Experience Easter Part 1

Easter is in less than two weeks. Easter is centered around a few things. First, there is the Easter bunny stuff like chocolate and eggs. A lot of Pastors like to rip on this part of Easter, I do not want to do that. My kids will dye eggs and eat chocolate and I hope to eat a Snickers Egg or a Cadbury Carmel Egg or two.

For church people, Easter is also about a new dress or a new tie. It is about shoes that you better not scuff up. It is about pink, light blue and yellow. It is about nice and new. Maybe that is because Jesus rose again and brought new life, so we like to look nice and new. But that is a stretch.

But it would do us some good to look into scripture for what was happening in the life of Jesus during the days leading up to Easter. Jesus was just about to enter into Jerusalem. Many call this the triumphal entry. He goes into Jerusalem and it is like a parade. People are cheering him and shouting, "Hosanna!" Hosanna is the Greek for an exclamation that you are the chosen one that has come to save us. They are shouting this to Jesus and all gathered around him.

It is also the week leading up to The Passover. For the Jews, Passover was the most important day of the year. Passover is the day that they celebrated their being freed from slavery under the oppression of Egypt. It is Christmas and Independence Day rolled into one; it is a religious and a national holiday. You can listen to a sermon on this here.

But Jesus spends his week picking fights with religious people and spending time with his friends. That sounds like a good time to me. Stay tuned to this blog this week and next week for more about the last week of Jesus' life. Walk with us through those last days as we seek to experience Easter in a deep way.