SPRING HAS SPRUNG!

New Life is all around us.

The definition of spring is:  To move upward or forward in a single quick motion or a series of such motions; leap: To issue or emerge suddenly: The season of the year between winter and summer, during which the weather becomes warmer and plants revive.

This describes spring as both the action, and the season. It also describes why we celebrate Easter. Because up from the grave He, (Jesus Christ) arose! Spring is a reminder of new beginnings, or new life. The emergence of flowers, plants and grass, renews our hope, that, with the coming of spring, things will be better than they were during the long, hard, cold winter. During January, the bills start coming in from our overspending during the Holidays, and February is so cold and lifeless, it often leaves people feeling very depressed, with nothing to lift up their spirits. Then the month of March arrives, and with it on the twentieth day, the first official day of spring. From there, slowly but surely, the days get warmer, and we see an emergence of new life. The Easter season is just around the corner, and children are anxious, awaiting the promised new clothes, and the Easter egg hunts, where sweets and prizes will be found hidden inside the eggs.

How many of them know the real reason we celebrate the Easter season, or why we even have Easter eggs, new clothes and such?  According to Wikipedia: Eggs, in general, were a traditional symbol of fertility and rebirth, in Christianity, for the celebration of Eastertide, Easter eggs symbolize the empty tomb of Jesus, from which Jesus resurrected. In addition, one ancient tradition was the staining of Easter eggs with the color red “in memory of the blood of Christ, shed as at that time of his crucifixion.” This custom of the Easter egg can be traced to early Christians of Mesopotamia, and from there it spread into Russia and Siberia through the Orthodox Churches, and later into Europe through the Catholic and Protestant Churches.

My mother taught me this poem, she learned as a small child, back in the 1920’s.

Spring has Sprung!

Spring is sprung, the grass is riz,
I wonder where the flowers is?

And everywhere are signs of spring.
The little boid is on the wing.

“gee ma’am but that absoid!
I thought the wing was on the boid!”

 

She loved spring, the planting flowers, and all the wonderful colors that manifested themselves, with the new life which abounded during this time of year. She also was intent that her children would understand what the Easter season was all about. It was the promise of new life, given as a gift from Jesus Christ, with His death, burial, and resurrection. We would get the traditional Easter baskets and new clothes, but we would wear those new clothes to Church to celebrate the wonder and privilege of the gift of new and eternal life, offered to us by the sacrifice of Jesus Christ.

How do you celebrate Easter at your house? Are there Easter baskets, and egg hunts? Do you and your children get new clothes? Where do you wear them, to Church, out to eat, or dinner at Grandma and Grandpa’s?  How much do you and your children know about the emergence of new life, that they can have as a gift, if accepted, from Jesus Christ?

The season of spring is here one day and gone the next, but the new life it represents can be yours for eternity, if you accept the gift that is offered to you, through the blood of Jesus Christ.

Therefore if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature: old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new. II Corinthians 5:17

As parents, we understand that this is the new life which is promised to each and every one of us, if we accept Christ as our personal Saviour. This is what Easter is all about, and we still have time to teach our children what it means, and celebrate the true meaning of Easter with them.

We as authors, we have been part of the degradation of each and every one of the Holidays. These use to be held in reverence and celebrated with the true meaning of said Holidays, instead of the commercialism we see today. Let’s take a page out of the past and put the reverence back into Easter and Christmas.

For, lo, the winter is past, the rain is over and gone;

The flowers appear on the earth; the time of the singing of birds is come, and the voice of the turtle is heard in our land;

Song of Solomon 2:11&12

 Therefore I say unto you, Take no thought for your life, what ye shall eat, or what ye shall drink; nor yet for your body, what ye shall put on. Is not the life more than meat, and the body than raiment?

Behold the fowls of the air: for they sow not, neither do they reap, nor gather into barns; yet your heavenly Father feedeth them. Are ye not much better than they?

Which of you by taking thought can add one cubit unto his stature?

And why take ye thought for raiment? Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow; they toil not, neither do they spin:

And yet I say unto you, That even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these.

Wherefore, if God so clothe the grass of the field, which to day is, and to morrow is cast into the oven, shall he not much more clothe you, O ye of little faith?

Therefore take no thought, saying, What shall we eat? or, What shall we drink? or, Wherewithal shall we be clothed?

(For after all these things do the Gentiles seek:) for your heavenly Father knoweth that ye have need of all these things.

But seek ye first the kingdom of God, and his righteousness; and all these things shall be added unto you.

Matthew 6:25-33

Jesus answered and said unto him, Verily, verily, I say unto thee, Except a man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God.

John 3:3

Being born again, not of corruptible seed, but of incorruptible, by the word of God, which liveth and abideth for ever.

I Peter 1:23

 

 

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