Easter and Passover 2015
This is Easter week and the beginning of Passover so we are taking the week off here at Growing Weisser…..I am going to update and repost an Easter post to share with you today and make sure to check back on Thursday for a surprise……
When I was growing up, Easter season began with a Passover Seder meal at my grandparents home where we retold the Exodus story and said beautiful Hebrew prayers. This tradition became more meaningful to me as I learned that Christ became the Passover Lamb and He was the perfect sacrifice for all men for all time. He was nailed to the cross on that Friday (what we call “good Friday”) and was raised from the dead on what we call Easter-Resurrection Sunday. Resurrection Sunday, Good Friday and Passover celebrations are a time to reflect on all that Christ has done for me.
As we raised our family, we incorporated the celebration of Passover with our Easter festivities for a rich tradition of Old and New Testament blending to tell the entire story of God reaching out to man to initiate and open the door for an intimate relationship with His children.
Last year I had the awesome privilege of attending a Good Friday worship night with Bekah and Ashkon at their Christian Student Association at SGU in Grenada. It was a multicultural event including liturgical dance and worship for all with the worship team including special presentations from three groups of students singing in their native tongues-Indian, African and Spanish and two Asian students who shared a piano and violin worship song on prayer. The most moving part of the evening for me was the dramatic presentation of a skit done to a beautiful song called Everything-you can look it up on Youtube. If you have never seen this skit before, one version can be found here: Lifehouse’s Everything Skit.
After the skit the leader of the worship night spoke a bit about his own life struggles and how Christ had set him free and how Christ had never stopped pursuing him and how Christ welcomed him back after a time of separation. I was moved to tears as I thought about how Jesus is my EVERYTHING. As I think of how much I have grown in my faith this past year and how many prayers have been answered with regards to my precious family I am amazed at God;s goodness and His faithfulness. I am reminded of how much God cares, that He understands the prayers of a mother’s heart, He sees, He knows and He provides. This Easter season encourages me to continue to pray with a sincerity of heart believing that God is in the process of growing and changing me and the ones I love. So I press on, I keep the faith, I remember the cost Christ paid for my freedom. Jesus is my EVERYTHING!
I am encouraged by the words of the Apostle Paul as he writes to the Philippians to encourage them in their walk of faith……
“But whatever things were gain to me, those things I have counted as loss for the sake of Christ. More than that, I count all things to be loss in view of the surpassing value of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, for whom I have suffered the loss of all things, and count them but rubbish so that I may gain Christ, and may be found in Him, not having a righteousness of my own derived from the Law, but that which is through faith in Christ, the righteousness which comes from God on the basis of faith, that I may know Him and the power of His resurrection and the fellowship of His sufferings, being conformed to His death; in order that I may attain to the resurrection from the dead. Not that I have already obtained it or have already become perfect, but I press on so that I may lay hold of that for which also I was laid hold of by Christ Jesus. Brethren, I do not regard myself as having laid hold of it yet; but one thing I do: forgetting what lies behind and reaching forward to what lies ahead, I press on toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus.” (Philippians 3:7-14 NASB)
Here it is in the Message version:
“Compared to the high privilege of knowing Christ Jesus as my Master, firsthand, everything I once thought I had going for me is insignificant. I’ve dumped it all in the trash so that I could embrace Christ and be embraced by him. I didn’t want some petty, inferior brand of righteousness that comes from keeping a list of rules when I could get the robust kind that comes from trusting Christ— God’s righteousness. I gave up all that inferior stuff so I could know Christ personally, experience his resurrection power, be a partner in his suffering, and go all the way with him to death itself. If there was any way to get in on the resurrection from the dead, I wanted to do it. I’m not saying that I have this all together, that I have it made. But I am well on my way, reaching out for Christ, who has so wondrously reached out for me.” (Philippians 3:7-14)
Jesus was Paul’s EVERYTHING!
Who is your EVERYTHING?
