Getting Shameless About Easter
One Easter I dressed as a giant yellow chicken and scared a toddler close to death on the streets of London.
It seemed like a good idea at the time.
The concept was that a giant chicken giving out chocolate eggs to the children of London would create good vibes towards our church and spread a feel-good Easter message. My team and I bought a few hundred eggs, and I climbed into a professional chicken mascot costume.
Y’know, it’s great being a chicken and I’d highly suggest chicken-ing for a day. Because I was totally hidden in this costume, nobody knew it was me. This meant that all of my old insecurities were immersed by my new chicken identify. I danced, I skipped, I hopped, I waved, and I danced various parts of the Macarena. I was invincible! This was until we met our first child, who was being pushed along in a pushchair by his mum. …show more content…
Easter tells the story of the absolute, central reality to the Christian experience. Easter is the utterly indispensable and essential part of our spiritual identity. Easter tells of how we came into God’s family, through the atoning death and victorious resurrection of Jesus. It’s the epic bit! But if you take this piece out, everything else falls down. If you cover it up with a chicken mask, then no one really knows what we stand for, or who we are. We need to get shameless about Easter.
The Shameless Easter Story
When it comes to Easter, and the story of Jesus death and resurrection, we need to be shameless. It’s just one of those stories that needs to be told boldly, clearly, and constantly without hesitation or nuance.
There’s nothing wrong at all with having fun with it. Dressing as chickens, running epic egg hunts, and eating more chocolate than is decent with a room of teenagers is not the problem. The balance, however, is to make sure that all these things serve the story and uplift the message, rather than provide a Trojan horse to sneak it in
One Easter I dressed as a giant yellow chicken and scared a toddler close to death on the streets of London.
It seemed like a good idea at the time.
The concept was that a giant chicken giving out chocolate eggs to the children of London would create good vibes towards our church and spread a feel-good Easter message. My team and I bought a few hundred eggs, and I climbed into a professional chicken mascot costume.
Y’know, it’s great being a chicken and I’d highly suggest chicken-ing for a day. Because I was totally hidden in this costume, nobody knew it was me. This meant that all of my old insecurities were immersed by my new chicken identify. I danced, I skipped, I hopped, I waved, and I danced various parts of the Macarena. I was invincible! This was until we met our first child, who was being pushed along in a pushchair by his mum. …show more content…
Easter tells the story of the absolute, central reality to the Christian experience. Easter is the utterly indispensable and essential part of our spiritual identity. Easter tells of how we came into God’s family, through the atoning death and victorious resurrection of Jesus. It’s the epic bit! But if you take this piece out, everything else falls down. If you cover it up with a chicken mask, then no one really knows what we stand for, or who we are. We need to get shameless about Easter.
The Shameless Easter Story
When it comes to Easter, and the story of Jesus death and resurrection, we need to be shameless. It’s just one of those stories that needs to be told boldly, clearly, and constantly without hesitation or nuance.
There’s nothing wrong at all with having fun with it. Dressing as chickens, running epic egg hunts, and eating more chocolate than is decent with a room of teenagers is not the problem. The balance, however, is to make sure that all these things serve the story and uplift the message, rather than provide a Trojan horse to sneak it in