Jesus is Risen! Let's Celebrate That.

Easter is my favorite day of the year. It became my favorite day when I was a child because it was so exciting at church: sunrise service, redressing the altar, breakfast with a plethora of egg bakes, joyful songs, alleluias abounding, and the delightful call and response of “Christ is risen.” “He is risen indeed. Alleluia!”

Then I met Jesus in a real way. My excitement moved beyond the extravagant tradition to the miracle. Jesus raised himself from the dead! Here's the story according to Jesus' good friend John:

Early on Sunday morning,^[a] while it was still dark, Mary Magdalene came to the tomb and found that the stone had been rolled away from the entrance. ² She ran and found Simon Peter and the other disciple, the one whom Jesus loved. She said, “They have taken the Lord’s body out of the tomb, and we don’t know where they have put him!”³ Peter and the other disciple started out for the tomb. ⁴ They were both running, but the other disciple outran Peter and reached the tomb first. ⁵ He stooped and looked in and saw the linen wrappings lying there, but he didn’t go in. ⁶ Then Simon Peter arrived and went inside. He also noticed the linen wrappings lying there, ⁷ while the cloth that had covered Jesus’ head was folded up and lying apart from the other wrappings. ⁸ Then the disciple who had reached the tomb first also went in, and he saw and believed— ⁹ for until then they still hadn’t understood the Scriptures that said Jesus must rise from the dead. ¹⁰ Then they went home.

¹¹ Mary was standing outside the tomb crying, and as she wept, she stooped and looked in. ¹² She saw two white-robed angels, one sitting at the head and the other at the foot of the place where the body of Jesus had been lying. ¹³ “Dear woman, why are you crying?” the angels asked her.

“Because they have taken away my Lord,” she replied, “and I don’t know where they have put him.”
¹⁴ She turned to leave and saw someone standing there. It was Jesus, but she didn’t recognize him. ¹⁵ “Dear woman, why are you crying?” Jesus asked her. “Who are you looking for?”
She thought he was the gardener. “Sir,” she said, “if you have taken him away, tell me where you have put him, and I will go and get him.”
¹⁶ “Mary!” Jesus said.
She turned to him and cried out, “Rabboni!” (which is Hebrew for “Teacher”).
¹⁷ “Don’t cling to me,” Jesus said, “for I haven’t yet ascended to the Father. But go find my brothers and tell them, ‘I am ascending to my Father and your Father, to my God and your God.’”
¹⁸ Mary Magdalene found the disciples and told them, “I have seen the Lord!” Then she gave them his message.

¹⁹ That Sunday evening^[b] the disciples were meeting behind locked doors because they were afraid of the Jewish leaders. Suddenly, Jesus was standing there among them! “Peace be with you,” he said. ²⁰ As he spoke, he showed them the wounds in his hands and his side. They were filled with joy when they saw the Lord! ²¹ Again he said, “Peace be with you. As the Father has sent me, so I am sending you.” ²² Then he breathed on them and said, “Receive the Holy Spirit. ²³ If you forgive anyone’s sins, they are forgiven. If you do not forgive them, they are not forgiven.” (John 20:1-23)

He folded up the cloth because he was planning on returning. He didn’t disappear forever. In Jesus’ culture, when a master was eating his meal, a servant would be waiting to clear his plate. Once the master was done eating, he bunched up his napkin and threw it on his plate. Not uncommon in our day either. If the master got up to use the restroom or do something else before his finished his meal and did not want the servant to clear his place, he would fold the napkin. Then, the servant would know to wait for the master to return. Jesus folded his burial cloth to show his followers he was coming back! Alleluia!

I love Easter. I love the miracle. I love my Jesus who overcame death and offers life.

This year, Easter was drastically different from any other year. I spent it in Ghana. Instead of Midwestern egg bake, I ate fufu in groundnut soup. This is what it looked like:

Definitely not egg bake. Nope. Not bad, just not egg bake.

Instead of celebrating in my small church, I spent the weekend at a Cru conference for national staff and a select group of student leaders. We didn’t spend Easter morning in a church. 

We spent it just as we spent Friday morning and Saturday morning: in a group devotion time followed by three hours of training.

I was bitter. Throughout the weekend, I tried to combat my bitterness, but it was difficult. I wanted to experience the Lord’s Supper on Thursday. I wanted to experience Jesus’ journey to the cross on Friday. And I wanted to congregationally rejoice in his resurrection on Sunday morning.

As my bitterness was slowly removed as an answer to prayer, sadness took over. Even though I’ve been in Ghana for over 7 months, I’m still an outsider, and as an outsider, I have the opportunity to observe more than I could notice as a true Ghanaian.

Last weekend, we spent all of our time focusing on creating “model Cru movements” in Ghana. Absolutely everything was centered on growth in numbers and finances so that we could claim the title of a “model movement.” Our students left the conference with a greater burden to do ministry on their campus.

Burdens can be great things that instigate necessary change within an individual and in the world if the burdens are based on the proper foundation. Our students left burdened to grow Cru at KNUST, not to love Jesus with all they are and share him with those around him.

I believe that my bitterness turned into a righteous anger. I don’t believe God was pleased with our conference, and I know some of my teammates agree with me. We spent the weekend that our Savior demonstrated the greatest act of love and the most powerful miracle in the all of history focusing on Cru – not Jesus but Cru. Ick.

Ministry is a great thing. Jesus calls us to follow him into it wherever we are. But if we’re not careful, we can make ministry into our god. We can cast aside the beautiful Savior and glorify our performance in ministry. I saw staff members that I love do just that on Easter weekend. And they modeled it for their students. What a tragedy.

We have the privilege of modeling a relationship with Jesus for our students, and instead, we model love for Cru’s potential in Ghana.

I left our conference having learned quite a bit, but it’s not from the multitude of handouts we received.

On Easter weekend, I learned:

1. My goal these next two months (and beyond) is not to create disciples who disciple others or generate local resources. Even though those things are good, they’re not my goal. My goal is to love Jesus as he calls me to and do it so that our students can know that that should be their goal as well.
2. If we, the body of Christ, don’t even acknowledge Christ’s sacrifice in front of other members of the body, what are we showing those who don’t know Christ?
3. Ministry isn’t meant to be a burden. God doesn’t even need me to accomplish his purposes. He chooses to invite me into it so that I can grow in knowing him. I don’t need to overwhelm myself with a never-ending checklist of important ministry assignments.
4. I need to love Jesus more than I love Cru. (Or really, I need to love Jesus more than I love Young Life. That’s more like my issue.)
5. If Jesus didn’t do what he did that weekend, none of my ministry efforts would matter.
6. Cru in Ghana needs to know Jesus’ love on a deeper level. The staff needs to rest in his love, and the students need to know that his love isn’t based on their performance but rather on Christ’s performance.

Friends, my heart breaks for this ministry. Please join with me in praying for our staff and students. We need a revival – not for exponential growth but for depth. We need more of the unconditional love of God. We need more truth. We need Jesus. We so desperately need Jesus.