All About Easter!
Our 7 Areas of Focus about Easter, God's saving grace and celebrating as a family 'what is Easter' and it's meaning for us. Christmas, New Years and Valentines have come and gone. We have enjoyed celebrating the birth of Jesus, dressing up in costumes to bring in the New Year and had a great Valentines celebration with our kids. We are now in the Lent season preparing ourselves to celebrate Easter, God's grace and His love for me, you and each of us. It still amazes me when I think about the true meaning of Easter and reading the Bible's teaching about 'Who Is Jesus'.
God's Son was willing to step down from His Glory in Heaven, be a man, take on all of our sins and die on a cross to pave a way for each of us to have the opportunity to be saved through Him by accepting that we are sinful in need of a savior, believing in Jesus and committing to building a relationship with Him and following Him day by day. We love to celebrate this wonderful season with our kids and each other, and yes we still like to share Easter candies, chocolates and have Easter basket, egg hunts and give presents to each other for Easter.
Here are our 7 areas of Focus All About Easter:
Focus Point #1: God's Easter Purpose
All of Easter points back to God and His ultimate purpose for each of our lives. Beyond our purpose in glorifying Him in all that we do, say and think, He calls us to Him and wants us to come to Him and yes He loves us--each and every one of us with an unconditional and infinite love.
Easter's purpose is not only about God's Son Jesus Christ laying down His life for me and you as an all encompassing sacrifice for our sins but even more; His resurrection and His power in overcoming and defeating death itself allowing you and me to have the confidence and assurance of renewal , rebirth and a new life in Christ. We can shed off our old self of following sin and fear and put on this new life in Christ. One of power, purpose and new life.
Thank you Jesus that you were willing to shed your blood.
Focus Point #2: Easter Celebration Days
When are Easter holidays anyway? Easter dates change each year depending if you celebrate the Western Christian Easter(based on the Gregorian calendar) or the Eastern Orthodox Christian Easter(based on the Julian calendar) with Easter Sunday being the Sunday which lands on or after the pashal full moon--the date in the Jewish calendar for the Passover. As the spring equinox marks the start of spring, the first full moon of spring can be any date from the set date of March 21 up to 14 days thereafter.
This year for 2013 the full moon lands on Wednesday March 27 so Easter Sunday will be on Sunday March 31.
Days for the full Easter season celebration begins back from Shrove Tuesday and the start of Lent on Ash Wednesday with 40 days before Easter Weekend. We often talk about Lent with preparing yourself with giving something up as a fasting on Lent for those 40 days. Thursday of the Passover meal is followed by Good Friday--the day Jesus sacrificed Himself for all of our sins as a full atoning sacrifice, Easter Saturday and Easter Sunday the wonderful day of His resurrection marking new life and rebirth for all of us when we place our faith in Christ Jesus as our personal Savior. Easter Monday for many simply marks the start of Easter week--the week following Christ's resurrection and the empty tomb.
Jesus of the Bible willingly put down His life for me and for you, what an honor to have a relationship with Him and have Him as my best friend.
'Who is Jesus' -- the Son of God, God incarnate, He Loves You and laid His life down and forgave all of my sins. Check our focus point #7 for the steps to salvation in Christ and you too can know Him personally and build your relationship with Him as your Savior. It's about Easter and the ABC's.
Focus Point #3: Easter Crafts/Easter Decorations
With all of our 6 children we love to make crafts about Easter, Jesus, His sacrifice, His resurrection and our new life in Him. Center pieces, pussy willows, thorns, crucifixions and of course lots of eggs. Kids love to blow out eggs to color and paint hollow eggs and coloring hard boiled eggs too. It's a great time to talk about new life and what Jesus did for each of us.
Despite the chocolate, candies, bunnies and eggs we work at keeping the true meaning of Easter about Jesus, His willing sacrifice and what He was willing to do and endure because of His Love for each of us. We love adding hanging crafts and displaying Easter artwork around the house. Crafts and decorations about Easter, inside or outside are great for brightening up and keeping our Easter celebration focused on Jesus.
Focus Point #4: Celebrating A Family Easter
Celebrating Easter with our family is about spending time together and having family Easter activities like making crafts, making and painting egg decorations, baking cakes for Jesus, and sharing our love with our children with Easter cards, baskets and gifts on a morning table--they love to learn about Easter and Jesus, and they all look forward with anticipation and excitement to their part of our Easter gift table.
