We just wrapped up a great holy week and it prompted a fun small group lesson that I sent to about 100 high schoolers and their adult leaders. The feedback has been great, so I thought I would share it here. Not a true fitness post, but I hope you like it.
This lesson is meant to rile you up, create a stir, and get people shouting at me and each other. Ok, maybe that is extreme, but seriously, if you read my list of 10 Reasons Why Easter is Better Than Christmas and are like, “Ok, cool.” Then you didn’t do it right! Come on, disagree with me (and each other)! It is ok and can lead to a great discussion.
1) Grandma never got ran over by the Easter Bunny. Christmas music starts around Thanksgiving and gets super annoying by Dec. 10th. I know that overall Christmas music beats Easter music, because I can’t even think of Easter music besides “Christ the Lord is Risen Today”, but it is not over-commercialized and kept sacred.
2) Grown-up Jesus is a B.A. tough guy! When I think about all he endured, it makes me want to workout or at least not complain if I have a splinter. Baby Jesus is…well…a baby.
3) Christmas has hype, pressure, decorating, gift-buying, then it hits and you have clean-up and the launch of a busy new year with resolutions and things to do. Easter has church (usually around a spring break like this year), “spring fever”, and coasting into summer. And spring is better than winter!
4) Lent is better than Advent. Advent means a time of preparing and waiting for the Christ child. Unfortunately it has also become known as a time to eat too much for the last month of the year. Lent has fasting and sacrifice and simplifying your life.
5) Cadbury Crème Eggs. Enough said. (This is a great time to have a debate about the best candy for each holiday)
6) Easter is more Jesusy than Christmas. Christmas is really about God, Mary, Joseph, angels, wise men, Herod, etc. Easter has other characters too, but it is all about what Jesus did.
7) This is similar to #6 but deserves it’s own spot in the list. Everyone has done what Jesus did at Christmas…get born. I know, I know…the whole virgin birth part is special, but that was more about Mary and God, not as much about Jesus. Only Jesus could do what Jesus did on Easter. I am a big fan of Jesus.
8) Easter has cooler lead-up events…Ash Wednesday, Maundy Thursday, and Good Friday.
9) Easter is a progressive, forward-thinking, “what is to come” holiday because it is all about the hope we place in Jesus to overcome death and live forever. Christmas is about a singular incredible event, probably the most incredible of all time, when God became a human here with us. But then the rest of Jesus’ life happens. I feel like Easter is still happening. Christmas happened.
10) Now what? After the Christmas story, we jump to spunky 12-ish year old Jesus hanging out in the temple and his parents can’t find him. After the Easter story, this is where it gets really good. Not only is the tomb empty, but Jesus appears to many. Read 1 Corithians 15: 3-10 – … Christ died for our sins in accordance with the scriptures, 4 and that he was buried, and that he was raised on the third day in accordance with the scriptures, 5 and that he appeared to Cephas, then to the twelve. 6 Then he appeared to more than five hundred brothers and sisters[c] at one time, most of whom are still alive, though some have died.[d] 7 Then he appeared to James, then to all the apostles. 8 Last of all, as to one untimely born, he appeared also to me. 9 For I am the least of the apostles, unfit to be called an apostle, because I persecuted the church of God. 10 But by the grace of God I am what I am, and his grace toward me has not been in vain. On the contrary, I worked harder than any of them—though it was not I, but the grace of God that is with me.
I hope this led to a good discussion and deeper thought about Easter. Start your closing prayer and take a moment to be silent and honestly think about what the cross, empty tomb, and resurrection mean to you. Listen for God to reveal a word or phrase to you about these things. Share those with the group and let them be your final prayer.
