What’s your story?
I wonder how you’re spending this Easter weekend. Will you be launching a major DIY project, digging for victory in the garden, hunting for Easter eggs, cooking up a family feast, or joining a church for the journey from Jesus’ cross to his empty tomb? Perhaps you’ll try to do it all, or something completely different. Everyone will have their own unique Easter story this weekend.
It was the same for the people experiencing the very first Easter: no two of their stories were identical.
The soldiers guarding Jesus’ tomb fainted with shock when an angel came and rolled the stone away.
Some of the women finding the tomb empty swung between terror and amazement.
Other women grasped what they were being told and were the first to tell the rest of the disciples that Jesus was alive.
Two disciples, heading home to a village in Emmaus, met Jesus on the road and recognised him when they shared a meal together.
Thomas, who would have been an excellent forensic scientist, examined Jesus’ wounds, and believed.
And Peter, a fisherman, was reunited with Jesus at the end of a night’s fishing.
Everyone had their own unique story that first Easter. Everyone needed something slightly different in order to believe.
Finding faith is not a case of ‘one size fits all’. We’re all different and need slightly different things in order to believe. The Easter stories tell us that Jesus understands this; that he keeps showing up until each of his friends has just what they need to know that he’s alive.
And so, alongside the DIY-wrangling, jungle-taming, chocolate-consuming, feast-prepping, and church going – alongside whatever this weekend holds for you – I hope there’s also space for your own bespoke Easter story with Jesus.
Ask him what you need in order to believe. I pray that the risen Jesus – who wants you to know his new life, and your own – will give you just that.
Happy Easter!