Easter = Amazing

So great, so powerful, and yet (like Christmas) so watered down. Commercialized is more the word. Easter is no longer about Jesus dying for us and rising from the dead, it's about the bunny, about candy, about hunts, about colored eggs, about anything but what it signifies. For others who think they've got the idea it's about who looks the best going to church for the first of two "required" times during the year, or about the performance on stage or in the pew, about who can smile the widest and give others the warmest welcome. We're not in church to impress anyone but God. If what we're doing isn't from the heart, is it isn't real.
Maybe it's just me, but I think we live in a world of fakes, myself probably one of the biggest ones. We may sing the words and think we've got it all together, but really there's nothing there, no truth within our hearts, no life within our soul. Relient K has hit me again with the lyrics that state:

"You can't see past the blood on my hands to see that you've been aptly damned to fail and fail again, 'cus we're all guilty of the same things. We think the thoughts whether or not we see them through."

The next part is crucial:

"And I know that I have been forgiven"

That's it, that's the key. That's what Easter is all about. Not about all the commercialization that the world creates, neither about the competition for looking or being the best on Sunday. It's all about the fact that Jesus died an unimaginably painful death for us to take our punishment that we deserve, when He in is perfect and all powerful self could have chosen not to. As Casting Crowns put it

"How refreshing to know You don't need me, how amazing to find that You want me."


I've come to appreciate what Jesus did all the more this year, realizing in full the magnitude of what He did, why He did it, and how much it means. It's a great feeling to know that I live for a God who chose to die in my place, a God who "took the bullet" for me. Amazing...

Oh yeah, and He's not dead. He's risen. He's alive. Amen to that.