Easter Seals Quotes

Like the rest of Holy Week, Easter is also a terrific story. It starts as tragedy: the hero broken and bloody, against all expectation dead, his followers' joyful hope in him entombed with his corpse, the rock rolled into place, sealing their despair. But the curtain doesn't fall there. The next morning at dawn they discover the rock has been rolled back. The tomb is empty, the body's gone! A missing corpse? Great stuff. A whisper of comedy. Now a touch of farce as Mary Magdalen and the guys chase frantically around looking for help, or the corpse, when suddenly, out of nowhere, up it pops—alive! Of course it's Jesus, who's done the impossible and beaten death. And they're so amazed they think he's the gardener! It's a payoff way beyond the Hollywood ending: all the flooding emotion and uplift of a tragedy followed by all the bubbling joy and optimism of a comedy. Is that possible? Not just to live happily ever after but to die—and still live happily ever after? It's the most audacious claim of Christianity, the one element that marks the brand indelibly, that trumps the claims of all other major faiths.

The four gospels do not tell us much about what happened on the Saturday between Good Friday and Easter Sunday. We know that after Jesus died, the disciples stayed behind locked doors for fear of the Jewish leaders (John 20:19). Their fear was well-founded because on that Saturday, the chief priests and the Pharisees met with Pilate and asked him to order the tomb sealed to prevent the disciples from stealing Jesus’ body (Matthew 27:62-66). After the resurrection, those same religious leaders would bribe the guards so they would spread the rumor that the disciples had indeed stolen Jesus’ body from the tomb (Matthew 28:11-15). In a bizarre twist, Jesus’ opponents had a greater belief in his resurrection than his disciples.

This reminds me of a funny Chris story. Back when we lived in California, Easter was coming up and Chris was home with the kids. I forget exactly what the children did, but they got out of line and Chris decided rather than disciplining them, he’d use a little daddy logic on them. Daddy logic, as expressed by a SEAL sniper. “I’ll tell you, you better behave,” he said, “or I’ll keep the Easter Bunny from coming.” “How?” one of them wondered. Daddy logic met kid logic and raised the ante through the roof. “I’ll sit on the stoop and I’ll shoot him when he comes,” said Chris. Somehow he kept a straight face. “You’ll ruin it for everyone, not just yourselves.” We had great behavior for weeks. It’s different living with a sniper as a dad.

The opening of the First Seal of Revelation begins on Good Friday, March 25, 2016, and continues on Holy Saturday March 26, 2016, and Easter Sunday March 27, 2016. The victories of the first seal continue with the Day of Miracles and Miracle signs in May 2016. Jesus rides forward victorious to further His victories with other spiritual events unfolding later. These first three admonitions, begin a renewal process for those in the Church and for all those who will come into the Church during the breakdown of our world civilization. This breakdown will continue for approximately 22 years.

Vision Our vision is that all children receive the developmental services they need to live their best life. Mission Our mission is to enable infants, children, and adults with disabilities to achieve their maximum independence, and to provide support for the families who love and care for them.

We have scanned many of the books housed in our Family Services Resource Room located in Villa Park, IL onto goodreads. This is a sample of the wonderful resources available for checkout by parents and staff at our centers. Instructions for Checking Out Books • Books may be signed out for 3 weeks • Please complete the card located in a pocket inside the front cover of the book and return the card to the front desk • Please return all books to the front desk Enjoy And please give us your feedback. There is a place for parent comments located inside the back cover of most of the books New books are added all the time and may not yet appear on this list. Our Naperville and Elgin centers also have small library collections with many of the same books available. Our expert resource staff encourage you to come on in, hang out, use the computer, look over the books, read a book to your child, ask a question or simply stop in and chat with a staff member - we are here for our families and are great listeners!

The victory was sealed at an empty tomb. Therefore, we must remember that the remaining battles are victory concluding, not victory in question.

