The Journey Continues: Preparing for Easter & Beyond

This week’s column is written by my pastor, Dr. Chad Chaddick, pastor of First Baptist Church.

This week was Holy Week — a week that celebrates and remembers Jesus in his final days leading up to the cross. Palm Sunday was the first day of that week that celebrates and remembers God’s great salvation — first in the Exodus story at Passover and then in the beginning of the new covenant relationship made possible by Jesus.

So, Palm Sunday is a beginning and a day of preparation. It was the day the lambs were brought into Jerusalem in preparation for the Passover. Interestingly, most of them would have come from the regions of Bethlehem, raised by shepherds, some of whom probably told curious stories to one another about angelic visitations and a child in a manager. And this was the day that Jesus, the Lamb of God, born in Bethlehem, came into Jerusalem.

I want us to think about preparation, to not be stuck in a moment, thinking only about what we can’t do while we shelter at home. Let us see this moment as preparation. This season will pass. Will we be ready for what comes? For surely, something new and different is coming. We don’t know what, but we will move forward into something that is different than what we have left behind. You and I both know that you can’t go back again. We can only move forward, and the “forward” will be new. Will we be ready for it? Will we be ready to receive what God is going to do?

The events of Palm Sunday and Holy Week, culminating in Easter, give us guidance. The pathway of preparation begins with humility. The Christ enters Jerusalem on a humble donkey, not in front of a conquering army. In preparing for the future, humility is essential because the future that matters must ultimately be shaped by the one who is greater than all the circumstances in life — and it is before this one that we must conduct ourselves with humility — surrendering to divine will, trusting in the divine goodness and seeking the divine glory.

Thinking of surrender, is this not one of the lessons of Maundy Thursday? I suspect that we can relate to the Garden of Gethsemane better this year than in years past. The pandemic — has it not brought us all to our own Garden-moment? Facing our own mortality? Looking it squarely in the eye for perhaps the first time? And is our cry to God not the cry Christ made, “Father, if at all possible, let this cup pass from me?” Christ’s words certainly were deeper in significance than our own, and his thoughts higher than our thoughts; however, our words today are the same. We want a pass on this experience. We do not want to get sick. We do not want to suffer. We do not want to die. We want to live.

But what of surrender? Will we continue to speak like Jesus when he says “however, not my will but yours be done”? He utterly abandoned himself to God. Will we surrender all that we are and all that we hope to be to God? Will we surrender our dreams, not only for ourselves, but for the others in our lives? Complete abandonment. Total. Nothing held back. It is in the dark garden, facing death, that Christ, loving life, surrendered all. He calls us to face our own idols — to look honestly at ourselves: Do we trust God fully? Do we trust him with the work of our hands? Do we trust him with our family’s well-being? Do we trust him in the face of death?

The Lord Jesus Christ calls us onward and upward. He brings us to a letting go, a surrender to the goodness of God. Evil may come, but it is not beyond the power of God to redeem. He is good. The pathway of preparation leads from humility to full surrender. "Not my will but yours be done." Without these words we would not have the joy of Easter.

"For what I received I passed on to you as of first importance: that Christ died for our sins according to the scriptures, and that he was buried, and he was raised on the third day according to the scriptures.” I Corinthians 15:3-4