Christ-exalting traditions

Eggs, chocolates, baskets, bunnies, holiday…certainly we know that’s not what Easter is all about. There are many who spend a lot of time, money and effort celebrating Easter without even realizing its true meaning. Seeing all the materialism and worldly hype of special holidays, we can tend to react by going to the opposite extreme of doing nothing. Should we not instead invest our time and effort into making these holidays significant by adopting Christ-honoring traditions where we can impart biblical truth to our family and children? After all, Easter is about celebrating the death and resurrection of our wonderful Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ! What better reason to celebrate!

I recently read Noel Piper’s book, Treasuring God in our Traditions, which helped me think seriously about why we have traditions, their importance, and how to create meaningful, Christ-honoring traditions.

She gave these three guiding questions for traditions:

What is my greatest treasure?

How do I reflect and express that treasure in my life?

How can I pass that treasure on to my children and others within my circle?

Just creating traditions for tradition’s sake (are you all thinking Fiddler on the Roof now?!) is not the ultimate goal. As Noel Piper puts it, “the things we do regularly that help us in our deepest being to know and love and want God, the things that help our lives to be infiltrated with God—those things are tradition. And then if there are children in our lives, to pass these God-focused activities to the next generation—that’s what tradition is for a Christian.” Psalm 78 exhorts fathers to declare to their children the wonderful works of God “that they may set their hope in God, and not forget the works of God, but keep His commandments.” God is the reason we have anything to celebrate, and He should be at the center of all our celebrations.

“The ceremony of a special day keeps it from slipping away like an ordinary day. We stop and recognize the specialness of an event in large part because of the traditions in which it’s wrapped. Our ‘especially’ celebrations anchor us and our children in the harbor of our family, reflecting our true refuge—God. The way we observe these occasions—the focus of our observation—has great potential to show our children what we think is most important and to help them value what we hold most dear.” (Treasuring God in our Traditions, pg. 64)

I trust you will have a most blessed weekend celebrating our risen Saviour! He is alive! Will that precious truth be what comes to our children’s minds when they think of Easter?

Treasures to Share

This year our children have enjoyed learning about the Easter story through the use of the Resurrection Eggs. This is a set of twelve plastic eggs each containing an object relating to the Easter story along with a small book to help guide you as you share the true meaning of Easter with your children.

---

When you comment, please keep these guidelines in mind. You can find an explanation of our commenting guidelines here.

1. Stay on topic.
2. Post your own material.
3. Links must be supplemental and thoroughly relevant.
4. Be concise.
5. Use your real name.

Stay connected by subscribing to our RSS or email feed! Or print this post.

Copyright © 2012 InFocus | ElegantBlue is a custom theme by Nathan Rice