I have not yet done a thing to prep for Easter morning. No plastic eggs. No baskets. No ribbons. No tangled mounds of grass. No piles of jelly beans and Cadbury goodies.

Nada.

Our routine (and with four kids, I use the word ‘routine’ very loosely) is to have the kids wake up with new devotionals or children’s bibles at their bedsides, then let them find their candy and coin filled eggs, then tackle their baskets, a quick breakfast of butter and salt on their painted eggs and then we race to tidy-up and make our appearance at church.

It’s really not all that dramatic or different than other families, I’m sure.

But somehow, this year,  it feels like Mount Everest and just as pointless of an endeavor here in my little life.

Easter, spiritually speaking, is my favorite.

Oh, I love me some Christmas. But if I if I am head over heels for Christmas, I am over the moon for Easter.

Where Christmas is loud, Easter is quiet. For all the peace on earth we (try to) spread in December, there’s all the bigger-every-year lights and the bells clanging down every mall hallway, songs with Donkeys or the vocal stylings of Chipmunks or Dean Martin (or that terrible Simply Having A Wonderful Christmas Time song that drills it’s way into my brain. Every. Year.)

So, yes. Easter.

It is somber and gentle. For such a ground shaking, heartbreaking moment in history, more public and terrible and shocking than a baby in the manger, it somehow seems more like the lamb.

Christmas is the baby, Easter is my savior.

Well, theologically speaking, they are BOTH my savior and both events are essential and beautiful. The writer in me just loves a well-written relationship story and a sweeping, cathartic climax. Easter gives me both.

So why am I so hard pressed to get into it this year?

Well, for starters, perhaps because the it I’m trying to get into, isn’t Easter at all. It’s the Bunny-izing of Easter, the commercializing and Martha Stewart-izing madness of it, and my heart just isn’t there.

My heart is waiting on Good Friday, sitting in candlelight and weeping. My heart is waiting to be broken and refilled. My heart is longing for the mystery of communion and the remembrance of this love, this relationship, this gift.

This Easter morning, I pray that my house will reflect where my heart is. That it will be simple and quiet and joyful, all at once. That our family won’t be easily distracted by plastic and pastels and destined-for-the-trash trinkets hidden in destined-for-the-brush-of-my-vacuum Easter grass.

Of course, this all might be very easy to achieve if I don’t even make it out to the store at all. (I’m procrastinating even as I type.)

Happy Easter kids! No baskets or eggs, but you have a less frazzled mother, a less cluttered house and a God who still loves you enough to send his son to conquer death on your behalf.

Hmmmm. Actually.

Clear and uncluttered hearts, happily declaring, He is risen. He is risen indeed.

Now that’s something I can get into.