Because Resurrection Sunday is so important to our family, I have planned a joyous feast for my littles – special foods that take extra time and care. I purposefully use special decorations and prepare for traditions we only do this day each year.
The “Garden Tomb” (complete with russet potato tomb hollowed out with a spoon) is ready for the bright floral transformation tomorrow. Toothpick soldiers stand guard now, ready to flee or fall down by morning. The bread dough is rising, the eggs have been peeled, the créme Anglaise for the trifle is chilling. We will hide little treats and gifts (each with a color-coded piece of yarn) for a joyful hunt my children declare is their most favorite tradition of all –
And yet.
If these things do not point to the Truth – this celebration is a mere shadow of the Celebration of all celebrations we will join, this feast is to remind us of the Feast of all feasts with our risen and conquering King in the world to come – then it holds as much substance as a marshmallow chick.
In the feasting and rejoicing, the delighting of delicious food and new life and remembering our risen Lord, it is good to not just look back, but to look forward.
We celebrate to remember that we are going home someday to an incredible Celebration that will never end.
We feast to remember we will feast at our King’s table – with all the host of faithful witnesses who have gone before us and also those who now wait for him with us.
We joyously sing with our fellow sojourners in Sunday services to remember we will one day roar his praise in our native tongue in our true Homeland.
And we let our children to seek for that which is sweet and precious to try to show that our Lord was once hidden but can be found for those who search for him – and that he is most precious of all, and sweetest of all delightful things.
It is through these traditions and celebrations and joyful feastings we create a space for a deep homesickness to rise up in our heart and the hearts of those with us. (1 Peter 2:9-12)
Jesus rose from death so that we can live without fear or shame, now covered by his righteousness like royal robes, ambassadors for his Kingdom and crowned heirs of his glory. (2 Cor. 5:20)
We celebrate our King’s resurrection to remind ourselves that this day is unlike any other, and is the one thing that gives purpose and meaning to our lives. (1 Cor. 15:12-19)
Let us celebrate so fiercely, so joyously, and so weighted with the coming glory we will share, that those who are without this joy cannot help but see the fire and light in us, and ask us the reason for the hope we carry. (1 Peter 3:15)
A blessed and joyous Resurrection Sunday celebration to you and your loves.
HE IS RISEN INDEED!
Wear your crown, carry your sword. -Maria Miller
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Once long ago, on this night, there was a large group of people who were waiting to be set free (Exodus 12:37). Their belongings were hastily packed and stacked around them. Wearing their coats and sandals, they ate their last meal in the houses of their slavery, waiting for the signal to begin their escape. You know this story, it is a story we read and speak of often. Tonight we celebrated it with a special meal and customs passed down from long ago, as well as our own special family traditions which you anticipate and enjoy so much.
Why do I make such a point to emphasize this old tale? Why do your dad and I so carefully explain the history and circumstances of a people far removed from us by place and time? Why is this old narrative something I get so passionate about? Because, my loves, I fiercely believe it is our story as well.
This people group had spent years – hundreds of years – in a country far from the one their forefathers had called home. They had forgotten, except for a few old tales, about the Eternal, Perfect, All-Powerful Spirit-Being their ancestors had known and worshipped, and had turned to the now-familiar gods of the people around them, accepting what was widely held as truth. They had come to accept as truth that they were a people enslaved, that there was no way to change their current situation. They “ate the bread of adversity and drank the water of affliction” (Isaiah 30:20) and couldn’t imagine anything different because their lives were so miserable.
Then a man had come from the desert, a shepherd who had once been a prince, with a strange yet astonishingly wonderful story about a God who knew them, heard them, and wanted them to be set free and taken back to the fertile homeland He had first promised their forefathers.
After many powerful acts showing that this God was superior and more powerful than any other deity they had ever heard about or could imagine, they and the rest of the nation were waiting, in both dread and awe, for the final demonstration of His might. They had been warned to prepare for a quick departure, and also given instructions on how to escape the devastating loss that would sweep through the land before they left: only by painting the blood of a lamb over their doorposts would the Death Angel pass over their homes.
My dearest lovebugs, always remember this: Freedom is not free. Not then, not now. Blood (a sacrificial death) was the price of their liberty. Any who chose to follow the instructions were spared, regardless of ethnic origin or class rank. All who did not received the consequence promised, and the screams of grief and mourning wails were heard in every single house of those who did not obey (Exodus 12:1-30).
