¶ Easter Traditions and Celebrations
Hey , I'm Everett and I'm Jake , and welcome to our Easter episode of the GBC Empower podcast . Happy Easter , guys , happy .
Easter Woo . Wait , this isn't New Year's , I'm sorry , yeah yeah , sorry , he's risen .
I mean , like we can get . We should have had some noisemakers . Have you seen the Milwaukee version ? It looks like a drill , but you press it and it's an air horn . It's like a battery powered air horn . Oh , let's get one . Okay , church money , let's get . No , I'm just kidding .
We'll put it in the 2025 budget under miscellaneous . He is risen . I'm going to get an email over that .
And probably it's a train horn , not air horn , train horn , but anyways , just real quick .
People always hear pastors like at conferences , like oh , that next Sunday when I got an email , nobody emails me that kind of stuff , Am I not important ?
You're not bold enough .
Nobody emails me things like pastor . You shouldn't have said that . Normally it's like just you know , dominoes trying to sell me a pizza and I always fall for it I always get a pizza .
It's crazy . Happy Easter . Happy Easter , Well , we hope you're having a great , fantastic Easter . Or , if you're listening a little later in the week , we hope you had a great and fantastic Easter . We wanted to do just kind of a quicker episode of just all about Easter . So real quick , the main thing what is the meaning of ?
Easter , jake . Easter is set aside in the church calendar as a day that the entire church comes together , and when I say church , I mean the entire church .
All across the world , christians gather and we celebrate that Jesus Christ , the Messiah , who was sent to this earth to die for the sins of all mankind , was buried on Good Friday after he had been crucified and rose from the dead , which is so significant in Christianity .
Paul even said in 1 Corinthians 15 , verses 12 and 13 , he said Now , if Christ is proclaimed as raised from the dead , how can some of you say there is no resurrection from the dead Verse 13 , if there is no resurrection of the dead , that not even Christ has been raised .
And if Christ has not been raised , then our proclamation is in vain and so is your faith . Paul literally is saying that if Jesus didn't rise from the dead , what's the point of of being a church person ? Um , so if there is no , you know , resurrection , then there really is nothing else .
Yeah , if there's no Easter , there's nothing . It reminds me of Lee Strobel's famous book Case for Christ , and if you don't like to read , there's a movie . I believe it's still on Netflix . I could be wrong about that , but fine , it's called Case for Christ and it's a biopic .
My favorite kind of movie and Lee Strobel , who we all know as a very profound Christian , was an atheist who became a Christian , trying to study and trying to disprove at the start was the resurrection . Because he's like man , if the resurrection doesn't happen , then it's a house of cards .
And when he couldn't disprove the resurrection he goes well , maybe then Jesus didn't die . And then he proves that Jesus died and he did resurrect and he took that step of faith and now he's a believer . Best-selling author the whole nine yards .
And so when you read that , I think of Lee Strobel's testimony of just trying to really disprove Jesus in itself so that the whole house of cards could fall down and ended up becoming a believer and a disciple of Jesus himself , amen . So we do hope you're having , like I said , a great Easter because he is risen .
But one of the things I want to talk about is the fact that Easter is still a sacred holiday . It's one of the very few . I really can only think of like three sacred holidays and it's Christmas , it's Easter and it's Thanksgiving . Do you think of any more ?
Well , you know , collectively , no , there's people that hold other dates . You know , sacred but truth . I was kind of thinking Super Bowl .
But , collectively .
those are the few holidays that people really hold to , and you see it out in culture . You know I was out at my son's baseball game the other day and you know our coach was , you know , going over our schedule and telling us all the different days we'd be practicing and playing games , and he said but obviously we won't do anything on Easter Sunday .
And I just was so thankful to hear that out loud because we need sacred days , we need moments that are set aside , and Easter is definitely one of those days that you'll see folks get up with their family and go to church together .
And you know I've been in church my whole life , so this may not mean as much to you as it does to me , but I just love a normal day at church and to me Easter . One thing that makes it special is it's a day at church with your church family praising the name of the Lord .
Yeah , no , it's fantastic Easter can think of . I watched this movie on Pure Flix Last D Now actually and it was called Church People and like the main plot was like they're planning an Easter service and they're like man , what's the big thing can we do ? Last year we shot a cannonball . Last year we gave out a car .
