Easter Sunday Morning

Snow fell on the Sandias yesterday, last night and may still be falling this morning. It's overcast and rainy here in the foothills. For those hardy souls who made it to a sunrise service somewhere outside, they won't see the sun. Maybe they had a place inside to "celebrate."

When we lived in El Paso, we went to every sunrise service our little church held on top of Mount Franklin. It was always cold, and I hated going. My whole family hated going. At that time of our lives we thought we had to be wherever the church was meeting every time it met. After leaving El Paso I vowed I'd never go to another sunrise service, and I haven't.

This year our church held a last supper meal on Thursday, a Good Friday service and this morning's service is at 9:00, and we went and are going to those. They having a sunrise service right now, a breakfast and after class will have an Easter egg hunt. We missed the SSS, the breakfast and will miss the hunt.

I've been disappointed on how much of the content of the services so far have been pointing at my sins and the sins of the world that put Jesus on the cross. Somehow I felt Easter was becoming about me more than Him. And I disagree that sin alone is what put Jesus on the cross.

Adam and Eve were sinless and had a great place to live and a wonderful relationship with God. When God said it was not good for man to be alone, He knew that because He'd experienced it. God wanted relationship with mankind. When Adam and Eve took it upon themselves to disobey, that relationship had to be changed because God is holy and man wasn't holy any longer.

This is the way I see it. Jesus came to re-establish man's relationship with God. To do that He had to take the sinful nature of man into his body--my sinful nature, yours, everyones--so God could have relationship with us again. Relationship is what Easter is all about. I now have the opportunity, without a High Priest and without an animal sacrifice, to have relationship with God. I hope the preacher talks about that this morning. Even if he doesn't, that's what I'll be thinking about.