The Gift of Easter

It's Easter Today!! Well, It's my first time celebrating Easter Day and I celebrated it in Bethany Chapel in Klang, Kelvin & Kelsern's church. I really have to thank their parents, Uncle Moon Meng and Auntie Whye Ying for letting me stay over at their house and treating me as if I am one of their own.

Well, back to Easter...The first thing that comes to mind when we mention Easter, especially to children, would most probably be Easter eggs and the Easter bunny. Not many know the real purpose of Easter and why we celebrate it. Easter Day is a where we celebrate the resurrection of Jesus Christ from DEATH, and symbolizes the victory over sin that was won by Jesus FOR US!!

Our Easter service started at 10 a.m. today and we started of as usual, in a word of prayer and moved on the the praise and worship. After the whole praise and worship session, we actually had a few performances, consisting of mimes and singing. The first performance was a mime act which was gracefully done (danced) by Rebekah and Joanne as well as Joel. The second performance was a song originally performed by Chris Tomlin titled 'This Is Our God'. Michelle was singing, Ser Young was singing and playing the guitar, Uncle Chandran was playing the piano while Uncle Roy played the bass. I couldn't imagine how beautiful it was when Michelle and Ser Young sang together. Michelle sang so beautifully while Ser Young complimented her perfectly.

Next, it was our turn. Our group consisted of Grace, Kelvin, Kelsern, Joanne, Matthew, Edwin and me. Edwin sang while playing the guitar while I was playing the other guitar. We performed a very meaningful song called 'I Will Rise' by Chris Tomlin (again...). After all the performances and the worship, Uncle Chandran came out to give a message. He started of the message by telling 2 jokes, basically talks about people who had lost hope in life. He continued by addressing some of the issues the world is facing today; global warming, the 9/11 attack, poverty; even displaying a picture of a Times Magazine cover titled, 'Is God Dead?'.

In this world where we would definitely face hardships and challenges; sorrow and despair; our only reason to keep on moving is HOPE. He talked about an ordinary family of 5 children and their parents in America. The news of their deaths come out in the newspaper earlier this year. The parents who were working in a hospital as technicians were fired fron their jobs earlier before their deaths. The parents lost all hope and decided to shoot their children before committing suicide. Is there really no more hope in this world? Money, health, education and even religion; the things that we put our hopes on has all failed us. Only by hoping in the Lord, we shall have security and the reason to live. Then why did Uncle Chandran mentioned that we should not rely on religion when he asked us to hope in the Lord? The reason is, Christianity is not a 'religion'. It is a RELATIONSHIP, a relationship with GOD and not simply a religion.

He ended the message by singing a beautiful song called 'There Is Hope'. The song is really meaningful, saying that despite all hardships, there is hope for our Lord is with us for He loves us.That is the Gift of Easter.

Too bad I don't have pictures. Will post it up as soon as I get it from my friend. =P