Homeschooling and the Resurrection

Over the past few weeks I have been given the opportunity to work alongside a Jehovah’s Witness. You can probably imagine the conversations we have engaged in during this time. Several of our talks have revolved around celebrating holidays, including Easter. For those of you that are unaware, Jehovah’s Witnesses do not celebrate holidays, including Easter. The reasons that my friend gave me for their abstaining from these celebrations were many, including that the days were originally pagan holidays and that they are full of pagan traditions. “Why, as a Christian, would I want to celebrate these things?” he asked. I responded, “Why, as a Christian, would I not want to celebrate the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ?” The “Easter” holiday can be filled with many non-Christian concepts, if we allow it to. Yet, it can also be the most meaningful celebration of the year for us and our families if our focus is on the right things.

As homeschoolers we are attempting to disciple our children in the ways of the LORD. We are doing this through educating them in many different subjects and tying all of these subjects into the grand theme of Christianity. Well, Christianity is about the three days that we usually celebrate around the Easter weekend each year. In my home we make a big deal about the entire weekend because I believe that the events we are celebrating are the most important events in all of history. In fact, all of history centers on these events. Everything that ever happened before these three days pointed forward to them, and every moment since then points back at them. These three days are the climax of history, and not only history but also of science, of math, of literature, of thought. The very meaning of our existence is to glorify and enjoy God, yet this cannot be done apart from belief and trust in the death, burial and resurrection of Jesus Christ. This, therefore, is the unifying factor of all education, or at least it should be. Every subject is meant to point us to trusting in the Creator and Savior of all things: Jesus Christ. After all, what good is a knowledge of math apart from relationship with its Creator, and how can one have a saving relationship with math’s Creator apart from the crucifixion and resurrection? Science is the study and enjoyment of creation, but what good is the enjoyment of creation if our ultimate enjoyment is not found in creation’s Creator, which comes by way of the death, burial and resurrection of Jesus Christ? All of creation is given to us that we might make much of the Creator, that we would worship Him, yet for us to be able to do so me must go through the Way, Jesus Christ and him crucified. As Paul taught, “For I resolved not to know anything among you except Jesus Christ and Him crucified.”(1 Cor 2:2) It doesn’t mean he didn’t know anything else, but that this truth was the unifying factor of everything else he knew. Its what gave everything else meaning and was the ultimate purpose of all that he did. No wonder he proclaimed, “May I never boast except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ.” (Gal 6:14)

This Easter season let us be reminded that the events which we celebrate are what bring meaning to homeschooling. As we commemorate Easter lets remember its centrality to our curriculum, to how we teach and what we teach, and ever glorify the wisdom and power of God displayed in the death, burial and resurrection of Jesus Christ.