Wednesday, April 9, 2008
Luke 24:1 . . . bringing the spices which they had prepared.
EASTER PREPARATIONS
The celebration of Easter every year is the culmination of much preparation. The children can't have an egg hunt unless someone procures and hides the eggs. If you celebrate with colored eggs, someone has to color them. A special Easter meal will not take place unless someone fixes the food.
Even Jesus' disciples had to prepare the upper room in order to celebrate the Passover. Early Christians also recognized that preparation did much to help the celebration of Easter. As early as the second century, a fast was sometimes held for a period of two or three days before Easter. By the fourth century the time had been lengthened to forty days, although even then the fast was either modified or held only during Holy Week.
But on that first Easter morning neither Jesus' followers nor His enemies had really made any preparations for Easter. The enemies had made preparations for a body-snatching attempt by posting guards and sealing the stone. Jesus' followers had prepared spices to embalm the body of the Master, spices which they would not be able to use. They made preparations to gather around the body, and then could not find the body because the tomb was empty. He had risen.
When Jesus had spoken to them about His suffering and death and resurrection during the previous weeks, they had not understood. When Jesus began to tell them how He would suffer at the hands of the chief priests and leaders of the people, Peter tried to rebuke Him. And when He told Peter, James, and John not to tell anyone about his transfiguration until the Son of Man had risen from the dead, they kept discussing what "rising from the dead" meant (Mark 8-9).
Oh, there was much preparation all right! The Father had planned from eternity to send His Son. The Son had come, had preached and prepared, had lived and died in our name, as it had been foretold by the Spirit. There was much preparation for the first Easter, but it was made by God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. No wonder the multitude in John's vision are crying out: "Salvation belongs to our God, who sits on the throne, and to the Lamb" (Revelation 7:19).
"This is the day the Lord has made; let us rejoice and be glad in it" (Psalm 118: 24).
