Devotional | Anticipating Easter

Anticipating Easter

As we race towards Easter, and the shops fill with decorations in the pretty pastel tones of a Northern Hemisphere spring, and chocolate chickens, bunnies, bilbies and eggs appear in astonishing quantities, I am reminded again why I love this time of year.

It has nothing to do with the Easter Egg hunts my sons loved into early adulthood or the incredible Easter Hat parades their old primary school still holds. It’s not about the hot cross buns that appear in the stores earlier and earlier each year in increasingly creative flavour combinations. Like many of my friends on Facebook, I used to lament their early arrival, until I heard a great comment from a minister that went a bit like this: “If people want to advertise Jesus all year round, let them!”

My love of Easter is because of Good Friday. In the church I attend, Good Friday is a commemoration and Easter Sunday is a celebration. After the service, people visit host homes and share hot cross buns in Christian community. We keep it simple, and we keep pointing to Jesus.

But that’s hard in a world where, each year, Easter gets taken over by secular expressions of the season, like eggs and bunnies and way more chocolate than anyone ever needs. Primary schools create footprints for the youngest students to excitedly follow around the grounds while they find the eggs the Easter Bunny has left for them. Shops rake in the dollars on bunny ear headbands and decorations for the house. Just like Christmas, the secular celebration of the occasion is the dominant feature. It’s about the decorations and the gifts, not the reason for the day.

I’m not criticising people who decorate their homes. I have quite a decent bunny collection that comes out this time of year, along with some exquisite crosses and others that are heartrending in their simplicity. I decorate my house at Christmas too and change the colour scheme each year. I love expressing my creativity through how I present my home. I also get excited if I find a nativity scene in a regular store and make sure I buy one to support the manager’s decision to include representations of Christian beliefs on their shelves. Decorations aside, at those key times of the year, we are the minority in how we celebrate our beliefs.

But Good Friday belongs solely to Christians – and that’s what I love about it. On that one day of the year, we are free to be openly Christian and acknowledge the crucifixion of Christ. Good Friday is an international day of mourning in a world that insists it no longer believes in God, only people’s personal gods. Shops close and people take notice of the pause. Nothing takes over that day – not even the buns that bear the Christian cross. Everything about Good Friday points to Jesus, and I love that because I love Him.