By Hal Mortier

I was asked if I would write a short blog post for the church website reflecting on Easter and what it means to me. The time frame was generous, as it was asked for by June 5th, allowing me plenty of time to come up with something. Quite honestly and although it is extremely important, I kept thinking over and over what Easter means to me is basically what it probably means to most others. The Lenten season, Palm Sunday, the Last Supper, the Crucifixion, and of course the climactic finish with the Resurrected Christ. Together they are the absolute core of our Christian faith journey.

How could I add anything of value beyond this? I played my mind games over and over, debating whether I could provide anything remotely constructive and, frankly, whether or not I should? I usually arrived at the same conclusion, maybe this one’s not for me…. Surprise! The Holy Spirit apparently felt otherwise just shortly after I had decided I was going to pass on this opportunity. That night, my Upper Room daily devotion was from Isaiah 43:16-21. As I read the Scripture, along with a touching testimony by a young women from somewhere in the middle of Montana, one verse in particular really spoke to me. Isaiah 43:18, “Forget the former things; do not dwell on the past.”

I promise you, my immediate response in that moment was, “that’s what Easter means to me!”

For me, all of it—Lent, Palm Sunday, the Crucifixion, and Resurrection—occurred so I could do exactly that…. Forget the former things. Thanks to Jesus, I can forget those burdening things of my past and no longer dwell on any of it. Now that could easily sound a bit selfish, but for me it is that personal. For a lot of my life I was quite distant from the Lord and did an abundance of things of which I am not particularly proud. Some of this could be quite haunting. Jesus came, died, and rose again so that I could forget my former things and not dwell on my past.

Certainly he did it for others too, in fact for all creation, but nonetheless he did that for me. And certainly he did more for me and others than just allowing us to forget former things and not dwell on the past. But this one gracious gift lightens our load and gives us the strength to move forward in a much more Christlike manner.

I no longer have to dwell on the past or be defined by it. In 1 Peter 5:7, the Lord’s disciple Peter advises, “Cast all your anxiety on Christ because he cares for you”. Both Isaiah and Peter assure us that we don’t have to carry the load in life by ourselves. This is both for the burdens of our past and the uncertainties of the future. That is really what Easter means to me.