Happy Easter, from our family to yours! In the Catholic and Lutheran traditions (and many other Christian traditions), Easter Sunday is just the start of the Easter season. So keep your pastels on and your hearts happy; we get to celebrate the Risen Lord for even longer than the secular culture asks us to. What exactly does that look like for you? The B4B Leadership Team shares their favorite parts of the promise of Easter.
This Easter, for me, had been one of joy, and also of overwhelming busy-ness. I think that for many of us, balancing work, school and family & relationships is a challenge that sometimes takes us away from Christ. While those things can be good in nature, I have this tendency to put them in different “boxes” that don’t overlap with my prayer life sometimes. This Easter, I really feel a deep nudge to open the doors to each facet of my life and call Jesus into them. To turn over my work, family life, finances, friendships and distractions over to Him. But that’s SO much easier said than done! This Easter season, I plan on purposefully handing the parts of my life that I keep the busy work in over to God, and asking for the grace to celebrate His joyful presence in all of it – replacing distractions with purposeful intentions, busy calendars with opportunities to seek Him, and stress or anxiety for relaxation with the Holy Spirit in prayer. Happy Easter! -Ashley W.
“This Easter, Tyler and I read a daily devotion together. The one we read on Easter has been my favorite one we have read together since getting married. Something written in that devotion that was powerful to me was how it talked about how Jesus died from the weight of all of our sins on him. Every single sin from every single person was on him, and he did that for us. I just thought how amazing it is that He loved us so much that he carried all that weight of our sins so that we could go to heaven. Just an amazing reminder.” -Kelsey (and Tyler) K.
Easter is our time to be hopeful about all of the things that preoccupy us. Because Jesus overcame death, we know that anything is possible. This is the hope Jesus instills in us each Easter. -Sarah V.
“To me, the beauty of the Resurrection is what happened afterwards. The Lord WALKED AMONGST US AGAIN. Do we realize what that meant for his disciples? What about what that means for us now? After conquering death, Jesus easily could have gone straight to in Heaven to be with Daddy forever. But he chose to come back to our brokenness. He knows that we long to be close to him, to build our relationship with him. So he came back to break bread with us, to reveal himself in his perfect glory, that we might finally see him for who he REALLY is. In the end, we have a choice: do we allow Jesus to sit pretty in heaven, or do we allow him to be a part of our daily life? Do we only call on him when we need him, or do we place him in the middle of our messes, our victories, our crappies and our happies? This Easter, let’s do it–let’s invite the Lord, in ALL of his glory, into our every day.” -Sarah C.
Words to live by and words to die by: “We are an Easter people, and alleluia is our song!” (JPII) It’s good to remember that Lent is 40 days and Easter is 50 days! As Christians, we love to celebrate because we know that everything is grace, and God makes all things new. Enjoy the celebration, and live with an attitude of gratitude. This is my fight song! -Jimmy B.
“Goal for Easter: be inebriated in the Spirit and have that reflected in daily doings.” As Jimmy eloquently said, what are YOU doing to reflect the Light of Christ in our world? God be praised; He is risen and alive!
To all of you, from all of us,
Happy Easter!
All you Holy Innocents, pray for us!
