Happy Easter!

Today is Easter. To Christian religions (including Protestant, which I am), this is the day that Jesus Christ rose from the dead after being buried for three days. 

My family has a lot of Easter traditions, from dying Easter Eggs to still having Easter Baskets and Egg Hunts every year, to having a special Easter Ham for dinner (that's "lunch" to you yanks).

One thing we always do, though, is go to the Sunrise Service at our church, where we hear the Easter Story, and hopefully come away with something that we didn't have going in. This is also one of two days out of the year that the church is going to be packed (which is why we go to the Sunrise Service). The other day is the Christmas service (or maybe Christmas Eve service). So many people are convinced that just going twice a year is enough. Although the church really doesn't mean anything, it is a great place for fellowship and growing closer to God, and especially for hearing the Easter Story during the service.

I'm going to share a bit of this Easter Story with you, and I hope you'll be able to make sense of it.

To give a bit of background, Jesus has just been captured and has been taken in front of Pilate (essentially the "judge") to be sentenced. Pilate put his crucifixion up to a vote: the people voted to release the murderer and crucify Jesus.

From the NIV version, Matthew 27:27-43:

"27 Then the governor's soldiers took Jesus into the Praetorium and gathered the whole company of soldiers around him. 28 They stripped him and put a scarlet robe on him, 29 and then twisted together a crown of thorns and set it on his head. They put a staff in his right hand. Then they knelt in front of him and mocked him. "Hail, king of the Jews!" they said. 30 They spit on him, and took the staff and struck him on the head again and again. 31 After they had mocked him, they took off the robe and put his own clothes on him. Then they led him away to crucify him.

The Crucifixion of Jesus 
32 As they were going out, they met a man from Cyrene, named Simon, and they forced him to carry the cross. 33 They came to a place called Golgotha (which means "the place of the skull"). 34 There they offered Jesus wine to drink, mixed with gall; but after tasting it, he refused to drink it. 35 When they had crucified him, they divided up his clothes by casting lots. 36 And sitting down, they kept watch over him there. 37 Above his head they placed the written charge against him: this is jesus, the king of the jews.

38 Two rebels were crucified with him, one on his right and one on his left. 39 Those who passed by hurled insults at him, shaking their heads 40 and saying, "You who are going to destroy the temple and build it in three days, save yourself ! Come down from the cross, if you are the Son of God!" 41 In the same way the chief priests, the teachers of the law and the elders mocked him. 42 "He saved others," they said, "but he can't save himself ! He's the king of Israel! Let him come down now from the cross, and we will believe in him. 43 He trusts in God. Let God rescue him now if he wants him, for he said, 'I am the Son of God.' ""

In a short bit after this, one of the villains crucified with him mocked him as well, but the other one asked Jesus for forgiveness, and Jesus told him that he would "Be with Me in Heaven tonight." (That's what I remember, to the best of my knowledge.)
From the NIV version, Mark 15:33-38:

33 At noon, darkness came over the whole land until three in the afternoon. 34 And at three in the afternoon Jesus cried out in a loud voice, "Eloi, Eloi, lema sabachthani? " (which means"My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?").

35 When some of those standing near heard this, they said, "Listen, he's calling Elijah."

36 Someone ran, filled a sponge with wine vinegar, put it on a staff, and offered it to Jesus to drink. "Now leave him alone. Let's see if Elijah comes to take him down," he said.

37 With a loud cry, Jesus breathed his last.

38 The curtain of the temple was torn in two from top to bottom. 39 And when the centurion, who stood there in front of Jesus, saw how he died, he said, "Surely this man was the Son of God!"

And from here, Jesus is wrapped in linen cloths and taken to be buried in a tomb. He's guarded by soldiers at all times, in case one of his disciples tries to bring Him back from the dead (all the officials thought it was a hoax).

