Friday Ending – Sunday Beginning
Part 1
Childhood memories. Easter Sunday involved dyeing hardboiled eggs with my grandfather. There was an Easter basket filled with jellybeans, yellow chicks, chocolate eggs, and an assortment of hard candies, and a platter with fruit. My grandmother cooked a big dinner, including dessert from scratch (pineapple coconut cake was my favorite). Went to church in my Easter outfit. Everyone at church was dressed up, and there were always many visitors that we never saw again. The message varied around God’s gift of Jesus Christ to all people, the sacrifice Jesus made for us, and our need to believe in Him to be saved.
When I was a young adult teacher, Easter Season was fast, packed with activities for the children. I used to turn the holiday into a science/social studies project because we couldn’t just teach religion. Many of the students in my classes had never heard what the celebration was about.
My children experienced Easter in Sunday School, church, and several community programs. They were acolytes for Sunday service; they participated in Sunday School plays and church recitals about Jesus. My children had baskets too, a stuffed animal, a reading book, an activity book, a little toy, and a few special candies. Egg dyeing and games continued at home. As grandparents, my husband and I see our son carrying the same theme he and his brother experienced as boys. Oh, the questions these youngsters have today!
The story of Jesus and the cross drastically changed for me around the middle 2000s, at Yonkers Christian Assembly. The Sunday school (adults/children) put on a performance for Resurrection Sunday, and it was amazing. A young man named James played the part of Jesus. When he descended the center isle dragging the cross on his back, I started to cry and couldn’t stop the flow. The scene wasn’t new; however, that day I felt the suffering that Jesus endured, and it registered personally for me!
Resurrection Sunday. True essence of it: a dark and gloomy Friday with all hope gone, then we awaken to a bright new day on Sunday with new hope. Jesus is the only person that could rightfully say “I love you to death”! Hmm, this celebration is about death.
Today, my prayer for our families and people worldwide is that we would dig deeper into the tremendous gift of Jesus Christ on Resurrection Sunday. This day of remembrance has the power to set souls on fire for new life! How does digging for Jesus look? For the believer, it could be separating Easter ideas and Resurrection truth in what we do during this season. Renewing the story, the purpose behind the story, and multiplying prayers of thanksgiving with a grateful heart. Re-reading the Bible verses of Jesus’ walk to the cross and walk out of the grave. Most boldly, sharing with others how the remembrance of Jesus’ sacrifice makes you feel!
For the non-believer, besides searching your heart for reasons to believe, learn about who Jesus was and why believers are so in love with Him. Don’t understand or have time for the Bible right now? Use media! Oh, how TV with The Ten Commandments, filmed in 1956, has grown into cable, streaming, and dish technology today. Loads of presentations about the life of Jesus – The Passion of Christ, The Chosen, and Son of God are favorites of mine. They help to visualize Jesus in the Bible days, the people and the life that they lived. We can glean pieces of His character, and can see how others reacted to His presence.
Most of all, believers and soon-to-become believers get to see a screen that depicts an extra-ordinary individual who was both man and God walking out among ordinary things and doing miracles for ordinary people! There’s a moment in here where the Holy Spirit touches our heart with love, hope, and faith to leave the pains (situations, sins, structures) of the past behind (Friday) and pick up new a multiplication of peace for the future (Sunday).
Everybody and anybody becomes somebody through the blood of Jesus Christ. Nobody who believes is left behind. Amen.
Gayle Smith