Last year we did this and and it's , it's obviously satire and well , this year they were gonna like have a crucifixion . Now , not really a very funny .
I watched that at the church .
We watched it yeah , over the summer we did like a movie night okay yeah , it's a great and what ended up like they're planning it turned into a very special Easter service because it changed from the theatrics to vulnerable people coming to Christ and really that's what Easter is about .
Like I love the fact that man , he is risen and he died for our sins and he rose on the third day and like that's the message .
But really why we celebrate Easter so much is , yes , because Jesus rose , but what it means to us , like and it's , it's why it's a tree and it's why , like , we'll come to church together and there'll be plenty of people who hear the gospel message and we we will know that people got saved on Easter Sunday , whether it's at our church or whether it's at a
different church around the world , because they heard the gospel message and God does what God does with that message and people will be saved . And so what are some traditions ? Do you have any like Easter traditions ?
Yeah , so you know different churches that I've served in . Easter was busier than others and some days it wasn't . But we try to make Sunday kind of a low-key day for our family where we go home and we just spend time together as a family . We may read a passage about Easter , my wife might cook lunch , a passage about Easter , my wife might cook lunch .
But truthfully I want it to just be a time when we're together and setting it aside as a holy day for us to just live in gratitude .
You know , I look at some of my journals that I've written and I love to read whatever I wrote on Easter Sunday because it's a day where I can just breathe deep and be reminded that , no matter what's happening , that Jesus is Lord . But you know , I remember being a kid , you know , going to my grandmother's house .
She was Church of Christ and then my other grandparents went to a different Baptist church , so we went to three different churches , but on that day we would always come together at her house and just enjoy being together . So I have a lot of fond Easter memories .
I remember a year when we were foster parents where we were able to have the mother of one of our children that were in our house come and spend Easter lunch with us and we got to see the merging of two Easter cultures . And when she started breaking Easter eggs on people's heads , I thought this is against the rules .
And I was like no , that's just the way they do their Easter . Um , so very , very happy to do it and and , and I hope , I hope everybody can at least take some time to just get some good rest this weekend . Um , but also , um , just remember how blessed we are as Christians . How about you , what are your traditions ?
I don't . I don't really have any Easter traditions . I don't remember even having Easter traditions . It was always a day , like you know , we went to church and I had to wear a button-up shirt as a child , which , if you know me , I absolutely hated . That , oh , I couldn't stand it . But really like now it's .
It's a very low-key , like , like you said , kind of Sunday . You know , working at a church I kind of get to do what I want to on Easter . We'll have two services this Easter and I don't fret at that , I'm not any way about it , other than I just like it .
I love getting to go to church and I love getting to see all the people that go to church and because we live in a small community , we don't really have that many strangers coming to church . I'm able to just say hi to everybody and then , once church is over , man , I just get to rest .
I think last year because , to be honest , me and Mal we're coming off an event , off our Easter retreat , and I think we door dashed Papa John's last year and just watched , you know , passion of the Christ and then also watched a funny movie after that , because that movie is very heavy .
Hey , you know what we should watch ? We should watch Dumb and Dumber After Passion of the Christ , oh my goodness .
I meant like a Christian funny movie , but you know , whatever it's all good brother . But I mean so not really many traditions , but really just kind of family-oriented , family-centered .
I would love to get invited to someone's house for Easter lunch , but that means I have to be willing to feed seven people so chances are we'll be eating at our house .
Yeah , and if they invite me , I eat for seven , so it's just it's a very weird deal .
They invite both of us to cook it for 14 . Real
¶ Easter Blessings and Encouragement
bad , real bad .
But anyways , um man , I know I've said it before , but I really hope that this Easter has been good for you and for your family , cause I also know for the serious aspect of it .
Like I know this might be for one of you listeners the only time you get to have your whole family at church , and , man , I just want to encourage you like thank you for what you do . Because of your persistence and because of this special holiday , they got to hear the gospel and so we love you .
We hope again , I hope you have a great Easter and we will see you guys soon and be looking forward to next Sunday . Next Sunday it's not Easter Sunday , but I promise you it's going to be a very special Sunday and we've got a special podcast after that Sunday to talk about it even more . But we're really excited about it .
We're really excited about Easter and we're really excited about what God's going to do these next coming weeks . So be ready for that . Love you guys , take care and see you soon .