A Road Less Travelled

Yesterday was the Sunday we specially celebrate the resurrection of our Jesus. Some call it Easter Sunday. Some call it Resurrection Sunday. Some, like me, aren’t sure we like Easter Sunday, but think Resurrection Sunday is too clunky a title. I was thinking about writing a post Saturday that would publish on Sunday that would be all “Hooray! Jesus has risen!”, but then I didn’t. I’m glad I didn’t because I think today I have more to say.

Saturday was a bad night. Justice kept getting up and causing trouble and Seth and Crystal were out so I was dealing with him. By the time Seth was there to take care of it I was so wound up I couldn’t fall asleep. And when I did I woke up not too long after for no apparent reason. Plus I heard my first gunshots of the season. Saturday was a bad night.

This, of course, makes Sunday a really cranky morning. As I was up and doing things my crankiness diminished, but I became emotionally fragile and was kind of out of it for all of worship. After worship we were going to go home, put two kinds of really yummy potatoes in the oven and then go down to the Lansberry’s for Easter dinner coming back for the potatoes when they were done. So we were hanging out together waiting for food to cook and snacking which is usually really fun. But this Sunday I was really out of it, a couple of the other grownups were really out of it and Justice was a horrible screaming mess. Remember how he didn’t sleep well the night before? Yeah, it caught up with him in a big way. So we were looking at not even being able to make it to when the food was done before someone had to leave with a child. I was really bummed. Our Easter dinner was shaping up to be a big bummer of a stressful meal.

But then James mentioned that we could put Justice in Margary’s crib. The potatoes were fetched from our house and were right yummy. And then we sat down to eat and the mood of the day improved drastically. We had a leisurely meal and just sat around the table together for almost three hours. Justice got woken up accidentally, but when he came down he had turned into a happy guy and suffered himself to be fed some of the really yummy potatoes. My bad-bad, cranky, no-good Easter Sunday dinner turned into a joy.

This is redemption. This is why Jesus came and lived and died. Our lives were buzzing along, out of control and painful, full of bummers and crankiness and really bad nights. I have tried to picture what my life would look like apart from Jesus washing me clean and it’s bad, but it’s a very low-grade sort of bad. My life wouldn’t be an evil you could see and point to. It would just be full of bad-bad, cranky, no-good days. Nothing would go how I wanted it to and I would pour my life out being bummed. It is a pathetic picture, like how our dinner was shaping up.

But Jesus did come and He did live a perfect life and He did die a gruesome death. I don’t have to lead that pathetic, cranky life. I can sit around a table with my family and enjoy an afternoon spent in their company even though it didn’t start how I wanted it to. I don’t have to stay in my crankiness. Jesus has come and He has died to save me from my crankiness and He is risen. He rose to go to Heaven and rule over my days and my nights. To redeem them from their cranky beginnings and makes something beautiful out all the ugliness. He is risen! He is risen indeed!