Have a Blessed Easter

What Do We Celebrate when We Celebrate Easter?

This is a card that I made for my friend, Gwenda, and it has symbolism within the design of the card. The red symbolises the blood of our Lord and Saviour, Jesus Christ; the black symbolises our sin prior to His death on the Cross and the white represents the righteousness of the Saints, which is only received through God’s grace and Jesus shed blood on the Cross of Calvary.

Do we celebrate Easter? Well, I know that Easter has long been associated with Ishtar, the goddess of fertility, but we don’t worship her in our home. We worship the one true God, the one who died on the Cross so that we could have everlasting forgiveness of our sins. There was to be no more sacrifice, as the Lamb of God takes away the sin of the world.

Easter has been associated with many things – Easter eggs and hot cross buns, but we need to remember the true reason for Easter, and that is the love that God had for us in sending His Son to be the substitutionary sacrifice for us all. It’s not about furry bunnies, Easter eggs or hot cross buns.

Easter is defined by Merriam Webster’s Online Dictionary as:

• A feast that commemorates Christ’s resurrection and is observed with variations of date due to different calendars on the first Sunday after the paschal full moon.

While the Collins Concise Dictionary that we have at home defines Easter as:

• A festival of the Christian church commemorating the Resurrection of Christ: falls on the Sunday following the first full moon after the vernal equinox.

And World Book Encyclopaedia defines Easter as being:

• The most important Christian festival of the year. Easter celebrates the return to life of Jesus Christ, the founder of Christianity, after His Crucifixion.

Jesus came to give us life and that we might have it more abundantly (John10:10), and it is only through our faith in Jesus Christ that we receive this free gift of eternal life. Christ’s death and resurrection is the message that we should be sending to our friends and loved ones, and it should be His death and resurrection that we celebrate, knowing the love that our heavenly Father has for us.

2010 – A Year of New Beginnings

Change doesn’t come easy to me, and the change from Weaver to ACC has been one that we didn’t make lightly – changes to our children’s curriculum are only made after quiet prayer and contemplation, as it is so important to discern God’s will for our children.

2009 has seen our son take striding leaps ahead, as he now works toward his Academic year 12 certificate, while our daughter, who is only 12, is moving toward her year 10 Academic certificate in 2010. Up ’til this point they were studying together, so 2010 will be a year of new beginnings, so to speak.

Normally I don’t make a New Year’s resolution, but after reading Susan’s blog, I have decided to make one this year, and it is:~

• to spend more time in Bible reading, prayer and quiet meditation on God’s Word

• to give thanks in all things, for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus concerning me

Christmas Cards & The Reason for the Season

I know that some bloggers don’t “do Christmas”, but here in our home, we take pleasure in remembering what the Lord Jesus Christ did for us in His birth, baptism, death and resurrection, and I truly look forward to the day when He will once again reign on this earth. Sarah has also written about “doing Christmas”, and I agree wholeheartedly with what she has written.

Oh sure, there once was a time when we became very legalistic about “not doing Christmas” or birthdays for that matter, but we are told to live in the world but not be of the world. It is up to the individual ♥ of each person to do what the Holy Spirit convicts them of. Susan also wrote an excellent blog post about doing or not doing Christmas, which I thoroughly enjoyed reading, and I have been thinking on what she wrote ever since.

I enjoy spending time worshipping Jesus, but it is not just confined to Christmas, and while we are told to go into all the world and preach the Gospel to every creature – what better time of year to be able to do just this? People are so much more receptive to the gospel at this time of year than they are at any other time of the year.

We love doing and making things for others and I love the carol singing – old time favourites, such as Away in a Manger, Silent Night, Once in Royal David’s City, but my favourite would have to be Oh, Holy Night, as the lyrics are absolutely divine.

Do we believe in Santa Claus – definitely not, but we do believe in Saint Nicholas, for he was known for his secret gift-giving, such as leaving coins in the shoes of those who left them out for him. Christmas should be all about servanthood, and remembering why Jesus came in the first place.

We also have a holiday for the Queen’s birthday, but her birthday is not on that day. The Queen of Australia was born on 21 April, 1926, but her birthday was celebrated this year on 8 June, 2009. Birthdays are to celebrate the birth of an individual, but as the Queen illustrates, it is not the day that is important. Nobody knows precisely when Jesus was born, but that doesn’t stop us (in our home) from wanting to celebrate His birth and all that it stands for.

The True Meaning of Christmas