Recently, I googled the word "Easter", curious as to what my computer screen would bring up. Links appeared sharing how pagans celebrate Easter, how to calculate when Easter will be, and there was even a beautiful website dedicated to how Martha Stewart would suggest we celebrate the day, complete with home-made Easter baskets (See picture below. Anyone interested can find the instructions on the website www.marthastewart.com).
It causes me to wonder: what if, instead of utilizing the encyclopedic information found by way of an online search engine, a person were to seek out the meaning of Easter by asking one if us - the people of First Baptist? What would we say?
My hope is that the focus of such conversation wouldn't linger on "how" so much as "who". And later, as the conversation unfolds, "why".
In truth, the whole discussion is probably far less complicated than Martha's helpful instructions on how to finish off your Easter dinner place setting by folding a dinner napkin to look like bunny ears.
The "who" and "why" are given to us in what must be the most well known, most memorized passage of scripture:
"For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life. For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him.” - John 3:16-17
My prayer for each of you is that, included in your Easter celebrations, is the intentional seeking out of an opportunity to share the who and why of Easter, Jesus and His love, with someone who has not yet discovered them.
Blessings,
Pastor Tim
This article originally appeared in the April 2014 edition of the FBC newsletter. Click here to view the rest of this newsletter.