Transformation

I love Easter. Really, it's my favorite day of the year. So much celebration and hope and excitement. I love everything about that joyous day.

It seems that I am not alone in my love for Easter because each year I see the church filled to overflowing. Everybody knows if you want to get a seat on Easter Sunday you gotta get there early. Who wouldn't want to celebrate the resurrection of the Savior? Amazing.

What is interesting to me is that as full as the church is on Easter, it is pretty empty on Maundy Thursday and Good Friday or at an opportunity to walk The Stations of the Cross during Lent. I would say church attendance during those experiences is probably 5-10% of what it is on Easter.

Easter draws a crowd because it is a celebration of Jesus having risen from the dead. It is a beautiful and necessary and vital part of our story as Christians. But just as vital is the last supper, and the crucifixion. Jesus suffered immensely during this time. He was betrayed by his friends, by his government, he was tortured and he died in a very brutal way.

It makes sense that we would want to be a part of the Easter story while skipping all the pain that led up to the resurrection. Who wants to remember pain and suffering, especially that of our Jesus?

 But the thing is you cannot have resurrection without a death and you cannot have a true transformation without some suffering.

We all want to be resurrected, we all want to be transformed but we'd rather skip the transformation process, because that means we are going to struggle and hurt and die and man who wants to do that?

When we take the suffering out of Jesus' story I feel like it cheapens the glory of His resurrection and it creates false expectations for our own lives. Avoidance of suffering with the expectation of transformation doesn't ever end very well in my experience :)

The glory of the Easter story is that even though Jesus suffered immensely there was new life, even though he struggled and felt abandoned by everyone (including his Father) there was a beautiful life changing transformation in Him. The Easter story in it's entirety reminds us that no matter how bad things may be that God is with us and that if we allow it, a new work is being done within each of us. A new work that is more glorious and beautiful than we could have ever imagined.

Suffering is a  necessary part of our existence. Through hardships we are made new if we choose to be made new. When we die to ourselves or to things that keep us away from God it is painful but it is so worth it because we discover that God Is. We discover the vastness of his love for us.

During this season I encourage you not to avoid or to dismiss Jesus' suffering or your own suffering  for that matter. But, to truly embrace it as a part of the transformation and resurrection story.

I leave you with a few lines from the Hymn of Promise. Which to me, perfectly captures the new life we find in the struggle.

Hymn of Promise

In the bulb there is a flower; in the seed, an apple tree;
In cocoons, a hidden promise: butterflies will soon be free!
In the cold and snow of winter there’s a spring that waits to be,
Unrevealed until its season, something God alone can see.

There’s a song in every silence, seeking word and melody;
There’s a dawn in every darkness, bringing hope to you and me
From the past will come the future; what it holds, a mystery,
Unrevealed until its season, something God alone can see.

In our end is our beginning; in our time, infinity;
In our doubt there is believing; in our life, eternity,
In our death, a resurrection; at the last, a victory,
Unrevealed until its season, something God alone can see.