Avoiding the Bunny Hop

 

Avoiding the Bunny Hop

It’s easy to celebrate on Palm Sunday and take one giant bunny hop over to Easter Sunday. We innately enjoy the happy celebrations, but as tempting as that may be, don’t miss the amazing week that changed the whole world - Holy Week. It’s a bit like wanting to binge watch a whole series by watching only the first episode and the season finale. Not only are you confused, but you miss the opportunity to form a deep relationship with the characters.

There are so many incredible stories that take place in one week. Matthew 21-28, as well as Mark, Luke, and John, record these events. It reminds me of the old adage that “truth is stranger than fiction” or “you can’t make this stuff up.” Holy Monday to Black (Holy) Saturday is packed with Jesus turning temple tables on their ends, healing, and so much teaching like cursing a fig tree and numerous parables. Jesus is anointed with oil by a woman with great devotion all the while Judas, one of his very own, plots to betray him to the very scholars that should have known who Jesus was but were instead blinded by their political and financial interests.

Jesus gives us our greatest commandment in Matthew 22:37, “Love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind.” Then set the great examples of service and true love when He washes the feet of his disciples before the Passover meal that would come to be known as the Last Supper, and memorialized in our communion. Jesus tells his disciples of his impending death, but they too just can’t seem to grasp the multitude of prophecies being fulfilled right before their eyes!

Good Friday chronicles the brutality and the torture Jesus endured on our behalf. We want to shrink away from the gruesome details and shield ourselves from our responsibility. We just want to skip over that to the “good parts” and “Good” Friday doesn’t seem very good.  But John 3:17 reminds us that this had to be done for our salvation because, “God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but that the world might be saved through him.” One completely perfect man saddled with the sins of an entire world for all generations is the most profound, magnanimous, and glorious gift the world could ever know and so very worthy of remembrance. Even though in John 19:30 Jesus says, “It is finished,” Holy Week is not.

So, Saturday comes and we are inclined to just hope for good weather for Easter egg hunts. We are ready for the party as if it was Easter Eve, because we aren’t very good at quietly waiting. The women at the cross wanted to prepare Jesus’ body for burial, but they couldn’t because it was time for the Sabbath Day, a day of rest. We too should observe this day of rest, prayerful waiting, a vigil, and steep in the renewing presence of the Lord as Jesus did while his body was entombed.

Then with all its light and glory, Easter arrives! I think it actually it feels like it is the real New Year’s Day and a time for joyous celebration. Yet, among the eggs and the bunnies remember to keep Jesus a part of your celebration.  To borrow a phrase from another holiday – Jesus IS the reason for this season and He wants to be a part of your family and you to be a part of His family. Shower him with love, worship, and like the story of the ten healed lepers in Luke 17:11-19, don’t be one of the nine that didn’t even bother to simply say, “Thank you!”