Easter--New Every Year

Christmas is the holiday that gets all the press about forgiveness, love, new chances, and starting over, but Easter is the one with the track record. Easter represents new birth, new life, forgiveness, and sacrifice. Easter is new every year, too.  We remember and rehearse the events and reclaim both the death and resurrection. And then we also re-claim our own forgiveness and walk in new life.

Every year this is an exciting, new experience; every year I come to Maundy Thursday, Black Friday and Holy Saturday with renewed terror and Easter Sunday with deeper joy and celebration. You'd think it would get old with the same hymns and scriptures, but resurrection life never loses it value. Every year I have grown in my understanding of God's love and deepened in my appreciation of the meaning of forgiveness.

It would be easy to get caught up in preparations, the egg dying and the clothes buying, the company and the dinner, but sacrifice and renewal is the main act. Easter Sunday brings release from the fear and dread of sin. It also provides an opportunity to look beyond death and enter new levels of joy with my risen Lord.  And I must remember that the joy is not in the day or the season or the Church service, but in my relationship with my Savior.