesus died, He rose again! Because of this, I have a great comforter and redeemer, someone to intercede for me, someone to be there in my darkest hours to be my best friend and anything else I could ever need. There is hope in this desolate world! There is a plan for my life, and for everyone who believes! His death was not in vain! I wish everyone could know the joy I feel and the hope I have that can only come from Him. So many doubt, are broken down or defeated and I wish they just knew! But I will continue to scatter seed wherever and whenever I can.

If you never have before...I strongly recommend you go to an Easter service this year. Allow yourself to feel the magnitude of what God has done for you, whether you believe or question, whatever,...He will fill in the blanks. So come celebrate!