An Easter Pinata
Yes, a piñata. An Easter piñata was purchased and smashed tonight.Things have been pretty serious around the Trotter tribe these last several days and I decided it had gotten a little too serious. Sometimes you need to lighten the load. Praise Jesus that today He did just that…Lighten our Loads.
My favorite set of Easter scriptures is found in Matthew 27:50-52“Jesus cried out again with a loud voice and yielded up his spirit. And behold, the curtain of the temple was torn in two, from top to bottom. And the earth shook, and the rocks were split. The tombs also were opened. And many bodies of the saints who had fallen asleep were raised.”Tonight at dinner Toby and I read parts of the complete Easter story out of Matthew chapter 26 up to right before chapter 28 just before the best part…the Sunday Resurrection part. The Completed “Load Lightened” part. The best part!
When we got to the part about the Cross, Cade and Ainsley shared about the nails that pierced Jesus’ hands, His feet. Cade took the stake we have and showed us all; sharing with such tenderness…sharing with such childlike wonderment at the strength of Jesus' will to be ‘stayed’ to that Cross.
Then came the fun…then came the piñata. Jesus didn’t just slow bleed off that Cross. He burst open the gates of hell and paid for my life….my husband’s life….the life of my little ones. Felt like we needed to have a better visual than just to talk about it…..felt like we needed a piñata. When I was in Wal-Mart buying this said piñata the woman next to me in line told me a funny story she had seen on America’s Funniest Home Videos of a mom that didn’t know you had to fill it with candy before you had the kids whack at it. Well, you guessed it…the kids smashed that thing and not a single tootsie roll, double bubble or jolly rancher popped out…total mom fail. {Bless her heart, I feel for the woman} Well, when we got to my fav part of the Easter story {I mean other than the Resurrection part of course…come on the story is just too juicy not to have several fav parts!} I stopped and explained that what Jesus did was so powerful…we explained the meaning of the curtain and the temple and the torn in two and……..ok, so we stopped there and decided to roll with the America’s Funniest Home Videos and we got my 7, 5 and believe it or not almost 2 year old locked in to the story…. “Well, mom was there candy that came out when the kids broke it open?!” “No, there wasn’t.” I said. “Bummer, huh?!” “What?! Oh, man I bet those kids were so disappointed!” said Cade. “Fo’ real, buddy! You know what’s cool though…..Jesus didn’t forget. When we eat the bread at communion what do we say?” When we take the bread we remember Jesus’ Body broken for us…..when we take the cup we remember Jesus’ Blood poured out to cover our sin. Jesus spilled out LIFE and the blessing of Ephesians 3:20 “ Now to Him who is able to do far more abundantly than all we ask or think, according to the power at work within us, to him be the glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations forever, and ever. Amen” when His body was broken and His blood spilled out. Jesus didn’t forget. Light bulbs went on in little eyes. So we whacked our newly established Easter tradition, a piñata, to high heaven and remembered what Jesus did. Split Hell wide open so NEW LIFE could spill forth. 
The kids laughed, ran all over the yard, ate candy and we lived under the covenant of a “Lifted Load” all the way to bath time for sticky happy babies.….Sunday’s coming!
