good friday

I woke up this morning knowing that I wanted to do something to signify Good Friday.

Every Easter I get a little frustrated with myself for not being prepared. 

Why is it that we spend weeks and weeks doing things for Christmas - which, granted, is extremely significant in the Christian life - but almost nothing for Easter? - which, without Easter, Christmas would mean nothing.

Jesus, taking on human limitations, being born fully man, while remaining fully God - it's all very amazing and all - but He did it with a purpose.

He had a Reason.

It wasn't to show off that He could do it - 

it was so that He could live as we live, and then ultimately die to bring us to God; to save us.

Easter is the most integral celebration of our faith.

Thankfully, God can give inspiration, and something can be done in a short amount of time.

(I still do, however, want to be much more prepared and intentional for next year!)

It mainly came from this idea of Christmas being the starting point - and one tradition we do at Christmas, combined with something our home church does every Good Friday.

We have some firewood, so I decided to make a cross.

Little pieces are in short supply, so I cut off, with much difficulty (all we have is a rusty old hand saw), a small branch off of a larger one.

 I attempted to nail the two small pieces to the large one, but the wood was a little too strong, and I am a little too weak, so that didn't quite work.

 So I got some twine and roughly tied the branches on - securing with a little hot glue.

Then I assembled the needed materials:

* Our Jesus stocking
(man, I don't think I ever posted about that - completely pathetic.... I'll have to do that next year)
* Our newly made cross
* paper
* pencils
* pins
* bible
We sat around the table with these items and first reread what we "gave" Christ for Christmas (that is the Jesus stocking deal - we write down or draw pictures of what we wan to give Jesus the following year).  It was to remind us what we gave and to see how we are doing on that gift.
Then we read the crucifixion story and talked about what Jesus did, how He felt and how amazing it is that we get both the punishment removed and we receive the prize even though we deserved none of it.

After we talked about all these things, we all wrote down or drew a picture of something we needed to confess.  Sins we were sorry for - could be not following up on our Christmas gift to Christ, or something else - and then thanked Him for His gift of forgiveness and sacrifice.

We then pinned or "nailed" these to the cross.

After we prayed (and a few spent a bit of time with some tears) I brought the cross to our empty fireplace to signify the tomb.

There the cross and sins will sit until Easter morning:
Resurrection Sunday.
No greater day could there ever be.