Easter 2023: Free Inspirational Card For A Weekend of Deep Meaning
Easter.
Do you wish to share the deep meaning of this weekend?
Download this free inspirational card for your loved ones at Easter.
Are you in the “mind-preparation” mode for this special celebration weekend?
For that is truly the best place to be:
Contemplating the coming Easter season and its deep meaning.
Our family always enjoyed reading certain books in the weeks leading to Easter. When the children were young, I read aloud from the book, “Vinegar Boy.” We have an old, hardback edition of “The Day Christ Died” by Jim Bishop, read many times. Other books worth bringing out at this season are “The Christ of The Empty Tomb” and while I have enjoyed many of Max Lucado’s books, I have only read part of “He Chose the Nails.” The message in this modern book takes you to the reality of Christ on the Cross and what He actually did for us.
How do you prepare for Easter?
Is it all about bunnies and painting eggs and Easter baskets and grassy hunts in the backyard? Which have their place and are so cute!
My daughter got a message from a new friend from school. The friend was an exchange student from Mexico, and when she went to a local big-box store, she couldn’t understand what she was seeing. “What is Easter?” she messaged. My daughter answered. The friend’s next message flew back, “What is, all, all this eggs? and bunnies? What is this have to do about Easter?”
How would you answer that? Is that what Easter means…
Or is your heart drawn to thoughts of Jesus, and how deeply meaningful this week must have been for Him and His disciples?
This week of preparation and stealing a donkey tied to a post and riding (why did He ride when He had always walked before?) on palm branches and being thrown from the temple. Dragged through the streets. Spit on and bullied. Disciples gone amiss, awry, one crazed and cutting off ears, one drooling over blood-stained cash, one trying to deny to a waitress who knew better.
There has never, ever been a more chaotic week, never before or after, in the history of the world.
And then came Friday.
I have a difficult time calling it
Good Friday.
This article explains my thoughts…
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According to the Bible, the son of God was flogged, ordered to carry the cross on which he would be crucified and then put to death. It’s difficult to see what is “good” about it.
Some sources suggest that the day is “good” in that it is holy, or that the phrase is a corruption of “God’s Friday”.
However, according to Fiona MacPherson, senior editor at the Oxford English Dictionary, the adjective traditionally “designates a day on (or sometimes a season in) which religious observance is held”. The OED states that “good” in this context refers to “a day or season observed as holy by the church”, hence the greeting “good tide” at Christmas or on Shrove Tuesday. In addition to Good Friday, there is also a less well-known Good Wednesday, namely the Wednesday before Easter.
The earliest known use of “guode friday” is found in The South English Legendary, a text from around 1290, according to the dictionary. According to the Baltimore Catechism – the standard US Catholic school text from 1885 to the 1960s, Good Friday is good because Christ “showed His great love for man, and purchased for him every blessing”.
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After “That Friday” comes Sunday… the renewal… the resurrection…
The best day ever.
The story of the Bible reaches completion on this third day.
The whole purpose of God’s creation culminates in the Beginning that this Sunday represents.
First the sacrifice, and then the resurrection.
First our acceptance of that sacrifice, the drawing of it into our hearts and souls, and the belief that our sins are washed away by Beloved Jesus…
Then the newness of Spirit… the anticipation of One Day, when we shall see Him… we will feel the glow of His Love… see the scars (will they truly still be there when the reason for the scars is past)…
because all those who accepted the blood from those nail wounds will now be in Heaven with Him!
Rejoice, Oh Rejoice!!
This is The Day the Lord hath made!
This is The Day that He hath given!
Let us Rejoice and Be Glad!
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