By Not Known
What are you doing to prepare for Easter?
Easter is a great opportunity to remember the basics of the Christian message. By remembering these, we re-focus on what is important and prepare ourselves to tell this message to others.
God’s message to the world is tied up with Easter. Paul puts it this way:
Now, brothers, I want to remind you of the gospel I preached to you, which you received and on which you have taken your stand. By this gospel you are saved, if you hold firmly to the word I preached to you. Otherwise, you have believed in vain. For what I received I passed on to you as of first importance: that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day according to the Scriptures (1 Cor 15:1-4).
How can we prepare for Easter?
Firstly, we can read the Gospel accounts in Matthew 26-28; Mark 14 to 16; Luke 22 to 24; John 13 to 21.
Each Gospel has its own emphasis in the way the story is told and it is worth reading all of them. Perhaps you could divide these chapters between the days leading up to Easter.
Read reflectively and prayerfully:
- what are the people around Jesus doing?
- Which people do you identify with?
- What do you think Jesus might have been feeling?
- What information is there for you to learn from these stories?
- What responses does your heart make?
Secondly, we can read some of the passages that interpret the Easter story to us. Try these: Romans 3:9-26; 1 Cor 15:1-7; Eph 1:3-14, 2:1-10.
- What do you learn from them about the significance of Jesus’ dying and rising?
- What responses are we meant to make to the Easter events?
- What responses are you making?
- In what ways have you lost focus on the Easter events?
May God help us all to prepare well for Easter – and use this to refocus us on Jesus, both in the faith that we profess and in the message that we tell to others.