Someone told me not long ago “Christmas is like the Super Bowl of Christianity”. I thought about that claim for a moment and replied “I think the Super Bowl is probably Easter…”. Though the Christmas season is profound in its own right, Easter is the single most impactful event in the history of the world. No event, no person, has changed the world more than Jesus and His redemptive work of loving sacrifice on the cross.
Easter is when we get to intentionally celebrate God’s big love and His good plan for humanity. It is God’s big love for us that set in motion His good plan. But I think sometimes-and maybe lots of times-I live like I have forgotten God’s love for me and for those around me. I can get stuck inside the chaos of all that is hard, all that is broken, all the things I wish to change but cannot. And at night I go to bed only to stay up until the early hours of the morning thinking about all the brokenness and pain once more. In those moments, I seemingly push aside the reality of God’s big love to shout “don’t you see all of this mess God?! All of this injustice?! Why is this person/ situation (or both) so freaking awful?!”. My ADHD and OCD (especially and always my OCD) sometimes feel like they have a stranglehold on each moment of the day, chasing me down and tackling me like a 300-pound lineman in the Super Bowl. It’s like I believe God is all at once too small, too fickle, and too weak to handle any of it.
It is only when I remember that this God is the same exact God who shifted the entire course of human history through his big love and good plan for us on Easter Sunday. God knew the world was broken and imperfect. None of this is a surprise or too much for Him. It’s because of His abundant love, the exact kind of love we celebrate on Easter, that we can trust that He sees us. He sees all of our pain, all of the weight we carry, all of our doubt and fear. Amidst all of that, God loves us unconditionally. So let us do the same. Let us reflect that same big love to a hurting and violent world. While we will never be perfect nor will our circumstances be perfect, we can trust that God’s big love is seen in His work of reconciliation on the cross—the work He did for you, for me, for every single person who breathes breath— is perfect.