And Yes, we do love to have a big Easter egg hunt with real eggs, chocolates, candies, little gifts and yes, even bunnies. We do two things to help keep the family focused on the true reason for celebrating Jesus' resurrection and knowing what is Easter about.
- We read a children's book about Easter together and
- We share the meanings and Easter connections from each of the colored plastic eggs from the Christian Easter egg pack
These celebrations are family traditions for our holidays in Easter.
Focus Point #5: Food To Feed
For our celebration we love to bake some healthy snacks and desserts and we love to have a couple of cakes that we bake for Jesus--something that brings the message of Easter to our table. We make some nice food platters to share with the whole family and recently we have been adding Hot Cross Buns and the Traditional European bread Pretzel or 'Bretzel' sharing the story and tradition behind it. Check back for a great recipe on making your own Easter or everyday 'Bretzel' , Hot Cross Buns and the stories behind and how they link with ideas about Easter.
Focus Point #6: Family Traditions
Building family traditions around the Easter season is pretty easy. Start with just a couple of things you would like to do during the Easter season. You could start with Lent where every family member decides on something they will give up, having a craft day, a decoration day, special meals or food platters, cakes muffins and the 'Bretzel', gifts to exchange, chocolates, kids egg hunt(this is also fun for adults) going to Good Friday and Easter Sunday Church service or anything else you would like to do with your family. What is Easter all about for your family could be taking a yearly pilgrimage to the Holy land to connect with the last days Jesus walked on Earth.
Choose just 2 or 3 Easter activities to do with your family and repeat them the following year. Once you start to repeat them, they will become a family tradition--our kids began to expect them and would ask "Mom, Dad, is it this weekend that we color the Easter eggs". I quite enjoy being reminded of our family traditions from our kids because it is something that has become important and special to them. Adding a new activity into a family tradition about Easter is just repeating it as an annual 'event'.
Focus Point #7: 'Who is Jesus' and Steps To Salvation
The steps to salvation answers the question of 'Who is Jesus?'
We know from the Holy Bible that Jesus is our Savior, the Messiah prophesied and the fulfillment of the old testament scriptures. He is the Son of God, Loves each one of us and wants to have a close relationship with you and with me. When Jesus draws us in through our hearts and our spiritual selves we can come to a saving relationship with him by following the A - B - C steps to Salvation. They are easy:
- A -- Accept that you are a sinner and are in need of a savior.(Romans3:23 'All have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God')
- B -- Believe that Jesus is the Son of God and came to Earth to die as an atoning sacrifice to pay for all your sins once for all. (Romans 5:8 "But God demonstrates His own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ Died for us.")
- C -- Commit yourself and your life to receive Jesus. ("...if you confess with your mouth the Lord Jesus and believe in your heart that God has raised Him from the dead, you will be saved.")
We can summarize these steps to Salvation into a short prayer when you are ready to accept Jesus and follow Him. This Prayer of Salvation will help to bring you into a saving relationship with our Lord Jesus Christ.
"Dear Lord Jesus, forgive me, I know that I am a sinner and I can not measure up on my own. I believe that you are the Son of God and that you were willing to leave Heaven and all your Glory and Power to come down to Earth and live as a man, and that you died for my sins. I want to repent and turn away from my sins. I now come to you and commit myself and my life to you. I invite you Lord Jesus to come into my Heart and life. I want to trust you and follow you as my personal Lord and Savior. In Jesus' name. Amen"
It is done. Your eternity is sealed into the very Book of Life. Get to know your Savior, He Loves you and He will never leave you, ever.
Your Personal Salvation Recipe: Read one Chapter of Proverbs, 1 chapter of Psalms and start to read a chapter of the Gospel of John each day. Keep in His word a few minutes every morning. This will help you to keep on building a deeper relationship with Jesus. You can do it!
Welcome to the Family. It is all about Easter. Happy Easter.
Romans 10:13 "whoever calls upon the name of the Lord will be saved. "
Ressources & Quotes
Keep checking in with us as we update this page with links, quotes and resources about Easter and support for your walk with Christ.
It is so important for our family to remember that even at Easter time with Easter egg hunts, chocolate eggs and bunnies that our kids, and us as parents remember that these things are to remind us of rebirth and point us back to the cross and the empty tomb. When we thin about Easter we should see the season a bit like Christmas where it still comes down to...
'Jesus Is The Reason For The Season'
