What’s The Craziest Easter You’ve Witnessed In Church?

Bob and I had this conversation yesterday. Of all the wild ways the Easter is played out in the church these days. For me, growing up in Chicago Irish-Catholicism, Easter was bigger than Christmas. It was truly the only day in the church that everyone was happy. Including the nuns.

When I moved south it took on an entire different feel. It was much more serious and theatrical. After all, church is a big deal down south. Plus down south they encourage you to bring your friends to church on Easter.  To that end, the church tries to use this as some kind of uber-recruiting tool. They seem to go all out trying to out do the other guy down the street. Here are some I’ve seen over the years.

• My favorite, Jesus being crucified on stage on Good Friday, then coming out of the tomb on Sunday. Excuse me, but if I was a CEO church goer (Christmas and Easter Only) why would that make me want to come more?
• One church built a tomb at the entry way of the church so people could be more serious and reverent. Ahhh guys? Have you ever been in a tomb or morgue? Yeah, that wouldn’t get me motivated to show up more. Kind of creepy.
• The sunrise service. This one always perplexed me. It’s a big deal in the south, cause it’s warmer I guess. (Look at those poor fools in Maine in this photo. So does worshiping on a frozen lake when it’s cold outside bring you closer to God?)  But you have to get up earlier than you normally do, put nicer clothes on earlier and watch bleary eyed while the sun comes up.  Why can’t we just do a sunset service. That way we could drink wine?
• Some final random thoughts… why do we wear our best clothes on Easter? Peter and the rest of the boys didn’t put on nice clothes that day. Plus I never saw Paul tell us to dress up.
• Where does the entire Easter egg hunt, bunny thing come from anyway? Was that why Peter was delayed in getting to the tomb? He was looking for Easter eggs on the way to the tomb that Mary hid while she went there on Sunday AM?

Okay, that should be enough. One final comment. This year, my church is doing 6 services between Saturday and Sunday. Our family is going to go on Saturday night in jeans. Then on Sunday morning, we’re going to sleep in, hide jelly beans for the kids, enjoy a nice leisurly morning of pancakes, cinnamon buns, coffee and orange juice.

Later on that day, we’ll cook ribs or burgers on the grill and crack open a bottle of wine.

All the while enjoying the FREEDOM Jesus gave us when He rose from the dead.

Now that’s worship.

Later-

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