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Easter is upon us. Are you eager to celebrate this Resurrection Sunday? Or is Easter this year just another of those ‘special’ Sundays that come around every so often? I’ll confess this year Easter has kind of crept up and I haven’t reflected and prepared like I should have, or even as I’d like to have. I have found that taking a little time to remember can go a long way to restoring my eagerness to celebrate.

A great Easter memory, and reminder for me, was our first Easter in Russia. We found the Russian people in general to be stoic and cynical; not open to displaying much emotion, unless it was anger. But at church on Easter Sunday, people were rushing around greeting one another with “Christ is risen!” and the response “He is risen indeed!” The greeting and response were very familiar, but the enthusiasm with which it was delivered, and the expressions of joy on those faces were at once startling and infectious.

"Praise Him that He thinks

each of us are worth that cost!"

Having the freedom to express themselves in such ways was still relatively new to these Russian believers and so they took advantage of the opportunity – with gusto!

Having enjoyed such freedom for my entire life I was a little taken aback at the excitement of my fellow believers. Then I realized that I was in danger of being complacent. Complacent at the death, burial and resurrection of the very Son of God?!?! How could that be? Yet it is so easy to become complacent, to be satisfied and comfortable with the way things are. To take for granted the privilege we have to celebrate Easter Sunday.

Remembering that Good Friday and Easter Sunday are inexorably intertwined is perhaps the greatest way to avoid complacency in this season.

Remembering that Jesus died for my sins, and not just died but died in the most horrible way, bearing guilt and shame He did not deserve, suffering separation from His Father; this prepares my heart and mind for Easter.

Remembering that He did this knowing full well who and what I was before He transformed me and recognizing He would have done if I were the only sinner in the world humbles my spirit and fills my heart with gratitude for my Savior and my God!

I hope you can come and worship with the MCC family on Good Friday evening. What a great opportunity to remember what Christ has done for you and at what great cost. Praise Him that He thinks each of us are worth that cost! And in that worship and remembering may your heart be truly prepared to celebrate the wondrous resurrection of Jesus on Easter Sunday.

Tozer said:

"Complacency is the deadly enemy of spiritual progress. The contented soul is the stagnant soul." 

Don’t let yourself be complacent about Easter. Remember! Rejoice!