4-18-25

Today is Good Friday…..the opening of the Easter weekend and the celebration by

those who believe that Jesus is Lord that we have a moment in time that we can

pin our salvation to……..that in itself is a remarkable thing….think about it…..On

one moment in time you can assign a date to when you know your whole life

changed…..and Christians the world over, aside from their own experience at

having a date that they can see their faith fires being lit, we also have a date on

the calendar that we celebrate the amazing event that launched our faith…..the

resurrection of Jesus……

I can still recall some Easter weeks as a kid…..I remember being a part of church

passion plays, and Sunday services…..I remember Easter baskets and the sense

that you’d hit the big time when you got one of those solid chocolate Easter

bunnies and not those poser hollow ones……..I can distinctly remember being 4

years old when we were stationed at Ft. Riley, Kansas, and waking up during the

night and creeping to the bedroom door because I thought that I could hear the

Easter bunny, then thinking that I could actually see him, and then suddenly

realizing that I might scare him away and rushing back to bed……..

As time went on and I had kids of my own I got to participate in some of that from

the grownup side and because my wife has the gift of making any day special

Easter was no exception……..Despite the fact that our children are grown the

annual traditions surrounding Easter still remain……everyone gets an Easter

Basket because Charlene sees to it…….and in our house of coloring Easter eggs is

still very much alive……and now that we have Grandkids the memories have hit a

new pitch, and its just good!....... ………And every year we laugh at some of the

same Easter memories….including the preschool Easter egg hunt at which my son

Josh became an avowed conservative!.....so yeah, let me tell you a couple of

stories on this good Friday that’ll just warm your heart a bit……

The first one goes like this: my son Josh was four (he’s 34 now!) and already had a

competitive streak – he came by it naturally………. An Easter party was planned for

his class with an Easter egg hunt as the main event……. Josh was excited and

planned to scoop up as many as he could. When the time came my little man was

off and running…….he was a blur of activity as he literally ran himself into a sweat

filling his basket……. While the other kids were moving at a leisurely pace Josh got

more and more excited as the fruit of his labors filled his basket to the point that

he literally had to cradle it in both arms to keep the eggs from falling out……..

When the hunt was over Josh had clearly excelled as a hunter of colored eggs! He

blew the other kids out of the water! A clear winner....... All of the baskets were

lined up side-by-side and the children went inside for a party…… But when Josh

came out to collect his hard-won reward he found that a well-meaning adult had

decided that a redistribution of eggs was necessary to keep some of the other

children from feeling bad…..most of his eggs had been redistributed to other

children……. His basket now held no more than anyone else’s…….it was a classic

case of redistribution of wealth……. In my son’s own words, “at that moment a

conservative was born!”

We laugh at that story to this day …….. But the other story is the one that really

captures more of the true meaning of Easter…..this one happens to also have my

son as the central character……he was maybe 3…..he and Charlene were outside

and he was playing with something and she thought that with Easter coming up

she would seize the moment to talk to him about the cross, and the meaning of

the season……..so she got his attention and she picked up two sticks and a piece

of fresh green pine straw that were laying on the ground……and she began to tell

him how important it was to understand that Jesus loves him no matter

what…..and that we may have Easter eggs and candy but those were just happy

things that we use to remind us about Jesus going to the cross…..she told him that

the cross was a scary thing but that Jesus was brave because he was God’s

son……and that he went to that cross just because he loves us so much…..all the

while she was telling him the Easter story she was taking those two sticks and that

pine straw and using the straw to bind the sticks into a cross……she told him how

the cross didn’t stop Jesus and that 3 days later he came back and because he was

so strong and brave that we can all know God personally now……all the while

she’s telling our little guy this she’s using the two sticks made into a cross as a

visual example……and then she said she saw the light go on in his eyes…..he was

looking at the cross in her hands and he reached out to take it and she thought to

herself “oh my goodness, he understands”……she was feeling pretty solid by

then…..already a great Mom, but now she was hitting next level…..explaining the

gospel to a 3 year old and he gets it!…..and Josh took that little stick-cross and he

stared at it for a minute as if he was thinking it all through…..and then he turned it

sideways in his hand and held it like a pistol and yelled “Pow Pow Pow!”…..my

son! My boy!......we still laugh at that one, and in case you were wondering my

boy has grown up to be a gun-toting Christian conservative……..that’s just too

funny……

But I’ve got to say……those memories, and many more…..memories that also

involve my beautiful daughter, and the new ones that involve my awesome

grandkids…..they only happen intentionally……by that I mean that they were

intentional efforts at doing things that would then become memories worth

keeping……

And before I go much further, let me make note that I know that not everyone

listening right now believes exactly as I do….You may struggle with the idea of a

living God who loves you no matter what…..but I want to make a point that the

fact that I say so is not the only say so out there…..Josh McDowell wrote a book

years ago called “Evidence That Demands A Verdict”….the whole thing was a

study in the actual evidence of the Bible being accurate…..McDowell’s book laid

out archeological evidence, historical records, the fulfillment of Biblical

prophecies, the uniqueness of the Bible itself…..and then, after laying it all out,

McDowell stepped back like an Attorney in Court and rested his case and let’s you

and I as the jury decide what the verdict should be…..so you’ve got to ask

yourself: If history tells me that Jesus really did walk around on the earth…..if

history and scholars agree that this guy named Jesus actually lived, and breathed,

and talked to people, and disrupted the social order of his day……then what do I

believe about Him? You only have three choices: Jesus was real so therefore, he

was either, a liar, a lunatic, or he was who He said He was…..me personally, I

choose to believe that Jesus was who He said He was…..the son of God.

And there are very few days in the year when the effort to mark a day in time can

have more significance than those that surround the Easter weekend……but I

want to encourage you to make those memories intentionally……take a second

and decide what you believe…..was this man really God?.....was He a liar? Or was

He a lunatic? Or was He exactly who He said He was? The Son of God come to

change the whole world by giving his life to overcome our death……and listen, it

doesn’t matter where you are or what your station in life happens to

be……celebrations don’t have to be a big deal gala event with fancy clothes and

big meals……..a giant Easter basket is cool……but a kid will also remember a pack

of Easter M&M’s from a neighbor or family member…….where you are in life

doesn’t matter either….if God is universal so then is the marking of time around

the sacrifice and resurrection of His son…….I have distinct memories of

celebrating Easter in the middle of a war zone on a FOB in Baghdad, and again of

celebrating for a few minutes with just a few guys on my team at a remote corner

of Afghanistan……where you are and what you’ve got makes no never mind, what

matters is the moment of celebration…..the moment when you pause and shut

out the world and realize that you are actually loved no matter what and that God

proved it by giving up his best, his son……that’s huge….and I may love this

audience but I wouldn’t give my boy for any of you……but God did that…….so I will

encourage you with this as well….if you are able to be in church this weekend

then do so……if you don’t have just the right clothes then find a church where

that doesn’t matter and gather up with folks and make the intentional effort to

spend time acknowledging that this day….over 2000 years ago…..literally changed

the history of the world, and that all recorded time BC/AD is marked by this

day……make some memories…..and my hope is that it will be as real to you as it is

to my family……May you have a good Good Friday and a Happy Easter…..He is

Risen!

That’s a wrap for the Rightside Way