Celebrating Easter!

What are some of the first things that you remember during the Easter season?  Is it childhood memories of Easter egg hunts around the yard at the family gathering or at church or a big basket of brightly colored, shiny, wrapped candies with your name on it?  Maybe it is a special church service with lots of singing and possibly a play put on by the precocious members of the Children’s Church.

As a child raised in the Catholic Church and attending Parochial School, Easter was always one of the biggest celebrations of our church year.  I must admit that I miss all the pageantry of the church at this time of the year.  I mean it was a big deal, beginning a little over six weeks before Easter Sunday with the receiving of ashes on Ash Wednesday.  The celebration of this special Mass, culminating with the priest marking a cross of ashes on the foreheads of the congregation, begins the season of Lent.  Briefly stated,

“Lent is a 40-day season of prayer, fasting, and almsgiving that begins on Ash Wednesday and ends at sundown on Holy Thursday. It's a period of preparation to celebrate the Lord's Resurrection at Easter.”*

In order to honor and remember Jesus’ sacrifice on the cross celebrated during the Holy Week leading up to Easter Sunday, our family kept the tradition where each member voluntarily fasted something (usually a favorite food, treat or activity) for the 40 days of Lent.  During this period, Fridays were also considered to be days of abstinence and for us it meant that there was an absence of meat and fish was always on the menu!

While in Parochial School, we would walk across the playground to the nearby church numerous times during Holy Week and participate in the Stations of The Cross.  Our family would also attend at least one such evening service during the week.  The United States Conference of Catholic Bishops explain the Stations of the Cross saying that,

“The Stations of the Cross, also known as the Way of the Cross or Via Crucis, commemorate Jesus's passion and death on the cross. There are 14 stations that each depict a moment on his journey to Calvary, usually through sacred art, prayers, and reflections.”

The Cathedral of St Eugenes in my home town, is lined on either side with gorgeous stained-glass windows depicting these 14 stations where the priest and the congregation would stop and participate in a sacred reading and a time of prayer and reflection at each station.

So, needless to say, by the time Easter Sunday came, we were primed and ready to celebrate the resurrection of Jesus… even if we didn’t totally understand it all!  For us kids… at least in my family, the candy and huge and delicious family meal with my cousins and Grandparents that afternoon, was secondary to the special service filled with procession, pageantry, the Cathedral choir and countless bouquets of beautiful, sweet-smelling flowers!

Like I mentioned early, those memories were something that I missed when I moved over to the Protestant church, although Piper’s Baptist church had a wonderful music program and an excellent Choir which always performed special songs on the various church holidays.

On the positive side, the Protestant churches we attended, and especially the Word of Faith, Full Gospel denominations, tended to teach a much greater depth of detail and understanding concerning the Biblical meaning of Jesus’ resurrection and of its vital importance to the individual Believer, along with the corresponding impact that Jesus’ actions have on our lives.

In fact, I recently came across a couple of verses in the book of Galatians that perfectly summarizes Jesus’ sacrificial actions on the cross, for you and me.  Paul writes,

“I (now) live in a relationship with God. (For) I have been crucified with Christ.  And it is no longer I who lives, but Christ who lives in me.  (And) The life I now live, I live by believing in God's Son, who loved me and took the punishment for MY sins.”  (Galatians 2:19-20 God’s Word ©/KJV)

And it really is as simple as that!  Jesus took the punishment for our sins, was crucified, buried, arose on the third day, ascended into heaven and now sits on the right hand of God so that we can once again, have free access to God the Father and be a part and parcel to the truth, blessings and power of heaven… and then share that truth with EVERYONE!

Therefore… However you celebrate Easter Sunday this weekend, enjoy the pageantry, the special music, the Children’s plays, the meaningful Sermons, the delicious family dinners and all the candy you can eat… But… JUST DON’T FORGET the real meaning behind the celebration… and honor the One who gave His Life, so that we can freely approach the Father with any need or thought and… after our life on this earth is done… live in eternity with Him.   Then, share that GOOD NEWS with a friend!

 

* https://www.usccb.org/prayer-worship/liturgical-year/lent