We are in a time of stillness and waiting, but Easter is coming!
I love the magic of the Christmas season and am always sad to see it end, but I have always LOVED Easter. There is just something about the beauty of seeing new life breathed in to things we thought were dead. After coming out of the cold winter months and then suddenly flowers start to bloom, the grass begins to grow, birds are singing… it’s just such a beautiful time of the year. And such a beautiful reminder of the resurrection.
Good Friday… a dark hour for our beautiful Savior. I can only imagine the grief and sadness people must have been feeling during the hour and the hours that followed. To see their Savior, their Jesus, so brutally murdered and hanging there, seemingly helpless. Oh the despair and grief.
Why did God wait three days to resurrect Jesus? What significance was there in the waiting? Had some people lost hope that He would rise? Had some given into the grief and believed that all hope was lost?
That time in between the crucifixion and the resurrection was a time for true, somber reflection of where their faith lied… if they really truly believed that Jesus was who He said He was. If He would deliver on His promise and truly come back. We know that of course He did, but they didn’t know; we know how the story ended, but they didn’t know. They simply had to have faith.
We are in a time of waiting right now. God has already told us how our story will end, that He will be with us through this world until one day we will be able to see Him face to face. But we haven’t been able to actually see the end of the story yet… we have to live by our faith, just like those early followers did. But Easter came! And guess what? Our Easter will come too. Our beautiful, miraculous ending to days that seem dark.
This is the time our faith can shine! We can hope for beautiful days to come, and our hope will not be in vain because God has PROMISED be with us no matter what! Through anything and everything. We know there will be hard days and suffering on this earth, but we can face it with joy because God has promised to see us through.
We have brothers and sisters who are going through hard times right now. Who may be really struggling to view this time as “time off” or “a time for reflection” because they may have lost jobs and don’t know how they are going to afford bills or food for their families. We need to be there for each other and remind them, Sunday is coming! Easter is coming! Jesus is alive and these dark days will end! There is hope, and that hope is not in vain!
And in this waiting, in this stillness, may we all be able to reflect on what matters in life. May we remember that these things that make us feel so secure are things that can be taken in the blink of an eye; they are sand that can be washed away by the next storm that may come. But Jesus is our rock. May we remember the importance of family, get to know each other more intimately and spend real time with our children. May we learn to focus more on loving our neighbor. Not focused solely on ourselves and being so consumed by things WE want, but looking outward to others. Really caring for each other and being the community Christ called us to be. Just LOVING each other.
So many people suffer from anxiety these days. Could it be because we have lost Christ as our center and we have let things like social media, money, or perfect homes dictate our sense of self-worth? We have so much fear, but why?
Friends, Jesus is here. He has not left us, He is not dead, the tomb is empty, and nothing can steal our joy! Let’s rejoice and celebrate this Easter season. Let this time of stillness and waiting be a time that draws us back to Him. We can celebrate not because we’ve found the perfect Easter outfits and have the perfect Easter family photos, but because Jesus is ALIVE and we have real hope!
We are going to get through this because Jesus has already won. And if you see someone who is having a hard time seeing hope through the despair, don’t turn a blind eye. Be there. Love them like Jesus. Sacrifice some time, a listening ear, share what God has blessed you with. What a beautiful ending it would be to be able to say we all came out of this time growing closer not only to each other, but to our Savior as well.
“Therefore, since we have been justified through faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have gained access by faith into this grace in which we now stand. And we boast in the hope of the glory of God. Not only so, but we also glory in our sufferings, because we know that suffering produces perseverance; perseverance, character; and character, hope. And hope does not put us to shame, because God’s love has been poured out into our hearts through the Holy Spirit, who has been given to us.
You see, at just the right time, when we were still powerless, Christ died for the ungodly. Very rarely will anyone die for a righteous person, though for a good person someone might possibly dare to die. But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.” Romans 5:1-8
