Celebrating Easter like we do Christmas
If you’re anything like our family, Christmas is a huge event that is anticipated with excitement with decorations all over the house, and traditional countdowns to Christmas day in the form of multiple advent calendars. There’s much to do about Christmas, but when we ponder on our Easter traditions then we’re left lacking quite a bit.
Last year (2023), one of our church leaders, Elder Gary E. Stevenson, shared some thoughts about how his family came to realize that they needed to focus more on Easter given its significance. That left my wife and I pondering as well how we honor Jesus Christ at Easter and if we are short-changing that most sacred of holidays with the justification that we already celebrated Jesus at Christmastime.
New Testament scholar N. T. Wright wrote, “We should be taking steps to celebrate Easter in creative new ways: in art, literature, children’s games, poetry, music, dance, festivals, bells, special concerts. … This is our greatest festival. Take Christmas away, and in biblical terms you lose two chapters at the front of Matthew and Luke, nothing else. Take Easter away, and you don’t have a New Testament; you don’t have a Christianity.”
It is true that Christmas is a special time as it should be, but my wife and I have committed to making Easter more special than we have in the past. So my wife came up with this idea: just like we have advents at Christmas, why not have an advent focused on the life of Jesus Christ helping us build the anticipation for the blessed day of resurrection on Easter Sunday? With my wife’s creative juices and artistic abilities, she produced this beautiful Easter Advent tree for us to build a new family tradition around.
Each ornament includes both an image and a referenced scripture verse that our family can read together each night for the days leading up to Easter Sunday. Adding them to the beautiful, acrylic tree makes them stand out as one of our new favorite Easter centerpieces.
We’re excited to share these special scripture verses together and ponder on how Jesus Christ really is our Savior and Redeemer. We hope you feel the power of those verses as you gather with your families this Easter.
