This morning, as I went to get a new battery for our high-performance minivan from the niche automotive specialists at Costco, I saw a guy walking out of the store with six hams. Six. I counted. In fact, I checked out what everyone was buying. People buy strange things. People buy things that don’t really match the imagined life story I’ve given to them. Some people buy too few of items. Shampoo and tortellini? That’s it? In the world’s biggest warehouse chain… that’s it. But, six hams was peculiar. Why would anyone buy six hams? Then, I realized that for whatever reason, ham is what people traditionally eat on Easter Sunday. This guy, with his six hams was clearly getting ready for the coming holiday.

But, that might be just about the only announcement about the world’s most history-shaping event. Christmas has lights. Christmas has non-stop radio broadcasts of carols. Christmas has a marketing machine behind it – gifts for everyone! At Christmas, there is massive build-up. But, at Easter, which is – in many respects – the reason for Christmas, there are six hams. Sure there’s a bunny at Wal-mart. There are a few candy items. But, there’s no song. There’s no irrational debt accumulation to celebrate the Resurrection.

There are six hams.

Easter is about a new life of possibility. Easter is about hope. Easter is about victory over the darkest and most painful realities of life. Easter causes people to really consider what they think about Jesus. It’s impossible to look at the Resurrection of Jesus and say merely that He was a wise, compassionate teacher. Easter is also one of the few times in the year when people are willing to come to church to face this reality.

This Sunday is Palm Sunday. Palm Sunday hopefully (and desperately) anticipates the ironic victory of Jesus on the cross and the shocking beauty of the Resurrection. As we approach these next two weekends, consider who, in your life is longing for an experience of Easter that is far more than merely a pastel-themed party, with deviled eggs, and six hams.

As always, I love meeting the friends you bring to experience what God is doing here at Mariners.

See you this Sunday,

Jeff

This week, the Mariners Mission Viejo staff team is attending the Catalyst conference (at the Mariners Irvine campus). Thousands of leaders have converged in an event that is part inspiration, part worship service, and part pep rally. The conference is built around a single, central guiding theme: being KNOWN.

To put it differently, we’re being asked to consider who we are — really are. Being known sounds like a terrific idea until we realize all its implications. What if people really knew us, the real us? What if the people who are supposed to know us, don’t? What if being known means living with a level of vulnerability we’re unprepared for? In truth, we live our lives with a measured skepticism about how much of us should actually be known, while concurrently longing for an end to our experience of loneliness and isolation.

Yet, it is Jesus who has made (is making, and constantly re-making) us into the people He intended us to become. He’s aware of us — not merely aware of our physical presence. He is aware of our needs, our fears, our insecurities, our failures, our dreams, our hopes, our heartaches, and our longings. In short, we are already known. He’s got us. He’s got us even when we lose ourselves.

The world doesn’t have the last say about who we are. We don’t have to be defined by our employment. We aren’t the sum-total of all we can possess. We aren’t merely the collection of what everyone says we are. We aren’t the mistakes of our past. We are not shame. We are not regret. We are “more than conquerors”… That is how we are known.

As we approach Easter, consider that you are already known by God. It is precisely for that reason (not in spite of it) that God would come, in Jesus, to initiate His global restoration project. It is for that reason we are not merely intended to be the passive spectators of His great work in the world. People who follow Jesus and are a part of His work in the world are called “followers” and “disciples”. Jesus calls the ones He already knows — normal, imperfect, frightened people — be a part of His work. Join us this week as Doug Fields gives us a clearer picture of what it looks like to apprentice ourselves to Jesus in His work in the world.

See you Sunday,

Jeff