Mar 27, 2005

I remember Easter as a kid – I’d like to say “clearly” remember but its really more of a sugar induced, candy coma sort of memory.

I do remember some funny things though – like my Aunt’s dog, a big boxer named Heidi, finding the hidden Easter baskets during the night. HeHe – that’s when I found out dogs puked too…

I also remember finding all the Easter candy my Mother had bought about a week before the big day and running to tell my older brother Michael the secret – that the Easter Bunny was a fraud. Of course, rather than let this 8 year old child believe such blasphemy, my Mom showered us with candy early that year.

Honestly, it seemed like a lot more stuff than the Easter Bunny actually gave us a week later, but I guess you really shouldn’t take my word for it. Sugar induced, candy coma sort of memory that it is…

anyway – Thanks Easter Bunny! Bock! Bock!

And, more importantly – Thank you Lord Jesus for my salvation.

Only God could take something so completely horrible and turn it into something so completely beautiful. When I think of Christ’s sacrifice, I tend to think of Him more in the Garden of Gethsemane than I do on the Cross. There is just something so much more human about Him there – knowing His fate, wrestling with what I’m sure was fear and still saying “Yet not as I will, but as you will Father”.

It saddens me that many people think of that same God as a stodgy kill-joy of modern life. God just doesn’t want me to have any fun. I can’t have oodles of wild sex with anyone I meet because GOD doesn’t want me to. I can’t lie my way out of any situation because GOD doesn’t want me to. I can’t shove a fork into the eye of the guy that just cut me off on the freeway because GOD doesn’t want me to. 

It wasn’t until we had Emily that I finally started to understand that God doesn’t need us to not do these things. He tells us to not do these things because it would be better for us if we didn’t. Its just like me not letting Emily play with the sharp knives on the table – I know she’s going to hurt herself by doing it. Is it any different with God?

Ask anyone who has had extramarital sex – they’ve hurt themselves.

Badly.

When asked what the most important commandment was, Jesus said “‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength. The second is this: Love your neighbor as yourself.’ There is no commandment greater than these.”

No, I don’t think you’ll go to Hell for cheating on your taxes, but you might go to jail.

God wants from us what any parent wants from his children – Love. And, just as any parent would, He was willing to die to save us. The rest is Him warning us that – to borrow a famous line from A Christmas Story – we’ll shoot our eye out.

Easter – Ahh, Thanks God – I needed that…