Easter has always been one of my favorite times of the year. As we celebrate each year we remember not just a significant historical date but we remember a new life that has been won for us.
In the past, I’ve been able to celebrate Easter surrounded by close friends and family and although the same truths remained and have filled this season with joy for me, almost everything else about this Easter season has been different. It was about 30 degrees hotter than it usually is even on a warm Easter Sunday back home and I celebrated with all new faces that I’ve met just within these last couple of months, but probably the strangest thing was meeting people these past couple of weeks who didn’t even know what Easter was! Now some of the general facts about what Christians believe are understood here but the message of hope that we have is something that is largely unknown. With a lot of misconceptions and confusions the celebrations of Good Friday and Easter raise a lot of questions here.
Many doors to share have opened this past week or so, as people want to know why their foreign friends sing songs of praise and celebrate during this holiday that they don’t understand. Doors to clearly walk through the hope we have as we remember the shame, fear, and guilt born for us and the victory, adoption, and new life won for us as we look back at the most significant week in all of human history.
At a time of year where it’s hard to be away from home, doors have opened to experiences I would have never even dreamed of a year ago. In this Easter season, it’s weird to be in a country with so little green that there is no spring blossoming of trees, at least that I’ve seen, but I’m hoping to see new life spring up here as abundantly as the trees that I’ll miss seeing bloom back home.