I have never written my blog post on the actual morning I post it – so this is new. I was very busy sleeping and enjoying the sunshine on a beach in Mexico this past week, so obviously you can offer some grace for my delay.

It feels like a dream, that just 24 hours ago I was on a lawn chair enjoying Mexican music and the hourly activities announcements from our favorite new friend, Nolberto. Okaaay, people at da beach and also people, people around da pool, this is de first and second call for our dance laysons. Join us, vamos! This was a highlight, to say the least.

We arrived last Friday acting (as I knew we would) like children on Christmas morning. We’re in Mexico you guys! We actually did it! Who let us do this? Oh, we’re adults?!

We tried as the week went on to not lose our wonder at the whole thing. It was still amazing on day three, four, five – we were on vacation in another country! But I caught myself at times thinking things like ah man, it’s cloudy today or I just wish I could eat Chick-fil-A or it’s sooo hot ahhh. When you get comfortable with paradise, you can even find something to complain about there.

I realized at some point that I treat the Gospel that same way. Christians have a first moment of realizing, “dang, this whole thing is real! God is real and He loves me!” and it changes our hearts and lives for eternity. But when we live years and years in it, we somehow forget the magic. We lose our wonder.

So in the same way that I tried not to get too comfortable with my Mexican vacation, I also do not want to get so used to the Gospel that I forget how amazing it is. I want to be so enraptured by it that I act like a child on Christmas morning every time I hear it. I want to love my Jesus so much that tears well in my eyes at just the sound of His name. I want to be absolutely wrecked every time I think about what happened on this weekend so many years ago.

This is Easter weekend. We’ve almost survived the forty days of Lent, basking in the season of waiting and sacrificing. Today is Good Friday, “good” only now, because we know the end of the story. We wait in anticipation for Easter, this time around knowing what we are celebrating. Knowing that our God is the conqueror, the sacrificial lamb who died and rose again to save each and every one of us.

Easter should be even more exciting to us than Christmas – because it sealed our fates. Jesus wasn’t the only one who rose from the dead on that day – we did too. We never have to fear death in the same way, because we know it has been conquered. Though our earthly lives will come to an end, there is no such thing as eternal death for those who follow and believe in Jesus Christ.

May we never lose our wonder. May we walk with Jesus, hand in hand, from death to life. Remember what He has done for us and never forget the beauty of it. Live in reverence of this miracle, this gift, that was undeserved but freely given.

But Mary stood weeping outside the tomb, and as she wept she stooped to look into the tomb. And she saw two angels in white, sitting where the body of Jesus had lain, one at the head and one at the feet. They said to her, “Woman, why are you weeping?” She said to them, “They have taken away my Lord, and I do not know where they have laid him.” Having said this, she turned around and saw Jesus standing, but she did not know that it was Jesus. Jesus said to her, “Woman, why are you weeping? Whom are you seeking?” Supposing him to be the gardener, she said to him, “Sir, if you have carried him away, tell me where you have laid him, and I will take him away.” Jesus said to her, “Mary.” She turned and said to him in Aramaic, “Rabboni!” (which means Teacher). Jesus said to her, “Do not cling to me, for I have not yet ascended to the Father; but go to my brothers and say to them, ‘I am ascending to my Father and your Father, to my God and your God.’” Mary Magdalene went and announced to the disciples, “I have seen the Lord”—and that he had said these things to her. John 20: 11-18