From the NIV version, Luke 24:1-12:

"1 On the first day of the week, very early in the morning, the women took the spices they had prepared and went to the tomb. 2 They found the stone rolled away from the tomb, 3 but when they entered, they did not find the body of the Lord Jesus. 4 While they were wondering about this, suddenly two men in clothes that gleamed like lightning stood beside them. 5 In their fright the women bowed down with their faces to the ground, but the men said to them, "Why do you look for the living among the dead? 6 He is not here; he has risen! Remember how he told you, while he was still with you in Galilee: 7 'The Son of Man must be delivered over to the hands of sinners, be crucified and on the third day be raised again.'" 8 Then they remembered his words.

9 When they came back from the tomb, they told all these things to the Eleven and to all the others. 10 It was Mary Magdalene, Joanna, Mary the mother of James, and the others with them who told this to the apostles. 11 But they did not believe the women, because their words seemed to them like nonsense. 12 Peter, however, got up and ran to the tomb. Bending over, he saw the strips of linen lying by themselves, and he went away, wondering to himself what had happened."

After Jesus was hung on the cross, He died and was buried. It was foretold that He would rise again three days later. ("The Son of Man must be delivered over to the hands of sinners, be crucified and on the third day be raised again.") The Bible even says that the skeptics - those who did not believe that Jesus was the Son of God, were scared that He really would rise on the third day (Matthew 27:63-64):

 "63 "Sir," they said, "we remember that while he was still alive that deceiver said, 'After three days I will rise again.' 64 So give the order for the tomb to be made secure until the third day. Otherwise, his disciples may come and steal the body and tell the people that he has been raised from the dead." "

Jesus sacrificed himself for our sins, so that we would not have to take the blame when we died. 

All we have to do is accept the gift that He has given us - the Gift of Life.

As long as we trust in Jesus as our Lord and Savior, and believe that He is the Son of God and everything in the Bible is true (how can it not be? Nobody's proven it wrong yet), we will be saved, and we will go to Heaven when we die. There's none of that, "But am I really saved?" second-guessing. If you know that God is in your heart, if you prayed and know that He will never leave you nor forsake you (Deuteronomy 31:6: "Be strong and courageous. Do not be afraid or terrified because of them, for the Lord your God goes with you; he will never leave you nor forsake you."), then you will be saved.

I will be one of the first to admit that I do not always follow the path that God has laid out for me. Sometimes I go days without praying, and then something will happen, and I'll be crossing my fingers and using my prayers as a wish, wishing that things would happen.

God is not a wish-list. He's not a magical genie that will grant your wishes. He'll listen to you, He'll speak with you (it may be hard to hear him over that iPod, though!), and He'll guide you. All you have to do is listen. 

I'm not good with listening. I'm not good with waiting. I want things now. But I've got to learn how to be patient.

I wish you all a very blessed Easter. Remember that Easter's not just about Easter Eggs (dying, hiding, or finding them), the new clothes, the fancy dinner (the first since Christmas, for most people), or the Easter baskets (although that's becoming a bigger monopoly every year, like a second-Christmas). Easter is when God's Only Son arose from the grave, so that we may spend Eternity with Him in Heaven. When we do the Easter Eggstravaganza event at my church, one of the songs the puppets do is "The Bunny Song," where one puppet, Belmont the Bear, sings about Easter:

I'm a bunny,
And it's not funny
how people think Easter's just a time for huntin' eggs.

I'm a bunny,
so listen, sonny:
Easter is all about J-E-S-U-S!

I don't want to tell you how to live your life, but this is something I feel strongly about. (I'm not as strong in my faith as I want to be yet, though; there are all these arguments on SparkLife that I'm scared to get involved in because I think people will see that I don't know the Bible as well as I "ought" to.) If I can use this blog to turn even one person to God, I will consider my life accomplished.

Thank you so much for reading. Do you have any questions you'd like to ask me? Anything you'd like to comment on? I'll admit that I won't have the answers to EVERY question you may ask, but I will try my hardest to answer anything that you put before me. If I don't know the answer, I'll find it out for you.