I hope ya’ll had a wonderful Easter yesterday! Easter is one of those bitter sweet days for pastors like me. The congregation I serve has a pretty busy schedule during Holy Week, with a Seder dinner, Good Friday service, Saturday prayer service, and three services on Easter Morning. Holy Week and Easter are a pretty emotionally and spiritually charged time for me (Duh!) so each of those gatherings and events have their own meaning and emotional connection for me. There is a lot of effort and emotion that goes into them, so as I make those last few step on the journey of Lent, to Easter I am pretty exhausted (Not to mention i have had about the worst two week stint of allergy symptoms I think I have ever had!). It’s easy for Easter to be another item on a busy week, in fact the biggest item on the check list for that week.
I suck at taking my own advise. Typically, I tell people get rid of that idea that this is one of the biggest crowds that will gather all year at the church so, “I better have something impressive for them,” and just let them know that Jesus loves them and so do you. We’ll i try to have every preaching moment show Jesus in some way, but on Easter i spend probably three times the amount of prep-time for that preaching moment. I put a lot of pressure on myself to “hit one out of the park”. So again Easter can feel like a looming, ginormous event that I have to really perform for. I tell you this to confess that I am usually kinda grumpy and short with people all through Holy Week ( how pastoral of me huh?)
BUT, once we get into that time of worship, the incredibleness of what Easter is really about hits me like a ton of bricks. I think i set a record this year by not crying like a baby until about 46.8 seconds into the time of worship. Usually i make it to “happy Easter “ and I’m gone. This year I was halfway through the opening prayer before i lost it
After worship my wife made a great ham dinner that we as a family shared (My wife is awesome, and totally hot, in case you didn’t know!) My son said grace and thanked Jesus for loving us “and oh i forgot thanks for the food too... Amen” After dinner the kids got their Easter baskets, and we all played video games and relaxed (well, they played ... I watched, My family has a fondness for Zelda that i don’t share, I’m more a drive race car, fly fighter plane kinda guy) but it was a good day. Perfect after a long Holy Week!
I hope you had a similarly good Easter day!
Talk to ya' next week
Mark
