easter.

Why did Jesus have to come to Earth, be crucified and be raised from the dead? I love Jesus and I am still a question asker to the most central belief as a Christian. I don’t believe this is an easy answer. If so everyone in the world would believe in Jesus.

This past Sunday, Easter Sunday, I was asked to speak at a Children’s Home called Kinder Paradise. It’s an orphanage about an hour from my house. It probably would have been a little closer if I hadn’t had to turn around three times, but that’s a different story.

So Gifty, Francesca and her mother Gabriella (Francesca works with the UN and is an Italian friend I have met through another expat friend here) ventured off never having gone to this orphanage before and honestly I didn’t have any expectations whatsoever.

I spent a great deal of time with the Lord this past week in preparation, which always happens when I’m asked to speak. See I get so nervous to say what God wants me to say and challenged for why I believe what I do, that it makes me spend so much time in prayer and studying. It’s wonderful to teach you learn so much! That’s when God revealed to me that we were going to talk about why He sent his son. Very fitting for this weekend.

Call me a cynical but, in the Christian faith there are a few phrases that repeated several times with no real expression can become ‘insignificant’ particularly during Easter Sunday. Try “He has Risen Praise God He has Risen," “He’s Alive,” or “Jesus’ blood paid the price for our Sins.” I have grown up in church my whole life and sometimes when people would say this, probably me too, I would think yeah yeah yeah I’ve heard that before…But since I’ve given my life back to God to do what He leads me to do, I have prayed that these words would sink down into the depths of my heart. That they wouldn’t be something that I just say but words that are alive and exciting in their truth.

Studying this week helped me remember you can’t talk about Jesus’ death without talking about his resurrection. He is Alive. We have hope in more than just this life there is more to come, but what about living our walk out while we're here...what does that look like? I am now a new person. Five years ago, on the floor of my apartment in Florida, crying uncontrollably after having my heart broken by a human I cried to God if he was real to please let me know Him. My whole life spent ‘saying’ the right things, growing up in church, surrounded by Christianity and I never got It or really wanted It until that night November 27, 2002. So when I say HE IS ALIVE I mean to say, as I look at who I was and the things I did before I knew Jesus I am in awe how God changes self consumed hearts and how what we have done was nailed to the cross with Jesus so that we are new creations. When I say Jesus’ BLOOD PAID THE PRICE I mean for you to hear that yes I believe that Jesus was sent to go through an excruciating and bloody beating and died for reasons I don’t fully understand but can see fruits of the Spirit being produced in my life and lives of others. I want you to hear there’s so much more to being a Christian than growing up in the Bible Belt learning what you should and shouldn’t do to be a ‘good Christian.’ I mean for you to hear that through Jesus’ death and resurrection we have purpose in our lives to live for this ‘invisible Father’ and we can break free from things we don’t want to do anymore. When I say HE HAS RISEN PRAISE GOD HE HAS RISEN I want you to hear WOW there is more in this world than just me. There are other people suffering too and Something…Someone… cares about this and HE is making it right even when it doesn’t look like it. There’s more hope than in what we see and read in the media. There’s beauty that surrounds us everyday if we just open our eyes to see. Science, engineering, humanitarian relief, struggles, addictions, success, death, disease, promotions, relationships………….. He knows EVERYTHING.

Why did Jesus come, die and live? How about... relationship... this is what we talked about at the orphanage yesterday.

There were kids probably from around 2/3 years old up to I think 15/16. I had borrowed a demonstration asking three people questions wherein if they failed one question the forfeited and had to pay a price. But we didn’t tell them what the ‘price’ was until after the questions. The point hopefully got across about someone having to pay a penalty for those who didn’t answer every question right, who didn’t do everything perfect. But in the end the one who took the whip cream to the face gave the three question answers their prizes without taking any prize for himself.

It was a great time hanging out with those beautiful children. Words really can’t explain.