As the people left, they rejoiced and celebrated. They followed a leader, a guide who had once been royalty but was now a humble shepherd. They were led by columns of fire and cloud – which led them to – and then through – a swirling sea by way of a dry path created for them till they were on the other side. They traversed a pitiless desert, dependent only on this strange God who gave them bread from the sky and water from rocks (Psalm 78:15-25). This new reality was the stuff of dreams – and yet the people who had witnessed His power and seen His provision kept rejecting the One who had saved them to seek out the things which reminded them of what they had left behind. They became known more for their complaining and grumbling than for their celebration, gratitude or obedience.
Later, they were given the gift of knowing how to rightly serve and please the incomprehensibly perfect God who had saved them by His might and power. They were entrusted with the requirements and regulations that told them how to live to be right and able to stay near to God (Exodus 20). The people once again heard how only the blood of an unblemished sacrifice could restore them to freedom – this time from the guilt of any wrongdoing. In this law there was a strict admonition: “Have nothing to do with a false charge and do not put an innocent or honest person to death, for I will not acquit the guilty” (Exodus 23:7, NIV), and this law was taught to their children and passed down through generations.
Then, long ago today, hundreds and hundreds of years later, a weary, bruised man faced an angry throng who were on the verge of rioting. As Jesus of Nazareth stood bound and silent before a raging mob, exhausted from his sleepless night of agonized prayer, disfigured and battered from the relentless interrogation and abuse from his captors (Luke 22:63-65), the region’s governor, Pilate, asked those calling for Jesus’ death to recognize his innocence (Luke 23:16-22). Pilate was baffled by the crowd’s insistence on death by crucifixion for a man who had done nothing wrong.
“His blood be on us, and on our children!” The enraged mob screamed it, almost flippantly, back at Pilate – the pagan Roman – who found himself arguing with a group of conservative religious Jewish people to persuade them to let him set an innocent Jewish rabbi free. Instead they roared back to condemn him to the most savage, brutal death sentence the Roman Empire had imagined, reserved for the worst of criminals. And they declared with hubris their willingness to accept the guilt of slaughtering the innocent – even to the point of punishing their grandchildren’s children. The scene is surreal to imagine, let alone read as truth in the Bible (Matthew 27:15-26).
Yet these are the descendants of the same people who had been freed from slavery and given a clear and clean law to follow so that they could rightly honor the holy God who had set them free. These are the same people who were about to go home to their houses to kill lambs and celebrate a festival of freedom. With their families they would recite the story of how the blood over the door exempted their forefathers from death, allowing them to walk free from the land of their brutal and oppressive taskmasters. They would relate with gusto the various ways God had punished their oppressors, and describe how they found hope and a future in a new home where they could live and thrive – the land promised by the God of their forefathers, a God of faithfulness, enduring love, and mercy.
Jesus, the perfect Lamb of God, was condemned to die by a heartless, cruel mob of people, who had no comprehension that His innocent blood was indeed meant to cover them from eternal death. They were unable to understand that His willing sacrifice was the initial step in an epic journey to freedom. They were unable to conceive a life lived surrendered to a law of love rather than a law of judgment, and thus were deafened to the truth He offered.
The people screaming for His death were as enslaved as their ancestors were, chained to a life of constant defeat under sin and the eternal condemnation it brings. They were as much slaves as the Hebrews in Egypt centuries earlier were, except worse: they deliberately renounced the One who came to free them and bring them to a place of perfect reconciliation and loving intimacy with Him. It was as if another Prince-turned-Shepherd had come to lead them to freedom toward a Promised Land of eternal life of peace and joy, but this time they unequivocally rejected and then violently murdered him.
My darlings, it may seem so easy to judge both the former slaves and also the raging mob. In our condescension we can become a little smug. What I really hope you realize is what I said before: this is our story too.
The Israelites and the multitude who came with them out of Egypt were marked by a loss of identity and uncontrolled appetites. They had forgotten who they were as a people, called and set apart to serve the One true God, and became enmeshed in the culture and unquestioning acceptance of the world around them. In their time in the desert they usually chose discontentment instead of joyful trust in the provision that their Savior chose for them, and often only focused on gratifying their fleshly desires and cravings.
