Celebrating Easter Every Day

Our family attends church service most Sundays. We are involved with small groups and serve within the church body.

Our family is also a stateside missionary family.

We have all of this “involvement,” yet my kids still had a difficult time understanding or even remembering the miracle of Jesus not being in the tomb on Easter morning.

Every year we told them the story of the cross and the tomb. Every year we attended Maundy Thursday services, Good Friday Stations of the Cross, and an overcrowded Easter Sunday service.

Every year we opened eggs with crosses nestled amongst the candy, rolled a stone away from a homemade tomb, and ate tomb rolls with disappearing marshmallows on Easter morning, yet my six year old still didn’t know what Easter was about.

I felt like this was an epic parent fail. My son had no clue about the importance of Easter even after six years of annual hands-on lessons, stories, and church services.

So my family doesn’t celebrate Easter Sunday anymore.

We stopped celebrating Easter only once a year during the overly commercialized holiday and began celebrating the small, daily miracles of Jesus being alive every day instead.

5 Ways to Celebrate the Miracle of Easter Every Day

Share the gospel story with others. Too often we are afraid of sharing the miracle of salvation because we don’t want to offend others or place a target on ourselves in our workplaces, amongst our neighbors, and in our communities. We leave it up to missionaries or our church pastors to share the gospel with others.

We are all called to share the gospel:

Disciple all nations, baptize and teach them. (Matt. 28:19-20)

Preach the gospel to all people in all the world. (Mark 16:15-18)

Just as the Father sent Jesus, Jesus sends us. (John 20:21)

Every day we must remind ourselves of the miracle of Christ living in us and live from that identity. We are called to share this reality with others boldly but gracefully. We can do this by praying before shared meals with friends and neighbors. We can actively pray for the needs of others as a family. Include your children in praying for their friends’ needs.

Celebrate the miracle of life all year. It is natural to speak about new life in spring with the birth of baby animals, but there is life all around us every day, in every season. Getting outdoors allows us to see the miracle of life all year. Spend time in nature regularly to observe life and distinguish the difference of the miracle of what God has created and what man has created. Make it a point to acknowledge the beauty of sunsets, the miracle of daily hope in our circumstances, and celebrate the newness of relationships as well as human life.

Practice grace daily. Forgiveness. It’s an active daily practice. Not just within our families, but with others who have hurt us, including friends, colleagues, school peers, and neighbors.

Some days this is hard! When you have been hurt by someone, it can be difficult to forgive and give grace. This is where the rubber meets the road in understanding the fullness of the miracle of Easter.

Christ died so we can fully live. We must not allow the hurts of the past, present, or future to stymie the overflow of love that the Lord commands we give to one another.

“This is my commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you” (John 15:12 NIV).

Jesus asks us to give grace and forgive our brother’s transgressions not 7 times, but 77 times (Matt. 18:22).

This is love. This is grace. This is the Gospel.

Try serving outside your comfort zone. Our family served lunch in a homeless mission a couple times a week for a while. This was an opportunity to serve others in a way that allowed us to acknowledge the many blessings we were in possession of, not just materialistically, but spiritually.

Allowing my children to see people hurting and in great need emotionally and spiritually was scary at first. We want to protect our kids from the harshness of life. But serving outside our comfort zone gave us numerous opportunities to practice gratitude for God’s gift of grace. It was another opportunity to share the gospel with others.

Take part in regular fellowship. “They devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching and the fellowship, to the breaking of bread and the prayers” (Acts 2:42 NIV).

Church is more than a service we attend weekly. Church is the people with whom we fellowship and celebrate the breaking of bread. Having people over regularly to eat a meal with you is an act of fellowship that our family greatly enjoys. The conversations that ensue are incredible, and often are the way we grow in deeper intimacy with others.

Celebrating Easter every day is simply living our lives in a way that is evidence of the victory Christ had over the grave. It is using the principles and teachings the Lord taught during his time here on earth. It’s sharing the story of who he is and what he has done.

[Tweet “Easter certainly is a victory. One we have opportunity to live out in our everyday lives.”]

But the angel said to the women, “Do not be afraid, for I know that you seek Jesus who was crucified. He is not here, for he has risen, as he said. Come, see the place where he lay”  (Matt. 28:5-6 NIV).

Questions to ask yourself:

Do I daily consider Jesus’ risen life?

Do I consider the hope I have in Jesus’ resurrected life within my own daily circumstances?

Is there evidence of the victory of Easter in my daily life?

Brianna George is a speaker, teacher, and missionary as well as a part-time writer and full-time encourager. She lives in central Tennessee with her husband of twelve years, two spicy little boys, and Bosa the boxer. More of her writing can be found at unveiledandrevealed.com.

 

 

Photograph used with permission from and copyright of Michelle Lenger.