Hi everyone. I am on holiday this week so I’m taking a break from the ongoing series on Matthew 5:3-12. I thought I’d write a short article to serve as an Easter special instead! We’ll return to the series next week, God willing.
I think it would probably be fair to say that most people, even if they aren’t Christians, are aware that Christmas is a time to remember and celebrate the birth of Jesus in Bethlehem.
Yet how many people can say the same for Easter? For many people Easter is a time to enjoy chocolate eggs and perhaps celebrate new life when they see baby animals in the fields or new leaves growing on the trees. Yet are they aware of the significance it has for the Christian faith?
If you are a Christian, then for you Easter should be much, much more important than Christmas.
Why is that?
The reason is because Easter is the time when we rememeber the crucifixion and death of Jesus on the cross. While Christmas celebrates the beginning of his life, Easter remembers the end of it.
Someone might ask why we would want to celebrate Jesus’ death more than we would his birth. Or why we would want to celebrate Jesus’ death, as unbearably painful and humiliating as it was, at all.
If you are a Christian, then the cornerstone and foundation of your faith is the belief that after Jesus died on the cross, he did not remain dead.
In 1 Corinthians 15:3-4, Paul states:
…Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, … he was buried, … he was raised on the third day according to the Scriptures…
Jesus was raised back to life by God three days after that horrible death.
Questions
Why? And what does this mean for you and me?
What made Jesus unique among all human beings who have ever lived is that he never sinned, which means that he never once did anything that was morally wrong in God’s eyes. Throughout his life he constantly had the opportunity to do either what God said or what would have made his own life more enjoyable or more comfortable, and whenever the two were in conflict, he always chose God. Read Matthew 4:1-11 for three detailed examples.
If you and I were to be honest, we’d have to admit that much of the time we choose ourselves over God. Yet Jesus never once did.
And yet Jesus still died. His life of perfect obedience to God did not protect him from the agony or the fatal injuries he suffered on the cross. God did not intervene to save his life.
So what was the point? If we all die anyway, does it make a difference whether we sin or not?
Indeed it does
The difference is huge. A sinless person will still die because their body is still made of the same ageing, decaying stuff as everybody else’s. But here’s the crucial difference: a sinless person will not remain dead. A sinless person will be raised from the dead and given a new immortal life.
The punishment for sin is not that you will one day experience death. We will all experience death whether we sin or not (as will animals and plants, which are not morally accountable and cannot be called sinners or sinless). The punishment for sin is that once dead, you will remain dead forever.
That’s what God saved Jesus from, and that’s what God is willing to save you and me from as well.
So what do you have to do?
On one hand, there’s nothing you can do. You can’t earn for yourself that reward of being raised to eternal life. If you’re an adult reading this, you’ve already failed. If you’re a child or teenager reading this, you will fail some day if you haven’t already. We all have. I certainly have.
This is something which you can only receive as a gift from God.
But on the other hand, this gift will not be received by everybody. Only those who repent of the times they chose themselves over obedience to God have this hope. When you genuinely repent, God will forgive you for those times and the slate will be wiped clean. If you maintain an attitude of repentance for all of your sins throughout your life, then God will give you that gift of eternal life, even though you have failed to deserve it.
So where does Jesus’ death fit into all this?
Jesus’ death on the cross was the only possible way that this means of our being saved could work.
Why is that?
It’s not because Jesus’ death or Jesus’ blood in some way literally cleans the stain of sin from your body or your mind. Only repentance can do that.
It’s not because God needed Jesus to die in this way in order to fulfil some transaction which would then enable God to forgive us. God can forgive us whenever he wishes to do so. It’s in his very nature to be merciful and forgiving. He isn’t constrained by any rules or rituals that he has to follow.
So why is it?
It’s because only the sacrifice of Jesus – the willing and unbearable death of a perfectly innocent man – can inspire you and me to the kind of repentance that is required to have all of our sins forgiven and washed away by God. In the Old Testament, for example, people regularly had to offer animal sacrifices as a way to teach them about dealing with sin. But eventually these became repetitive rituals the true meaning of which they forgot.
The sacrifice of Jesus is not like that. That’s why Christians are instructed to meet together regularly, usually once every Sunday, to share bread and wine to remember how Jesus died and why. That’s why every time we share the bread and wine it should mean something. In fact, it should mean everything. It should inspire you more than anything else possibly ever could.
Not just once a year
At Christmas, you can share in the joy and hope felt by Mary and Joseph and the shepherds and the wise men as they celebrated the birth of the baby who would grow up to save the world.
At Easter, you can share the even greater joy of knowing that the world has indeed been saved, and because of how Jesus died you can be forgiven of your sins. Not only that, but because Jesus was raised from the dead to life everlasting, you can one day enjoy the same.
But not just at Easter. Every week. Every time your church meets to share bread and wine. Every time you open your Bible or pray or even think about Jesus.
When you become a Christian, every day for the rest of your life can and should be an experience of that same hope and joy.
Nihilist to Christian 