Easter, Resurrection Cookies, and A Breathing Faith
Saturday night means baking cookies. Not every Saturday night, but this Saturday. Every Holy Saturday our family continues a 19-year tradition of making Resurrection Cookies. Making Resurrection Cookies is an ongoing part of our family Lenten practice, and I’m truly, deeply surprised by that.
Making Resurrection Cookies is pretty straightforward. Our family reads the baking instructions, and along with the recipe is a series of scripture readings and actions which tell the story of Jesus’ coming, betrayal, sufferings, and crucifixion. Rochelle started the tradition because it was an embodied way to teach our young children about Jesus’ Passion.
“Why Does Dad Hate Jesus?”
As the girls got older, I assumed they’d outgrow the tradition. The process takes a long time. There’s lots of stirring ingredients. It gets boring at points. Usually, as children age, they drop old, family traditions because, “that’s for kids.” But our girls never stopped. Don’t hear me saying they were always excited about it. During the middle school years, there were a few eye rolls and huffs, but they soon jumped off the couch, grabbed their Bibles, and we went through the process.
A couple years ago, as our church was hosting seven Easter gatherings, beginning on Saturday night, I thought it was time to retire Resurrection Cookies. I would not be home until later in the evening on Saturday, and my call time for Easter Sunday was at 6:30am the next day. When I suggested, to our then high school aged daughters, that we may not make them, the revolt was immediate.
“Why does dad hate Jesus?”
“Why do you hate our family?”
“Do you have a second family that you actually care about?”
“Are you denying the Resurrection?”
And harkening back to an allegation thrown at me on social media over a decade ago, “Why do you hate the Lord’s church?”
Teasing aside, I’m thankful for the little ways that Rochelle translated and transmitted our faith to our girls. They are still relatively young, but our oldest is deeply involved in her local church as a college student at a large state school. Our youngest, like her sister before her, is part of her campus ministry at her high school, leading and teaching younger students, and she is also on staff at the church where I serve.
A Breathing Faith
I was a young parent at a time when there was a lot of pressure to “raise your kids in the faith.” That’s important, and always has been. But what they meant is having intense sessions of reading the Bible together (which my parents tried), and other tools of faith transmission, none of which were bad, but many of which felt forced or performative.
If Rochelle and I did anything right, it was our commitment to having our faith be everyday. Talk of God, Jesus, the church, hopes, failures, trusts, and our own struggles and figuring things out with God was part of the wallpaper. Being a pastor, my children heard myriad stories about life and faith. My goal was to raise them without illusions. We wanted life with God to be real, even when it was ugly, and when life was messy. For instance, if (and when) a well-known Christian stumbled, they would know human frailty is not tantamount to God’s reality.
We wanted our girls to know that the Bible is textured and layered and diverse, and widely interpreted, but worth the work. And most of all, we wanted faith to be both intentional practice and everyday. Like breathing. It’s often good to pause and breathe intentionally and deeply. It’s even more important to breathe without thinking about it.
All to say, Easter is a big deal. I hope you and your family enjoy your time and traditions in this season. If you live in or near Houston and are looking for a community to celebrate with, please join us at Ecclesia Houston. But even more, take this moment to consider how to make your faith a breathing faith — one that stops and pauses, but also one which sustains you involuntarily.