Easter is right around the corner and with it comes a variety of ideas and emotions. For those who participated in the Lenten season by giving up a cherished snack or behavior, relief will soon be coming. For many people (including my wife) great excitement is building for store shelves to be stocked with Cadbury Eggs. Church music leaders are preparing choirs to lead their congregation in singing (and in some cases belting) the Hallelujah Chorus. And C.E.O. (Christmas Easter Only) Families are choosing their outfits for their biannual trip to the most convenient church in their neighborhood.Unfortunately though for some families, coming to church can be quite a challenge whether it is “Easter Sunday”, “Palm Sunday”, or just plain “Sunday.” Their wheelchair can’t make it up the stairs, their loved one is overstimulated by the noise of the sanctuary, or some other challenge is presenting a roadblock; thus the church is a city on an inaccessible hill (not what Jesus meant in Matt. 5:14).

Nevertheless, many of these people and families will make the attempt to climb the hill on Easter Sunday; some for the first time in a year or longer, others as they do week-after-week. The following is my plea to them and to us as a church as we anticipate their arrival.

Reject Cheap Sentimentality

I’ve got no problem with Easter Eggs and Bunnies. I know plenty of people who are on personal crusades to end church Easter Egg Hunts and the like, I’m not one of them. My difficulty is with these..The chocolate Easter cross is (in my opinion) the epitome of cheap sentimentality. Marketing a Roman torture device as a delicious snack is, in my view, offensive. Whereas I know that most churches will not be giving away chocolate crosses, and likely most families will stick to dyed eggs and marshmallow peeps, I also recognize that the “chocolate cross” mentality can come out in how we talk about Easter.

Teachers, Parents, Caregivers, all of us want to make Easter palatable to our loved ones, we want them to be excited about this day and for it to leave a good taste in their mouths. I know of parents who have a child that is a mostly non-verbal communicator, they have a few words but not much. Recently they had been working on teaching the child to say “Easter.” They showed pictures of bunnies, peeps, and other pastel colored objects, but the word “Easter” wasn’t sticking. An idea came to the parents, let’s show a picture of a tomb where Jesus would have been, at first they thought this might be too abstract. They showed this simple GIF. (below) to their child and told them that Jesus was put in a tomb. With a loud cry, their loved one replied “EMPTY!”Since then, every time they ask their child “Is Jesus in the tomb” the reply has been an ecstatic “EMPTY!” The parents have compared their child’s cry to the words of the angel, “He is not here; he has risen, just as he said. Come and see the place where he lay” (Matt. 28:6).

No matter your role on Easter Sunday (parent, caregiver, teacher, greeter, preacher) keep it simple and don’t worry too much about making it fun or memorable. The message is hard to comprehend but easy to understand, the tomb is EMPTY!

Embrace Beautiful Brokenness

The tomb is empty and Jesus is alive, but first “he was pierced for our transgressions, and was crushed for our iniquities” (Isaiah 53:5). The meaning of brokenness is hard for us to understand in our own lives, how much harder is it to understand on the divine? The disciple Thomas said, “Unless I place my finger into the mark of the nails, and place my hand into his side, I will never believe” (John 20:25) and Jesus replied with an invitation to do just that (20:27). It’s important that when we think on Easter that we remember our Savior, Jesus, was resurrected with wounds (some have said “impairments” or “deformities”). There were holes in his hands and a gash in his side, and yet he was whole. Despite his brokenness he was still fully the image of God (Col. 1:15).

Someone in our ministry once shared with me how their loved one once prayed that God would remove their Down Syndrome, their perceived brokenness was understood as incompleteness. What a wonderful truth Christ’s brokenness in resurrection is for those affected by disabilities! To know that wholeness is not about your physical ability, it has nothing to do with how many chromosomes you have or developmental delays you experience. Wholeness has everything to do with who you are in Christ (2 Cor. 5:17), as only in Him we are renewed in the image of our creator (Col. 3:10)! Thus Easter tells us that a person with Down Syndrome or Autism who is in Christ shows the image of God more than any “nuerotypical”, “able-bodied” person outside of Christ could ever imagine.

Anticipate Complete Healing

Easter should bring to the front of our minds the image of the wounded healer. Christ lived, was wounded, died, was buried, raised and has ascended, but if the story ends there then Christians are to be pitied. The good news of Jesus’ resurrection is that it is a down-payment (deposit) guaranteeing our own resurrections to come, Jesus’ resurrection is the first fruit (1 Cor. 15:23). We too will be resurrected and given glorified bodies. “For our dying bodies must be transformed into bodies that will never die; our mortal bodies must be transformed into immortal bodies” (15:53).

I love this quote from Joni Eareckson Tada, who has quadriplegia:

I always say that in a way, I hope I can take my wheelchair to heaven with me — I know that’s not biblically correct, but if I were able, I would have my wheelchair up in heaven right next to me when God gives me my brand new, glorified body. And I will then turn to Jesus and say, “Lord, do you see that wheelchair right there? Well, you were right when you said that in this world we would have trouble, because that wheelchair was a lot of trouble! But Jesus, the weaker I was in that thing, the harder I leaned on you. And the harder I leaned on you, the stronger I discovered you to be. So thank you for what you did in my life through that wheelchair. And now”, I always say jokingly, “you can send that wheelchair to hell, if you want.”

Friends and families affected by disabilities, church leaders and teachers, don’t forget on Easter Sunday to tell your loved ones of the good news that in Jesus we will be healed! “He will wipe away every treat from our eyes, and death shall be no more, neither shall there be mourning, nor crying, nor pain anymore…Behold, [He is] making all things new” (Rev. 21:4-5).

So this Easter: Keep it simple (the tomb is EMPTY!). Keep it beautiful. And keep looking forward!