why we celebrate easter

This Sunday, the Easter Bunny will bring baskets full of candy-filled eggs, kids will be frantically searching for treasures hidden in the grass, and of course there will be the much anticipated Easter feast, featuring your grandma’s famous banana pudding. 

I’m so excited for all of this, but Easter is more than bunnies and colored eggs, and it’s no coincidence that Easter Sunday is one of the two days out of the year that churches everywhere are packed to the brim.  This day is so much more than just a holiday to many people, including the ladies in the candle studio, so this is why we celebrate Easter…

¹On the first day of the week, very early in the morning, the women took the spices they had prepared and went to the tomb. ²They found the stone rolled away from the tomb, ³but when they entered, they did not find the body of the Lord Jesus. ⁴While they were wondering about this, suddenly two men in clothes that gleamed like lightning stood beside them. ⁵In their fright the women bowed down with their faces to the ground, but the men said to them,

“Why do you look for the living among the dead? ⁶He is not here; He has risen!

Remember how He told you, while He was still with you in Galilee: ⁷‘The Son of Man must be delivered over to the hands of sinners, be crucified and on the third day be raised again.’”

Luke 24:1-7

It’s not a difficult or complicated reason, in fact, it’s actually quite simple.  Long ago, God’s perfect and only Son, Jesus, took all the evil and sin that ever was or ever would be in the world, and paid the ultimate price.  Just in case one day, 2,000 years later, you’d decide to believe in Him, He was punished for your sins so you wouldn’t have to be.  God’s Heaven is perfect, and because we are not, we all fall short of the glory of God.  But thanks to Jesus dying and rising again, we can be saved.  On Easter, He was risen.

So it’s is more than just a holiday; it’s a joyous celebration.  At my hometown church, we had balloons and confetti canons, and danced during worship.  We had a party!  What better reason to have a party than to rejoice that He is risen! 

This Easter, we celebrate because Jesus rose from the grave, leaving behind our own evils so that we can be with Him in the Kingdom one day.  We are thankful that He opened the doors to something we do not deserve, so even when we die, we will live.  So Christians everywhere celebrate this:

“For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.”

John 3:16

Photography by Ashely's Decor Space, Cat from Sage Hill Cottage, Ashley from Our Modern Antebellum, and Erica from Our Humble Nest