My soul is locked into a collision course with Easter. Each year I find myself, along with millions of other Christians, journeying towards Resurrection Sunday. A large part of me is excited about celebrating Easter with my family, with my friends, and with my church family. I must confess that a small part of me, perhaps my flesh, understands and anticipates the pending conflict that Easter will create in my soul. It's a good conflict. It's a friction that occurs between the celebration of the Resurrection and the amazing sacrifice Christ has done for me. It’s a vivid reminder of the cruelty done to Christ due to my need to be forgiven. You would think that one encounter with this truth would establish my feet, anyone’s feet, on the path of tireless devotion. And yet, I confess, that I'm not all that I know I should be. I know that I need to lay down more and more of myself, following the example of John the Baptist, seeking to decrease and decrease so that Christ in me may become more and more visible. For me, taking Easter seriously is to embrace this collision of the joy of Easter and the call to surrender. And we should rejoice with all the festive, happy traditions from dinner with friends and family to little ones seeking eggs. But let us not forget that there must be and should be a sober account and reconciliation of the life for which we were called.