#9 - Exalting Easter (Part 2) - Remembering the Resurrection

Barbara Rainey's Top 10 Interviews

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Exalting Easter (Part 1) - Making the Most of Easter
Exalting Easter (Part 2) - Remembering the Resurrection

FamilyLife Today® Radio Transcript

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Remembering the Resurrection

Guest: Barbara Rainey

From the series: Ideas for Celebrating Easter (Day 2 of 5)

Air date: March 28, 2017

Bob: The great hymn writer, Isaac Watts, knew the significance of Jesus’ death and resurrection—he wrote: “When I survey the wondrous cross, on which the Prince of Glory died, my richest gain I count as loss, and pour contempt on all my pride.” Here’s Barbara Rainey.

Barbara: When you think about what Jesus did for us, we should be speechless; we should be in awe; we should fall on our faces. That’s the kind of experience / that’s the kind of emotion—that’s what I think we need in Easter. It shouldn’t be a holiday that we just kind of say, “Oh, well.” We need to feel some of what Jesus felt; and we need to be in awe; and we need to marvel over what He did for us.

Bob: This is FamilyLife Today for Tuesday, March 28th. Our host is the President of FamilyLife®, Dennis Rainey, and I'm Bob Lepine.

1:00

We’ll hear today from Barbara Rainey about things we can do to help prepare our hearts so that we can, indeed, marvel at all Christ has done as we celebrate His resurrection. Stay with us.

And welcome to FamilyLife Today. Thanks for joining us on the Tuesday edition. If this was last year, Easter would be over—or almost over.

Barbara: It would be; yes.

Bob: You know, one of the things that makes celebrating Easter more of a challenge for us is that it’s not on the same day every year!

Barbara: Yes.

Dennis: Right.

Bob: I mean, Thanksgiving moves—but it’s always the fourth Thursday in November.

Barbara: But it doesn’t ever change months.

Bob: Right.

Barbara: It’s always near the end of the month; so even if the date moves, it doesn’t move very far.

Bob: But Easter can be anywhere from, I think—March 22nd or 23rd—I think it’s about the earliest it can be—

Barbara: Yes; yes.

Bob: —to where it is now, which is April 16th—or even later than that.

2:00

Barbara: Oh, it can be later; because a couple of years ago, it was on the 23rd.

Bob: Well, it’s obvious we’ve got your wife joining us, again, this week on FamilyLife Today.

Barbara: Yes.

Bob: You just jumped right in; didn’t you?

Barbara: I did; yes! [Laughter]

Bob: This is one of those topics that you just jump in on, right from the start.

Barbara: Yes; I kind of care about this a little bit. [Laughter]

Bob: In fact, one of the things you’re hoping for this year is to motivate, equip, and inspire a lot of moms and dads to make Easter more central in their home, in the weeks leading up to the celebration of Jesus’ resurrection, but even, specifically, during Holy Week—

Barbara: Yes.

Bob: —and then during Easter weekend.

Barbara: Yes; that’s right. We’ve just totally missed—I’ve said it often in the last couple of years—that Jesus commanded us to remember His death and to focus on His resurrection. He never said that He wants us to celebrate His birth. And what have we done, as Christians? We’ve completely flipped it upside down, which is typical of us—to get what He said completely wrong—

3:00

—just realizing that we put so much time and energy in on Christmas, and He didn’t ask us to do that—and we put so little time and energy on celebrating Easter; and He did tell us to celebrate, and remember, and commemorate what He did for us. It’s kind of like: “Well, duh! Of course, we need to do more about Easter.”

I’m on a personal campaign for my own family to make Easter memorable / to make it a very big deal—to celebrate / to have a fancy meal. I don’t even know what we’re going to eat this year, but we’re going to knock it out of the park; because I just don’t want it to be an ordinary Sunday anymore. I want it to be something that really stands out in our memories—that that Sunday / Easter Sunday was like no other Sunday.

Bob: You have enlisted some help—you’ve put together a survey and started getting results back.

Barbara: I did; yes. Last spring, I sent out a survey to a fairly large group.

4:00

It’s probably not scientifically accurate; but nonetheless, we sent out a survey to a bunch of people that we know—who have used some of the products that we’ve created/the resources that we’ve created with their families—who seem to care about Easter and want to make more of Easter. I sent them a long list of questions, and I had so much fun reading their answers.

There were all kinds of really creative ideas for how to celebrate Easter and make it special, make it set apart, and make it different than any other Sunday. I compiled all of those. I’m hoping that we can get to some of the best ones, in the next couple of days, as we talk about this together; because there were some really good ideas—some that I’m going to adopt and do myself.

Bob: Can you give us an example of one?

Barbara: Yes; I would love to give you an idea. One family wrote and said that they acted out the Palm Sunday story every year with their kids. They got out the Bible—they read the story right out of the Bible of Jesus making His triumphal entry on the donkey into Jerusalem, with all of the palm branches and everything.

5:00

Acting it out at home is a little different than Palm Sunday at church, when...