empty

This Easter is different than we planned… in fact it is different than any Easter Sunday I can remember.

My entire family is sick.
We have been sick all week…

And these slow days of laying around, watching movies, sleeping whenever we can… have made me look at Easter a bit differently.

We are going to miss church…
We don’t have Easter baskets ready…
No new outfits…
Not even an Easter menu…

I think when these special holidays come around we tend to fill them up with all sorts of ‘things’.

This time of year it’s…

new outfits
pictures with the Easter bunny
eggs to color
Easter baskets to prepare
…and hide
guests to invite
menu to make
house to clean
church service to attend
oh yeah… and the cross. Don’t forget the cross.

I wonder… Are we deceived to believe that everything has to be filled up?

We tend to think that if our calendar or our coffee cup {gasp!} is empty – then we are really missing out.

Empty.

It just sounds wrong doesn’t it?

But – our God… takes ashes and trades them for beauty remember?
He takes deep grief and turns it into whirling dance.
He takes my ugly… and makes it His beautiful.

Maybe… just maybe…

LIFE is found in the empty.

It’s one of those paradoxes that we see so often in this world… our God’s ways are not our own.

Early Sunday morning… over 2,000 years ago two women visited a tomb where their Messiah and friend had been buried after being tortured and hung to die on a cross.

The tomb?
It was empty ~ and they found LIFE because of it.

“He is not here!”
The angel told them.

“He is risen! Just like He said!”

He emptied Himself, conquered death… and offers forgiveness and abundant life!

Hosanna!

“Have this attitude in yourselves
which was also in Christ Jesus,
who, although He existed in the form of God,
did not regard equality with God
a thing to be grasped,
but emptied Himself,
taking the form of a bond-servant,
and being made in the likeness of men.
Being found in appearance as a man,
He humbled Himself by becoming
obedient to the point of death,
even death on a cross.
For this reason also,
God highly exalted Him,
and bestowed on Him the name
which is above every name,
so that at the name of Jesus
every knee will bow, of those who
are in heaven and on earth and under the earth,
and that every tongue will confess
that Jesus Christ is Lord,
to the glory of God the Father.”
Philippians 2:5-11 NASB