For Resurrection Sunday, we decided to attend a Sunrise Service here on post with the chapel. It was a beautiful setting on a lush green lawn overlooking the Missourri River and the east where the sun would rise. We read as a family in Matthew 28 how the women arose early in the morning-at dawn- to go and prepare Jesus' body for burial. When Jesus died on the cross, it was about to be the Sabbath, so the women had not had time to prepare His Body. They were returning early in the morning after the Sabbath. When they got there, they discovered the most AMAZING thing. Jesus was NOT there! He had risen!!
So, we loved the idea of purposefully getting up early--earlier than usual, sortof a sacrifice of our time/sleep--to go and remember this event. As we were driving to the service, we talked about what the two Marys found that morning. We drove past a military cemetery with all of its perfect rows of headstones. We talked about how all of those bodies that had been buried were still there. They had NOT risen as Jesus had. We also discussed that Jesus raising from the dead proved His Ultimate Power and Authority over Satan and over all of the other gods people worshipped.
The service was beautiful. An Army chaplain brought a message to us. He said that the angels said to the women (paraphrasing) "Why seek ye the living among the dead?" He then said something to us that really made Andy and I think...He said "Don't look for the living among the dead around you." The "dead" being our old man, our old ways, ways that are not pleasing to the Lord, ways that bring us down and take our focus off of Him. The dead are things that keep us from having a personal relationship with the Lord. That really stood out to us.
We then went and spent time with the precious residents of the nursing home church we have been attending. What a special time to be able to spend with them and discuss WHY we were celebrating. We went from person to person exclaiming how we had a LOT to celebrate today!!
"He is not here, but is risen.."
Luke 24:6
2 comments:
An awesome day! My family thinks we're a bit weird that Cameron doesn't know about the Easter Bunny or egg hunts and he didn't even get an Easter basket! (Grandparents did give lots of Easter candy, parents did not, though) We had fun reading through the Resurrection eggs the week prior and making Resurrection cookies the night before. As with you, we feel God calling us to step away from the worldly celebrations and closer to Him!
Thank you so much Jenn for that-you don't know how encouraging that is to us :) There will be many that disagree with us. We have done plenty of the other things in the past, and actually started removing some of those a couple years ago. But this year was totally, completely different than ever before. There's always been so many distractions. At the end of the day yesterday we almost felt like we had just heard the Resurrection story in its entirety for the first time!!
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