Introduction & ice breaker
What are your best childhood Easter stories or traditions?
Themes to Consider
Easter if it matters, matters all the way.
The Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil - the tree of the illusion of control, to be our own gods, to sort out for ourselves what is right and wrong and good or bad.
Tree #1 tells the story of our fall from majesty and connection. It is the story of spiritual death. We are sill capable of love, we still bear the image of God, but we have lost our union with God - our connection - our known family bond.
Tree #2 Our Second Tree is the Cross of Jesus. The Torah says Cursed is anyone who hangs on a tree, but the world is suffering a curse and so in a radical act of love God stepped in to take that on Himself. On the Cross God refused to be distant. He plunged himself into our pain and suffering. He took on the death that haunts us. That is the second Tree. The tree of forgiveness, God bearing the cost to repair the world and all who will receive Him. It is God saying not even death can separate you from me now. And it gives us a future with God if we will have it. That future is the third tree.
Tree #3 The tree of life for the healing of the nations. Every tribe, tongue, and nation, every culture, every color, across the world sharing in this renewed future with the one who is called the Lamb.
Genesis 38. Surely God was here and I didn’t know it. Maybe for some of you that will be the story of this day. Surely God was here and I didn’t know it. Until I did.
Practices
Inhale — Gratitude: make a moment to express gratitude to God for his life giving work in you.
Exhale — Identify areas of life you may be grateful for and express them to your loved ones, neighbors, coworkers.
Discussion Questions
When in your life did you notice God in an acute way?
The brokenness of Tree #1 influences our lives. How have you personally experienced brokenness?
Where in your life have you experienced the redemption or rescue of Tree #2?
What hope do you hold out for the future? What are you praying and longing for God to resurrect in your life or the life of those you love or the world you are in?
Guided Prayer
Father, We praise You for sending Your Son to abide with us and be with us. Life can feel lonely, but the fact is…we are never alone. That is a truth we can cling to during the ugliest breakdowns. Thank You for giving us the grace to release our failed efforts and bottled up emotions to You, free of judgment and full of healing love.
Forgive us for walking through life without the joy that Jesus died to fill our hearts with. Help us to find You in the hard moments of life, and remember the comfort and truth of Your promises during seasons of suffering.
Bring resurrection to the brokenness of our world. We long for the vulnerable and the oppressed to experience your living hope. Protect them and lead them in your Light. Confront injustice with your resurrection light.
Jesus, You never leave us, and always guide us. Who we are becoming is no secret to You, You who formed us in our mother’s womb. You came down to earth to save us, love us, and show us how to live. May we chase after You all of our days, and experience the rich and irreplaceable Peace that allows us to overcome…to walk victorious…and to hold onto hope.
In Jesus' Name, Amen.
Supplemental Content
What [the accuser] put into the heads of our remote ancestors was the idea that they could ‘be like gods’—could set up on their own as if they had created themselves—be their own masters—invent some sort of happiness for themselves outside God, apart from God. And out of that hopeless attempt has come nearly all that we call human history—money, poverty, ambition, war, prostitution, classes, empires, slavery—the long terrible story of man trying to find something other than God which will make him happy. —C.S. Lewis
For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life. For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him. —John 3: 16-17
