A Few Random Thoughts On and About Easter

There isn't really a cohesive way to organize this, it's just some things I've been thinking about or reading about.

• I always think about what Mary must have felt like when she was watching her son being mocked, beaten, stripped, nailed, and pierced. Before I had a son myself it was painful. Now it's agonizing and almost impossible to think about. Even when I consider it, I NEVER picture those things happening to Kaleb. As much as I love Kaleb, it's a human, imperfect love. Jesus wasn't only Mary's son, He was God's son, too. Since God IS love, He had a perfect love towards his son. How much more agonizing was it for God, love itself, to watch His only son die?


• I read some facts about crucifixion on a blog today. Most of it I had already heard or known, but something new stood out to me. It said that, even though most pictures don't show it, most crucifixion victims didn't wear a loin cloth during the process. They were stripped naked. That meant that if they had to use the bathroom, they had to do it out in the open for everyone to see and mock. That would be so humiliating. I know it's a small thing compared to being stripped and nailed to a cross, but it's something else that Jesus may have had to go through.


• The angels guarding Jesus's body were the only beings to have the priviledge of witnessing Jesus actually bursting through the gates of death and coming back to life. How amazing that must have been! On a similar note, I believe all of Heaven, God, the angels, Moses, etc, were weeping with sadness while watching Jesus die. I also believe that there was never such a celebration as when he rose from the dead.


• I'd never read it before, but in Matthew it says that, after Christ arose, other godly people also arose from the dead and spread the Good Word.


• On a lighter note, I've picked out some of the traditions I want to start for Easter. I want to have an Easter basket for each child (obviously) but also do a basket for Eric and myself. I make his, he makes mine. We've been doing the Easter basket thing after nap time and I really like it because it makes the whole morning about Jesus. I want to make an Easter bunny cake or Easter egg cupcakes on Easter week (maybe alternating between them). I want to buy new clothes for each Easter Sunday and I want the kid(s) to know that we get new clothes because Christ arose a new person on Easter. I want to do the Easter story with Easter eggs (12 days, each egg representing something different about the Easter story). Most importantly, I want to make sure that the focus of Easter for our family is JESUS. If the kid(s) ever lose the meaning of the celebration because of bunnies, eggs, and chocolate, we're cutting those things out!