Today's Devotional
This week while walking through my neighborhood, I’ve begun noticing pink buds growing on trees, flowers blooming in seas of color and St. Augustine turning from dormant brown to green carpets of grass. It must be Easter time! It feels like Easter! Everything is bright and new after a long winter. Thank goodness!
But we’re not quite ready for Easter celebrations just yet, are we? We’re finishing a time of preparation and waiting – our season of Lent – so that we can fully understand the sacrifice that was made and so that we may continue to be formed by that sacrifice in our own lives.
I remember years ago, early in my discipleship journey, a wise and beloved United Methodist teacher, Gloria Thomas, taught me, “we must walk through the passion of Holy Week to truly understand the joy Easter brings.” We must remember Jesus’ final days of challenge, teaching, betrayal and torture to fully wake to the resurrection on Easter morning.
This teaching forever changed my understanding of sin and restoration, evil and goodness, darkness and light. Jesus paid a heavy price for us to be Easter people, washed by his blood, redeemed and forgiven. May we find our way in the darkness this week as we remember, and may we awaken as children of the light on Sunday morning.
— Mrs. Kim Brannon, Conference Lay Leader, NTC
ksbrannon@sbcglobal.net
