I saw this BC cartoon on Facebook yesterday, and it struck a chord with me. I’ve often wondered why we call it good.
But what else could you call it?
“Black Friday?”
“Preparation Day?”
“Easter Eve?”
“The Day Jesus died for me, the sun went dark, the earth shook, the dead walked and the heavy, thick veil to the Holy of Holies tore from top to bottom?” (Matthew 27:51-54.)
Oh, yeah. I think “Good” works.
I saw one of those I-need-to-educate-you-silly-Christians things on Facebook the other day. It talked about some fertility goddess few people have heard of and that it (she?) was what Easter is really based on.
In that comment, even the word Easter was supposed to have come from that goddess’s name. The question is also asked in that comment, “or did you think eggs and bunnies had anything to do with the resurrection?”
I answered (you didn’t think I could keep my mouth shut, did you?) that maybe the proper name shouldn’t be ‘Easter’. (I’ve never actually seen it in the Bible any more than I’ve seen the word ‘Christmas’.) I even did a search online to see if I could find where the word came from. I found a lot of sermons, but finding the actual origin is a little hard.
The best I could find was
Easter: An Early Celebration of Christ’s Resurrection
Another idea involves the history of the Frankish church (Germans who settled in Rome during the fifth century). Their the celebration of Christ’s resurrection included the word alba, which means white (the color of the robes worn during the resurrection festival). Alba also meant sunrise. So when the name of the festival was translated into German, the sunrise meaning, ostern, was selected, likely in error. One theory is that Ostern is the origin of the word Easter.
You can read more about it if you want.
The eggs and bunnies? They represent new beginnings. A brand new life–which is what we have when we’re in Christ. A life without blemish. Without stain. Without sin. Washed in The Blood, we’re whiter than snow, because Jesus paid the price for our sins when he died on the cross and rose again three days later.
Maybe we should just call it Resurrection Sunday.
It doesn’t matter what we call it. What matters is that you’ve accepted Christ. He died for my sin and yours.
Do you live for Him?
Guess what!
I received the galley for MAKE ME HOWL! I’m jumping-up-and-down-screaming-my-head-off excited!!! So excited, I might use up my quota of exclamation points today.
😛
If you’ve never seen a galley, it looks like the pages of a real book with the author’s name (mine. Squee!!!) at the top of one page and the title on the next, and the lines are all numbered down the left side of the page. The lines are justified with extra spaces between the words so each one begins and ends in the same place. (Except for the last line in a paragraph.)
Looks pretty cool, too! 😉
I’m reading through my entire book one more time before it goes to press, looking for typos, mistakes and boo-boos. (Last chance ranch, baby!)
And you know what? This book’s not bad! (Even if I do say so myself. LOL) Even though I’ve been deep in it for a while now, with more than a few partial and complete read-throughs, I’m not a bit bored. That’s a good thing. (Hopefully, that means readers will enjoy it, too.)
And one more really exciting thing. When I get the galley finished and back to my editor, I’ll be ready to receive my pub date.
Big, big grin.
Guess I’ll get back to it.
You might enjoy these posts, too.
Ever notice how sometimes, the thing hurts your heart is the thing that fills your heart with joy again?
That happened to me this weekend.
A friend I’ve known since 2nd grade lost her son. Her loss broke my heart. (My boys are around his age and I’ve known the kid since he was a tyke.) It hurts to even imagine what his death did to her.
That’s when the really good part happened. I reached out to as many of our classmates as I could think of (and to more of them as they filtered in to my poor brain) and asked if they’d like to join together to send a remembrance from our class.
The response was overwhelming. And beautiful. And made me oh, so very glad I’m from this Small Town World!
The really funny thing? The people in our class really are just as nice as I remember them. For a while, I’ve wondered if my over-active imagination made them seem nicer and funnier than they were.
(I read on a blog once that if you weren’t bullied in school, you probably were the bully. But that’s not true for our Small Town World. I wasn’t a bully in any way, shape or form, and if there were any bullies, they hid it well.)
But my memories aren’t wrong. My class is made up of a great bunch of people!
I’m lucky to have been part of them.
I’m not sure my friend whose son died will ever know just how deeply these friends grieved for her or how much they love her, but I hope so. One of these days, if I get the chance, I’m gonna tell her. 🙂
I got this story in an email from my Walking Buddy yesterday. It’s one of those “Freaky Friday” stories, which sounded pretty familiar until I got to the end. The little twist there made me laugh out loud, and every time I thought about it all day, I grinned again.
I hope you enjoy it, too!
☺☻☺☻☺☻
A man was sick and tired of going to work every day while his wife stayed home.
He wanted her to see what he went through so he prayed, “Dear Lord, I go to work every day and put in 8 hours while my wife merely stays at home.
“I want her to know what I go through, so please allow her body to switch with mine for a day.”
God, in his infinite wisdom, granted the man’s wish. The next morning, sure enough, the man awoke as a woman.
He arose, cooked breakfast for his mate, awakened the kids, set out their school clothes, fed them breakfast, packed their lunches, drove them to school, came home and picked up the dry cleaning, took it to the cleaners and stopped at the bank to make a deposit, went grocery shopping, then drove home to put away the groceries, paid the bills and balanced the check book. He cleaned the cat’s litter box and bathed the dog.
Then, it was already 1 P.M. He hurried to make the beds, do the laundry, vacuum, dust, sweep and mop the kitchen floor. Ran to the school to pick up the kids and got into an argument with them on the way home. Set out milk and cookies and got the kids organized to do their homework. He set up the ironing board and watched TV while he did the ironing. At 4:30 he began peeling potatoes and washing vegetables for salad, breaded the pork chops and snapped fresh beans for supper.
After supper, he cleaned the kitchen, ran the dishwasher, folded laundry, bathed the kids, and put them to bed. At 9 p.m. he was exhausted and, though his daily chores weren’t finished, he went to bed where he was expected to make love, which he managed to get through without complaint.
The next morning, he awoke and immediately knelt by the bed. “Lord, I don’t know what I was thinking. I was so wrong to envy my wife’s’ being able to stay home all day. Please! Oh, please, let us trade back. Amen!”
The Lord, in his infinite wisdom, replied, “My son, I feel you have learned your lesson and I will be happy to change things back to the way they were. You’ll have to wait nine months, though.
“You got pregnant last night”
☺☻☺☻☺☻
Ps: Thanks, Carollea!
Susan Spess Shay 