HOMECOMING

Easter is rapidly approaching. Can you believe Sunday is Palm Sunday.?How are you preparing for Easter? New clothes for the family? Ham or Lamb? Egg dying and egg hunts? There are many family traditions.

One year I decided to make my two sons Easter suits with the help of my friend who taught home ec and therefore had access to the high school department. We worked feverishly the entire Easter weekend up at the high school and got them finished. I promised myself that never again would I plan such a task and I never did. While the family dawned new Easter clothes, I put on pajamas and slept through Easter that year.

Yet, we are reminded in Isaiah 53, what the real meaning of Easter is about. It is about the sacrifice Jesus made on the cross for our sins. The upcoming holy week is a time for deep meditation remembering Jesus pain and suffering. I've been focused on my own pain and the uncertainty that surrounds me and now I realize what the healer went through. As I focus on him, my own pain lessens, because I know that with him, I am in the very best hands. He is the healer of all our ills and where I go for healing. So Easter is a time to return home to the Lord and use Holy week to appreciate what he did for us.

"Surely he took up our pain
and bore our suffering,
yet we considered him punished by God,
stricken by him, and afflicted.
But he was pierced for our transgressions,
he was crushed for our iniquities;
the punishment that brought us peace was on him,
and by his wounds we are healed.
We all, like sheep, have gone astray,
each of us has turned to our own way;
and the Lord has laid on him
the iniquity of us all." Isaiah 53 4-6