Beautiful, Scandalous Night...

Happy Beautiful Scandalous Easter
This Easter think about what it means that Jesus arose from the dead. Without such news the cross would mean little, well actually nothing. We are in desperate need of a risen Savior. Think about how everything first fell apart in the Garden with Adam & Eve. And the very first time the risen Savior is seen He is mistaken for a gardener, that is beautiful irony. In just the first few chapters of Genesis mankind had exited shamefully from the Garden and man has spent the remaining chapters of the Book and life to get back to the Garden. A paradise, a peace, a hope, a Love that is unconditional and because of this thing we called Easter also known as a "Beautiful, Scandalous Night"..

At the wonderful, tragic, mysterious tree On that beautiful, scandalous night you and me Were atoned by His blood and forever washed white On that beautiful, scandalous night

Dont let this go by us so easily this year. Take a quiet time with a sunset and let your heart and mind go those moments on the cross. The movie Passion doesnt (and cannot) touch the emotional & spiritual pain that took place in Christ solely for you and me Beyond the Easter Bunny, candies, nice dinners, church service there is more so much more..In closing Steven James sums it up just right..

The bunny has upstaged the rabbi and stolen the show. The search for plastic eggs has replaced the search for a missing body. Easter has evolved into just another nice,harmless,spineless. little holiday with the climax being a bunch of snot-nosed kids fighting over a piece of chocolate, when its supposed to be about a wrestling match between life & death, a cosmic struggle between good and evil. Easter has lots of lilies and spring hats and piles of fake, green, curly plastic grass stuff, but none of that has anything to do with the raw reality of a bloody cross and the final hope of the empty tomb. The truth is most people just aren't moved by the Easter story anymore. Its like we've walked in at the end of the movie and we just don't get what all the fuss is about. "Is something wrong?" The people who are crying shake their heads. "Then why are you crying?"..the empty tomb doesn't make sense without the cross, the cross doesn't make sense without the manger in Bethlehem and the manger doesn't make sense without the Garden of Eden. Its All one story. And only when you finally untangle it, see its scope, and enter it for yourself do you realize that the story has finally entered and at last untangled you."- Steven James (Story)
Easter such a Beautiful, Scandalous Night...
"Go on up to the mountain of mercy *To the crimson perpetual tide *Kneel down on the shore Be thirsty no more* Go under and be purified*Go on up to the mountain of mercy *To the crimson perpetual tide *Kneel down on the shore* Be thirsty no more Go under and be purified"