We are so often like those former slaves – set free in body yet still bound in mentality. We become forgetful of who we are and Whose we are. We become easily distracted and caught up in the things and circumstances around us. We look for fulfillment and purpose in the stories the world tells us, and ignore the one Story that tells Truth. We believe ourselves entitled to instant gratification of natural or physical desires when we ought to look to our Creator for His provision and sustaining hand as we learn patience and discipline. We forget the bigger picture of a mighty Savior who has declared us to be His and then came Himself to bring us out so we may worship Him and know Him. We are called to worship, but come to complain.
Those people who were set free had sand in their shoes from the dry bottom of the Red Sea and drank water that gushed from a rock. They ate and were satisfied from flakes of bread collected from the ground. If they could so quickly doubt and complain after these experiences, we need to ask ourselves honestly and humbly if we could do better.
We too are given the opportunity to be God’s holy people, a people who follow Him and obey Him with all that we have. We too have the beautiful promise of intimacy with the loving Creator-Being who gave everything to set us free, yet how often do we cheat on Him with anything and everything else that demands our time, energy, or love? Especially when the other things seem to provide emotional satisfaction or quick comfort. We too forsake genuine truth for shallow quips, lasting joy for fleeting pleasure.
We can also be like the angry crowd. Consumed by pride and self-love, we too become defensive and angry by any exposure of our sinfulness. Ralph Waldo Emerson once wrote that we never quite forgive someone who gives us a gift, because it means they have seen a lack[1]. This is offensive to our natural pride and desire to appear entirely self-sustained and adequate. In this case, we (often even secretly from ourselves) find it galling to admit our need for a Savior, and become angry at any acknowledgment of our depth of insufficiency.
We are like the crowd also in that we are frequently fearful. We fear what others think, we fear uncertainty, we fear fully trusting in a God who might behave unexpectedly and without our control or approval. We fear being isolated from other broken, fleshly people in our pursuit of a perfect, eternal God, and we fear pain. We shrink from experiencing the hurt that others’ sinful choices create for us. We recoil from having our Great Physician clean and treat our diseased hearts or set our brokenness straight because of the discomfort (and sometimes severe anguish) we may feel.
Like the crowd, we too can become flippant and cavalier about the cost our sin requires, and, hurting, angry, and fearful, believe that we understand what the actual price is and scream defiantly: “His blood be on us, and on our children!”
The guilt of His innocent death is required of us, yet in His incomprehensible love and sacrifice He cancelled the debt for that sin (and every other) by covering the cost with His life. The irony is that we need His blood on us, both as a condemnation of our guilt and as a complete pardon. We are not innocent. He is. His blood should be painted over the doorways of our lives – deliberate and obvious to us and any observer that we have chosen to accept His sacrifice on our behalf. We should be living in such a way that our lives are an open testament to our choice to follow the God who frees us. We should clearly walk the path He leads us on, deciding by our pursuit of Him to avoid the death that sin brings: the separation of relationship with the God who gave everything to be near us.
Our King became a carpenter, who later became a Shepherd of men, to at last become the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world. The veil in the temple that separated sinful man from the Unfathomably Holiest Being of all was torn on this day from the top down, right after Jesus died (Matthew 27:51, Luke 23:45). Our God, our King, our Savior became our Guide, not only through life in a broken and hurting world, but also through death.
My lovelies, we are truly free. We truly belong. We are truly invited to experience a life with the most winsome, wonderful, powerful and loving God of all eternity, for all eternity. Thanks be to God, our Savior, for His blood that was shed for you and me (1 John 1:7).
We celebrate the Passover not because it is only a tradition or just a reminder of how God set His chosen people free from Egypt, but to remember that God has set us free from sin, fear, and eternal separation from Him. Our Passover Lamb was given to us in the form of Jesus Christ, and that is cause for both solemn remembrance and great celebration. No matter what we face, no matter what seas, deserts, mountains, fortresses, battles, plagues, or hardships may come, we know that He is with us and He has gone before us. He will be our Guide – even through death (Psalm 48:14) – and we will someday reach the New Jerusalem, the true Promised Land, our eternal home (Revelation 21:2).
I can’t wait to celebrate with you there.
With all my love, Mom
[1] Emerson, Ralph Waldo. “Gifts”, in Emerson’s Essays. pg. 279. Avenel, New Jersey: Random House, 1993.