Societies in acute distress often form what anthropologists call “crisis cults,” which promise recovered grandeur and empowerment during times of collapse, anxiety, and disempowerment. A mythologized past will magically return. America will be great again. The old social hierarchies, opportunities, and rules will be resurrected. Prescribed rituals and behaviors, including acts of violence to cleanse the society of evil, will vanquish the malevolent forces that are blamed for the crisis. These crisis cults—they have arisen in most societies that faced destruction, from Easter Island to Native Americans at the time of the 1890 Ghost Dance—create hermetically sealed tribes informed by magical thinking. We are already far down this road. Our ruling elites are little more than Ice Age hunters in Brooks Brothers suits, as the anthropologist Ronald Wright told me, driving herds of woolly mammoths over cliffs to keep the party going without asking what will happen when the food source suddenly goes extinct. “The core of the belief in progress is that human values and goals converge in parallel with our increasing knowledge,” the philosopher John Gray wrote. “The twentieth century shows the contrary. Human beings use the power of scientific knowledge to assert and defend the values and goals they already have. New technologies can be used to alleviate suffering and enhance freedom. They can, and will, also be used to wage war and strengthen tyranny. Science made possible the technologies that powered the industrial revolution. In the twentieth century, these technologies were used to implement state terror and genocide on an unprecedented scale. Ethics and politics do not advance in line with the growth of knowledge—not even in the long run.

By blood-sealed covenant by prophetic utterances and figures, and by prescriptions for sacrificial worship, God tried to prepare His people to expect a Redeemer who would have to bleed and die. But they wanted only a glorious conqueror with a universal and endless reign. Even when Jesus appeared to the Eleven, who had received two and one-half years of special training and instruction, He found them confused and wondering. As a doctrine, Christ crucified is central to Christian life. In practice, is there not much insistence on a comfortable Christ, a Christ without wounds? (Easter Tuesday)

Jesus’s victory over the devil was like D-Day to World War II—the decisive battle that marked the beginning of the war’s end. The devil’s fate was sealed on the first Easter, as Hitler’s was on June 6, 1944. But there are still many miles to cover to reach our equivalent of Berlin. In the interim, the devil is like a wounded animal, a dying dragon, more dangerous than ever. Contrary to popular artistic imaginings, the devil is not in hell; he’s here, on earth. If Jesus’s anthem is “On earth as it is in heaven,” the devil’s is “On earth as it is in hell.

Easter opened up a crack in a universe winding down toward entropy and decay, sealing the promise that someday God will enlarge the miracle of Easter to cosmic scale.

The intruders spoke no words as they rushed in. Five boys carrying baseball bats and tire irons. They wore an assortment of Halloween masks and stocking masks. But Derek knew who they were. “No! No!” he cried. All five boys wore bulky shooter’s earmuffs. They couldn’t hear him. But more importantly, they couldn’t hear Jill. One of the boys stayed in the doorway. He was in charge. A runty kid named Hank. The stocking pulled down over his face smashed his features into Play-Doh, but it could only be Hank. One of the boys, fat but fast-moving and wearing an Easter Bunny mask, stepped to Derek and hit him in the stomach with his aluminum baseball bat. Derek dropped to his knees. Another boy grabbed Jill. He put his hand over her mouth. Someone produced a roll of duct tape. Jill screamed. Derek tried to stand, but the blow to his stomach had winded him. He tried to stand up, but the fat boy pushed him back down. “Don’t be stupid, Derek. We’re not after you.” The duct tape went around and around Jill’s mouth. They worked by flashlight. Derek could see Jill’s eyes, wild with terror. Pleading silently with her big brother to save her. When her mouth was sealed, the thugs pulled off their shooter’s earmuffs. Hank stepped forward. “Derek, Derek, Derek,” Hank said, shaking his head slowly, regretfully. “You know better than this.” “Leave her alone,” Derek managed to gasp, clutching his stomach, fighting the urge to vomit. “She’s a freak,” Hank said. “She’s my little sister. This is our home.” “She’s a freak,” Hank said. “And this house is east of First Avenue. This is a no-freak zone.” “Man, come on,” Derek pleaded. “She’s not hurting anyone.” “It’s not about that,” a boy named Turk said. He had a weak leg, a limp that made it impossible not to recognize him. “Freaks with freaks, normals with normals. That’s the way it has to be.” “All she does is—” Hank’s slap stung. “Shut up. Traitor. A normal who stands up for a freak gets treated like a freak. Is that what you want?” “Besides,” the fat boy said with a giggle, “we’re taking it easy on her. We were going to fix her so she could never sing again. Or talk. If you know what I mean.” He pulled a knife from a sheath in the small of his back. “Do you, Derek? Do you understand?” Derek’s resistance died. “The Leader showed mercy,” Turk said. “But the Leader isn’t weak. So this freak either goes west, over the border right now. Or…” He let the threat hang there. Jill’s tears flowed freely. She could barely breathe because her nose was running. Derek could see that by the way she sucked tape into her mouth, trying for air. She would suffocate if they didn’t let her go soon. “Let me at least get her doll.