Crazy Victory

Happy Easter, friends!

I hope you have a wonderfully full and blessed weekend with family and friends. I am so happy I get my little girl all weekend, so I am posting this early as I will be spending all weekend celebrating.

All this week I've spent a lot of time in the Bible reading about Jesus' final hours on earth. I've been talking with Peyton (as appropriately as one can with a positively inquisitive four year old) about what Easter means and how the events leading up to Easter are somber and dark, but the glory of Easter is one to celebrate.

For so long, Easter only meant candy and dying eggs and bunnies (oh my). I grew up Catholic, but walked away as a teenager. I stayed away until January 2015 when God, after gently speaking to me for a few years, called me back to a church where I felt connected, engaged, and encouraged in a new walk with Jesus.

Last Easter, I had only been on that walk for a few short months. I can remember sitting in Easter service completely overcome with emotion. Jesus, this person who was the very Son of God, walked with his followers and his naysayers, loved everyone, knew his fate, and STILL accepted it as His Father's will.

I spent the better part of the Lenten season last year reflecting on His human experience and honed in on the horror and gravity of his last few hours. I was in straight-up mourning--the nastiness of His final hours were just so overwhelming to me. I should have been focusing more on His obedience and love, but here is where I am going with this:

I knew that Jesus is God on the earth. God. In the flesh. He walked among His peers.

I kept thinking about the Garden of Gethsemane, the night before He died. He asked God to take this unbelievable burden from Him unless it was God's will. I found myself thinking about what I'd do if I knew I'd be betrayed, beaten, humiliated, tormented, and killed mercilessly the very next day.

Spoiler alert: I'd run.

But that's because I'm not God. And I'm not perfect. But Jesus is.

And Jesus came to do these things for me.
For you.
For mankind.

Is your mind not absolutely blown by this?! This is the very thought that leaves me breathless again and again.

God loves me so much that he sent His one and only Son to die for me. For me. A woman who lived thousands of years later. And Jesus, KNOWING this--knowing me--walked freely to his betrayers in acknowledgement and acceptance of that burden. Every step of the way, He endured that for me! For you. For all of us.

And then He blew everything out of the water by defying death.

A love so exquisite that it shattered the chains of hell.

Whoosh--that's the sound of my breath leaving my body yet again, because friends--that is crazy love. That is crazy obedience. That is crazy victory.

Victory on the cross.
Victory in the empty tomb.
Victory in the resurrection.
Victory in God's grace and love.
Victory, once and for all.

Victory.
That is the beauty of Easter.

Friday will always mean mourning to me, but I can mourn with the peace of knowing that Sunday will come.

This year all I can see is perfect love and beauty, and I am completely overwhelmed by it.