Where's Jesus?

If you know me well you've already heard this before and if you know me less then you'll be educated.  I do not care for holidays.

While Mother's day is the "holiday" for which I hone my sharpest darts (this blog will come later with much spit and vinegar) with Christmas following a close second I suppose that Easter will slide in to third safely.  These "holidays" are little more than man-made efforts to get me to buy greeting cards, flowers, gifts that I can't afford and marshmallows that have been shaped in to everything but the Mona Lisa.  I guess the Easter season has my motor running faster than Steppenwolf's  and I'm having to look in the mirror to see my own guilty face staring back because I've got a huge shopping bag full of everything for Easter that is not Jesus.  I've got chocolate rabbits and chocolate footballs and marshmallow peeps and stuff from Bath and Body Works for my daughter-in-law's basket.  I've got skittles and starbursts for the boys and a chocolate covered something or other for Larry.  I've got a little scented candle and some lip gloss for my mother (actually it was a buy one get one free at B&BW so mother is going to be the recipient of the free part along with some little snicker bars and bright pink peeps.)   I've got plastic eggs that look like little animals from Noah's ark so do I get points for that? Of course not. I've got Reece's Pieces in a plastic  bag that's shaped like a big carrot; I'm not sure who will get those yet.  I've got everything but Jesus in the basket.

Have you ever stopped to wonder what Jesus must think about us when He looks down at His creation and all he sees is us standing 10-deep in line at Walmart with our pre-lit Christmas trees and tinsel and stuffed bunnies and plastic baskets so that we can celebrate HIS BIRTH AND RESURRECTION? Have you taken a look around when you are trying to decide if you want milk chocolate or dark to see if there was virtually any sign of why we are celebrating?  I know that some stores will throw Him a sop by having a token Nativity scene or two squeezed in between the Disney stockings and dancing Santas but at Easter you are not even going to find a token in your major stores; although I will have to say that at the dollar store I saw chocolate praying hands...I even bought two of them  but when you think about it even that carries the scent of clever marketing to get my dollar.  Chocolate praying hands?  I've even seen chocolate crosses and that just about takes me to a level of hypocracy that I am not comfortable with.  The Jesus that I know did not die to be commemorated with a chocolate cross.  We have sanitized these so-called "holidays" until they are so far from the truth that if we were to discover a civilization in the deepest, darkest jungles of somewhere, anywhere, that had never heard of Christmas and Easter, and we brought them to America during one of those two shopping seasons do you think they would have even the remotest clue as to why all this "stuff" was displayed like carnival fare in the windows of our shopping establishments?  Sometimes I think that we have gotten so far away from what Christmas and Easter actually mean that even WE can't distinguish truth from fantasy.

I'm pretty sure that when we get to Heaven that there won't be any holidays celebrated, or, at least there won't be any dancing Santas or marshmallow peeps.  Sorry to disappoint you peep lovers but I just don't think they're going to make the cut at the table of plenty.  There will be a celebration all right, but it will be focused on Him alone, with none of the human trappings of plastic and goo that we have allowed our own personal Jesus to become buried in.  I'm sorry if this wasn't the Easter message that you would have expected in my blog--don't read it on Mother's Day unless you want your ears to sizzle.  I don't even want to think about it right now, that holiday just makes my pressure go up like a Roman candle.

Have a blessed Easter!  He is indeed risen and He loves you very much! (and yes, we will be eating peeps tomorrow...)