Easter is a gift. It is in fact the ultimate gift; a life, death and resurrection to save those who are so undeserving. Easter is the culmination of Jesus’ work on earth, a short 33 years and only a few years of ministry that led up to a painful death He didn't deserve and a resurrection that paid the price we all deserve: death. Since the moment Adam and Eve ate the fruit in the garden sin has run rampant thought the world. Pain, sorrow, evil and that feeling that things are not meant to be like this seem to be right around every corner. But because of Jesus we no longer have the payment of death hanging over us; death no longer has its sting and we as believers have a hope knowing that Jesus has made a way for us. That this world truly is not the way it was meant to be and one day it will all be set right, because Jesus was faithful to the call of death for us.
Romans 6:8-11: Now if we died with Christ, we believe that we will also live with him. For we know that since Christ was raised from the dead, he cannot die again; death no longer has mastery over him. The death he died, he died to sin once for all; but the life he lives, he lives to God. In the same way, count yourselves dead to sin but alive to God in Christ Jesus.
Last year I debated whether or not to do Easter baskets. We did easter baskets as kids, and it is a fun tradition but we didn’t want to overshadow the magnitude of Easter with a basket. Jon and I fully believe in the life, death, burial and resurrection of Jesus and we hope and pray our children will one day also choose to follow Jesus with their life. We don’t want the basket to be the highlight of Easter when we are celebrating something far more important and life giving. However, we decided to do the Easter basket in hope of creating a tangible visualization of what Jesus has done for us. A small gift out of love to represent a much great bigger gift, that was completely undeserved, and given with even more love. Also, Easter baskets are awesome.
1 Peter 1:3 3 Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! In his great mercy he has given us new birth into a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead,
We hope this little basket can leave an impact and give a bigger, more powerful, picture of the cross. Even now when Teddy is so young we want to point him to Jesus, not only on Easter but everyday, so that one day he will choose Jesus. And what an easy and fun way to share the love of Jesus, by giving a gift, just like we were given a gift. With all that said, we wanted the basket itself to be symbolic.
So each year we want the contents to be useful, practical and fun. Last year we went with a Summer Essentials theme and we carried that over a little bit this year. Since we got so many pool toys last year there was no need to get them again, but he was in need of a new swimsuit( from Carters). To go along with the summer theme we picked up some chalk. Teddy has also really been into figurines so we picked some dino figurines at the Target dollar spot and we found an awesome set of hockey figurines on amazon. Sadly they didn’t have a Columbus Blue Jackets set so we went with some classic Canadian teams. Lastly we found an adorable sloth while at TJ Maxx that we could not pass up.
Again our prayer over this basket is that Teddy will know and as he grows see the basket as a gift of love and that our love for him stems from God’s love for us and that Teddy will choose Jesus. This is our goal as parents, to daily show Teddy God’s love and Easter is such a great time to reflect on that and be reminded of the gift of salvation through Jesus’ work on the cross. So our little basket will be prayed over even before it got into our sweet boy’s hands because as much as I want Teddy to love me, I want him to love Jesus more.
