I know I usually write about the message that we heard this past Sunday, but today I felt the Lord leading me to talk about something else.
Can I make a confession to you? Sometimes Easter Sundays are difficult for me. I know this is the opposite of what you think a believer would say…but let me explain. Sometimes Easter becomes a really big production. There are huge props, lights, sounds, social media posts, and things that are meant to be “seen.”. I am much more of a Good Friday service kind-of-person with the quiet contemplation of the cross. I know not everyone shares my take, but this Sunday really felt different…it felt like being “home.”
Yes, there was powerful music. The Lord’s name was lifted high. Pastor Jason’s message got to the heart of what Jesus did in rising from the dead. It was beautiful…but it also felt like home. It felt like our church family just being who they always are. No major production, just worship. That felt right. Did you feel it too?
I always wonder how pastors can cover the same exact story of the resurrection over and over again every single year. It has to be hard to try your best to re-invent the wheel, in a way. But this Sunday, I was looking at the resurrection with fresh eyes. No longer about putting on our Sunday best, but instead, coming as we are…and letting the change happen internally. No external theatrics, but a true internal heart posture that was soft to change. There was a quietness and reverence about Sunday that I didn’t expect.
I am someone who spends their life in church…and I love my church family! But sometimes Easter can feel like an unfamiliar place. It shouldn’t, but I can’t help but get caught in those unfamiliar feelings sometimes and wonder…is this how it is supposed to be?
But this Sunday, I sensed a humility about Easter. A true coming to the cross, where nothing else mattered. It wasn’t that I didn’t enjoy Easters past…but I felt the intentionality in this one. I know it takes an entire team to do this, and to make people feel at “home” in our church, and I just want to say, from the bottom of my heart – thank you.
I know if you’re reading this, you were probably a very big part of that. You brought the humility on Sunday that we all needed, amidst a world that often feels like it’s falling apart. How sweet to worship at the feet of Jesus when things seem so uncertain.
I read this quote in a Spurgeon devotional the other morning, and I felt like it encapsulated the joy I felt at church on Sunday. Allow me to share it with you:
“What a bright light may shine within us when it is really dark outside! How firm, how happy, how calm, how peaceful we may be when the world shakes, and the foundations of the earth removed!
Even death itself, with all its terrible influences, has no power to suspend the music of a Christian’s heart, but instead makes that music become more sweet, more clear, more heavenly, until the last kind act that death can do is allow the earthly song to melt into the heavenly chorus, the temporal joy into the eternal bliss!
Let us have confidence, then, in the blessed Spirit’s power to comfort us.”
I hope that on Sunday, like me, those who visited felt that “happy, calm, peaceful” feeling of knowing Jesus. It is truly unique isn’t it? We have something precious that the world sincerely craves!
Keep spreading the Good News. Keep sharing that light. He is with us.
Can I make a confession to you? Sometimes Easter Sundays are difficult for me. I know this is the opposite of what you think a believer would say…but let me explain. Sometimes Easter becomes a really big production. There are huge props, lights, sounds, social media posts, and things that are meant to be “seen.”. I am much more of a Good Friday service kind-of-person with the quiet contemplation of the cross. I know not everyone shares my take, but this Sunday really felt different…it felt like being “home.”
Yes, there was powerful music. The Lord’s name was lifted high. Pastor Jason’s message got to the heart of what Jesus did in rising from the dead. It was beautiful…but it also felt like home. It felt like our church family just being who they always are. No major production, just worship. That felt right. Did you feel it too?
I always wonder how pastors can cover the same exact story of the resurrection over and over again every single year. It has to be hard to try your best to re-invent the wheel, in a way. But this Sunday, I was looking at the resurrection with fresh eyes. No longer about putting on our Sunday best, but instead, coming as we are…and letting the change happen internally. No external theatrics, but a true internal heart posture that was soft to change. There was a quietness and reverence about Sunday that I didn’t expect.
I am someone who spends their life in church…and I love my church family! But sometimes Easter can feel like an unfamiliar place. It shouldn’t, but I can’t help but get caught in those unfamiliar feelings sometimes and wonder…is this how it is supposed to be?
But this Sunday, I sensed a humility about Easter. A true coming to the cross, where nothing else mattered. It wasn’t that I didn’t enjoy Easters past…but I felt the intentionality in this one. I know it takes an entire team to do this, and to make people feel at “home” in our church, and I just want to say, from the bottom of my heart – thank you.
I know if you’re reading this, you were probably a very big part of that. You brought the humility on Sunday that we all needed, amidst a world that often feels like it’s falling apart. How sweet to worship at the feet of Jesus when things seem so uncertain.
I read this quote in a Spurgeon devotional the other morning, and I felt like it encapsulated the joy I felt at church on Sunday. Allow me to share it with you:
“What a bright light may shine within us when it is really dark outside! How firm, how happy, how calm, how peaceful we may be when the world shakes, and the foundations of the earth removed!
Even death itself, with all its terrible influences, has no power to suspend the music of a Christian’s heart, but instead makes that music become more sweet, more clear, more heavenly, until the last kind act that death can do is allow the earthly song to melt into the heavenly chorus, the temporal joy into the eternal bliss!
Let us have confidence, then, in the blessed Spirit’s power to comfort us.”
I hope that on Sunday, like me, those who visited felt that “happy, calm, peaceful” feeling of knowing Jesus. It is truly unique isn’t it? We have something precious that the world sincerely craves!
Keep spreading the Good News. Keep sharing that light. He is with us.
Erika Pizzo
Erika is an author of various books on the topics of faith, mental health, and victory in Christ. Erika lives with her husband, daughter, son, and their fluffy poodle in sunny Southern California. Her two favorite things are a visit to the beach and a chai latte in hand.