Hello ICC Family!
Did you know that we will be remembering and celebrating the death and resurrection of our Savior in less than three weeks? Good Friday and Resurrection Sunday/Easter is coming up very quickly! If you don’t have children at home that are doing Easter egg hunts at school, and if you don’t like chocolate bunnies and all of the other Easter candy, you might not remember the holiday at all until you get to church. I find that curious and a little strange, especially when you consider what a big deal everybody makes about Christmas - whether they are Christians or not.
But in Jesus’ death on the cross we have a unique and strange and wonderful and glorious event. It is part of the same plan of salvation celebrated at Christmas, but there are so many other traditions surrounding Christmas that the Jesus part of it can be overlooked. Easter is different, though. There is no way around the absolutely counter-cultural and counter-human motivations and mercy that led to Jesus dying on the cross for sinners.
“For the message of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing,
but to us who are being saved it is the power of God.”
1 Corinthians 1:18
There aren’t enough spring-related traditions to out-weigh the fact that the entire reason for the holiday is the death and resurrection of the Son of God. And if you leave Jesus out, there just isn’t a big enough reason to write any secular songs about Easter that could be sung outside of church. It doesn’t make much sense. It truly is foolishness to those that don’t know Jesus and salvation and life to those that do!
This is why the Easter holiday really should have a long lead up to it in the church, just like we do with Christmas through celebrating the Advent season. Traditionally, the Catholic church does this through the season of Lent, but there are enough extra-biblical traditions associated with Lent that Christian churches shy away from talking about the season or using the term. That is changing a little bit, though, and I understand the reason behind it. Churches want to help people low down just a bit and take some extra time to remember God’s sacrifice on the cross. I hope that each of you would do that several times in the next few weeks as we prepare to remember and celebrate God’s love expressed through the gift of his Son together. We have a couple of very special events planned that will help us - our Good Friday service on Friday the 29th at 7PM, and our Easter morning service on Sunday the 31st at 9:30AM. Please plan on being a part of both of those services. We would love to worship and remember and celebrate with you!
Blessings to you all. And know that I’m praying for you!
Pastor Aaron