REST Day 40: Easter

I forget how much I really love Easter.

Okay, that sounds kind of silly, I guess, but you know those people who say they don't like Christmas as they get older? I used to not believe them, and actually kind of hate on them. I mean, how can you completely dislike a holiday? Especially CHRISTMAS?

As I've aged, I think I understand more. Not that I will let myself ever get to a place of despising a holiday, because I feel that is living an untruth, but I am understanding the baggage that comes with holidays as an adult-- more responsibilities; more finances and resources spent, possibly; the busyness; the guilt over what is or isn't being done; bad memories that come with the season.

So I get it, I do feel those things around a holiday, even Easter, especially since becoming a parent.

But I hope I never lose what continues to give me great joy every holiday morning: the spine-tingling, hair-raising remembrance, that what I am celebrating is true. The gifts, the decorations, the hustle, are all shadows, just hints, of the great reality that once upon a time God Loved Us and Came to Rescue Us. 

And He still does.

As I've read the story of Jesus's death, burial and resurrection to my three year old this year, she has been impressed by how "Jesus was nailed together" and "it hurt pretty bad." She was concerned that the soldiers didn't like Jesus, and how sad everyone is.

Her brow furrows. She is fascinated, and she is a little confused.

I read how Jesus died and was placed in a tomb.

"And He didn't ever come back?" she questions, half-asking, half-teasing. She is learning Sunday School Answers, but still is not quite sure about this coming back to life business. Death sounds pretty serious.

"Oh no," I say. "He absolutely comes back, because," I pause and bend towards her, grinning. "Even when things look pretty bad..." I wait for her to finish.

"God is still at work!" she shouts back, laughing with triumph.

Even when things look pretty bad, God is still at work.

It's a phrase she and I have repeated back and forth this past year as we've read more Bible stories. I started it with her because some Bible stories are so weird and terrible and confusing that there are really no easy devotional messages to get out of them (and as I grow older I find life is more like that, can I get an amen?). But  the Bible consistently shows that the story is never quite over. God still rescues. He will save. He is there. 

He is still at work.

Over the years, I've taken fresh reminders of this truth at Easter from a myriad of sources--from reading Margaret Wise Brown's The Runaway Bunny, to playing U2's "Oh Can't You See What the Love Has Done" nonstop, to re-watching Wit--a film adaption of Margaret Edson's play-- and its soul-cracking reflections on John Donne's sonnet "Death Be Not Proud." I love the Gospel tellings of Christ's resurrection, but I also love seeing splinters of the story scattered throughout so much non-sacred literature. They are reminders that resurrection is always happening. Life is still triumphing. God always rescues and saves.

I love this. I want to never forget this no matter how old I get, at Easter, or any holiday.

God is still at work.

Happy Easter.