NIPTO, Day 56-Easter!

AHHHHH. so. Today is EASTER! The resurrection... If Jesus had died, but wasn't raised from the dead, today would mean nothing. Nada. Zip. Zilch. BUT... because Jesus died and was resurrected, today is a very special day. (that's geek language for begin rant) BUT (again... I know) Easter has become commercialized and it's ridiculous. If Jesus hadn't died, there would be no Easter. Today would just be another Sunday. I just saw this on facebook. A friend posted it. "Obama Removes Jesus from Easter Message". That got me angry. He literally took Jesus out of a message. He made it "civilized" and "politically correct" or whatever. I don't care. I'm a barbarian (warrior princess in training) that doesn't like it when things get civilized. I would really encourage you to go read that article. It's not super long. But it is significant I think. Easter has become a holiday about candy and a bunny and pastel colors. I mean, who though up the bunny? Really? A bunny?  It's a bunch of crap. Easter is about Jesus' death and resurrection and it shouldn't be about anything more than that.  Here is the video of President Obama's address titled "Holiday Greetings." It's Passover... it's Easter. Just say Passover and Easter greetings for heavens sake! Mmh. I watched it. It just does not sit right with me. It's all nice and covered over. Ufh. I'm all twitchy irritated right now. I want to have my dad look at this and give his opinion as a pastor. Maybe he can be my "guest blogger" =P I don't like politics. I never want to go into politics. I don't like politics because I don't like conflict and that's basically what politics is (are?). GAH. Okay. (geek language for end rant)

Man. Rants take up time. I got distracted then the Karen (Ka-Ren) girls get here... (I should write a post about them...) and now it's almost 11. WHEW. Time to get to some NIPTO. Thankfully I don't have to do school tomorrow since the Karen girls are here. Okay. ONWARDS:

The Resurrection:
Matthew 28:1-20


The women, Mary Magdalene and the "other Mary," go to the tomb on Sunday morning to properly prepare Jesus' body to be buried. They get there and they see an angel whose "appearance was like lightning" and "his clothes were white as snow." If I saw an angel whose appearance was like lighting, I'd be terrified. But the angel told the women that Jesus wasn't there, that he had risen, and that they should go tell the disciples. While the women go back to tell the disciples, a few of the guards who had been guarding the tomb go to the chief priests and tell them what happened. The priests tell the guards to tell anyone who asks that Jesus' disciples came during the night and stole his body. Wow. Blatant lies. Crazy.




Mark 16:1-20


Same deal here. But it's a little different. Mark says that another woman was there. I'm guessing that there were a bunch of women there, but the writers only mention the ones that we know well. In this account when the women go to tell the disciples it says that they were trembling and bewildered and that "they said nothing to anyone, because they were afraid.


Luke 24:1-53


Luke tells about the women. The women go and tell the disciples. The disciples don't believe the womens' tale because they're men and the women make up such far fetched stories. But Peter got up and went to Jesus' tomb, looked in, saw that Jesus wasn't there and he walks away "wondering to himself what had happened." Jesus told them multiple times that he was going to die and that he was going to be raised from the dead. But they still don't get it. Crazy. The women remembered what he said, but Peter is still wondering to himself.
The men on the road to Emmaus don't recognize Jesus because he kept his identity from them.... and they were kind of convinced that Jesus was dead... except for the fact that he wasn't in the tomb anymore.
Then Jesus goes to the disciples. They're kinda stunned... they think he's a ghost. He eats some fish to prove that he's a human being... he explains what happened. Everything's cool.




John 20:1-31


The beginning of John's account is much more like Luke's. The middle is different. And the end is pretty much the same as the other 3.
John starts with Mary going to the tomb, not being able to find Jesus, going to the disciples, Peter going to the tomb. In the middle, Mary sees Jesus but doesn't recognize him. All it takes for her to recognize him is him saying her name. Sometimes Jesus/God says our name, but we don't recognize his voice because we're so out of tune to it. We need to be in tune to Jesus' voice.
The end of the chapter is pretty much the same: Jesus revealing himself to the disciples. Jesus also revealed himself to Thomas who didn't believe that Jesus had risen and that he was actually alive. Thomas wanted the proof of the holes in Jesus' hands and side to know that he was really alive. Jesus gave it to him... a week later. Sometimes we doubt, but God will give us the proof/faith that we need to believe. But it might take some time.

*yawn* I think that's all for tonight. It's late and I still have to get ready for bed... I get to make pancakes in the morning. Pancakes are my speciality! (Spe-ci-al-it-y).

I hope you had a fantastic Easter weekend. I know I did! (Minus my sister going back to school, but that can't be helped.)
Your faithful, usually late posting, yet still faithful, blogger,