Easter - part one

Today is Good Friday.

It is one of only 2 days on the Australian calendar when the country takes a moment to rest. Shops stop selling, businesses close their doors and people take off to the country. I don't know what today means to you this Good Friday but for many Australians today is a time for family, a time to relax, unwind and have a few too many beers by the BBQ. These are all amazing things that I hope our culture never loses, it is a freedom so many in the world will never get and I have a cider sitting beside me as I write this.

But there is more to it than that.

Whoever you are, whatever you believe and whatever your thoughts are on Easter I want you to know I respect them and wish not to offend nor condemn anyone with what I am about to say. Please know that I love you all and think all opinions are valuable and encouraged so please don't disengage with me because of mine.

I have been attending church since I was adopted to a pastor and his wife when I was 5 months old. I became a christian when I was 4 years old and was baptised at 7. I attended a Christian school from year 1 to year 12 and I know all the bible stories back to front, so this God thing isn't new to me but there is one thing that gets me every single time.

Today I sat in an easter service with tears running down my face for the 22nd time in my life. You see, I cannot remember a single time that I have not been reduced to a blubbering mess at the realisation of the story of easter. So often I question my value, I look to men to validate my worth and I see myself mared through the lenses of society. I feel inadequate, awkward and unlovable most of the time and at the deepest part of my heart I wonder if I will ever truly be enough. I don't know if anyone else feels that way but today as I sat in that service I was overcome with a brand new wave of love. A love that has been washing over me since I can remember but a love that I so often choose to ignore. You see, today is not just about family or rest or chocolate, though they are definitely important parts (especially the chocolate), today is about so much more than that, Today is about God becoming a man and taking a break from the clouds to pick up the tab for the brokenness of humanity. Today is a story of hope, today is a story of rescue, today is a story that tells us that we are enough. We are worth dying for, we are not alone.

I don't know where you find yourself today, if you are surrounded by family and friends or trying desperatly to hold it together on one of the few days you cannot pretend you don't lack those very things. I don't know your story, I don't know the reasons you cry yourself to sleep a night or the insecurities that sit just below the layers of makeup you carefully apply every morning. I don't know why Good Friday may find you nowhere near 'Good'

But here is what I do know.

I know of both the divinity of God and the humanity of Jesus. I know that over 2,000 years ago a man laid down his life not only to buy you a golden ticket to some far off promise land but to take on the burdens you feel in your everyday. In your today. There is hope, and it is not whimsical or fleeting, it is strong like an anchor and rooted in the love of a saviour who cared deeply about not only your future but your present. He doesn't ask you to make a more regal appearance at a more appropriate time, he faced the pit long before we ever got there and this day 2,000 years ago he declared

"It is finished."

And in some ways it was but in so many ways it was just the beginning.