What Easter is all about.

Have you ever stopped to wonder why we celebrate Easter? One needs only look at neighbor yards and see Easter bunnies and Easter egg hunts banners on every corner. Pastel colors are in and people may dress in their best and trickle into a church. This is how people celebrate Easter, not the reason why. However, Easter is not about bunnies, eggs, or pastel colors but about a story.  The story starts at the beginning of time. God spoke and the world came into being. Stars formed, flowers bloomed, seas roared. And over it all God said that it was good. Then in the culmination of all creation, he made humanity in his image and he called this wonderful creation very good.

Sadly, Instead of honoring God, our forefather Adam and all humanity with him walked away from the one who gave them life and instead chose to worship and serve created things, rejecting the only one who has the ability to give life.  Our first parents’ decision brought death into creation. As humanity continued in disobedience to the Creator, death continued to multiply.

God then chose one man named Abraham, and he promised that all the nations of the earth would be blessed through him. But even Abraham could not lift the curse of death. God handed the blessing down to his son Issac and then to his son Jacob but these could not break the curse of death. They died and were buried. 

Even so, God still promised to be the God of Jacob’s descendants, the Israelites, and that the world would be blessed through them. He rescued them out of slavery in Egypt using a man called Moses. God judged Egypt by decimating their land with plagues. The final plague was the death of the first-born. God instructed Moses to tell the Israelites to kill a lamb and spread the blood on the door posts of their houses. When God’s judgment of death would come that night on Egypt, God’s judgment passed over the blood covered houses for the lamb had already died in the place of the first-born. Through this judgment of Egypt God ransomed his people out of Egypt. But this freedom was short-lived because disobedience and stubborn hearts remained.   

Though God had rescued them they chose to worship a golden calf rather than their Creator. The people foolishly longed to return to Egypt and slavery rather than experience the freedom God has given them. Not even Moses was able to break the curse of death. The people God rescued out of Egypt died in the wilderness because their hearts were already dead, rejecting the giver of life. 

Generation after generation the Israelites fared no better; in fact, things got worse and worse until God gave them a king named David who was a man after God’s own heart. David won many battles and wrote many songs of praise. Yet, even David could not break the curse of death. He died and was buried. The kings after David?  Some were good, some were bad, some were really bad.  They pursued other gods, murdered the innocent, enslaved the vulnerable, and rejected the God who made them and gave them life. No matter what even the good kings did, no one was able to break the curse.

Eventually God judged them and sent them away from his presence. But God made a promise that, one day, he would take this people’s dead hearts and give them new hearts.  He would make a new covenant with them and they would be his people and he would be their God but they never guessed how God was going to fulfill that promise. What a wonderful fulfillment it would be!  You see, God the Son added to his divinity humanity and came and dwelt among his people. He was a descendant of David, a descendant of Abraham, a descendant of Adam.

Unlike everyone who was before Jesus, the moment anyone saw him they knew something was different about him.  The difference was unmistakable.  When Jesus was in the wilderness (like the Israelites) and tempted by the devil (like Adam), he did not deviate from God but remained faithful to his Father. Jesus did not, like Moses, declare, “God had told me to say this.”  Rather, Jesus himself spoke and said, “This is what I tell you.”  When Jesus spoke, he was not speaking merely as a messenger, rather, as God himself.  Jesus did the things that only God could do. Just as God created the world with a word Jesus silenced the storms with a word. Just as God miraculously fed the Israelites in the wilderness Jesus miraculously fed people in the wilderness. He healed the sick, restored the crippled, gave sight to the blind, and even raised the dead. 

One would think that, finally, when seeing their God face to face the Israelites would follow their God as he has pursued them time and time again.  No, rather, they cried “Crucify him!” They killed the author of life and he hung on the tree. But this was not some accident or grave mis- calculation on God’s part. No, he planned, long ago, that he would come and bear the dreadful curse of his people’s disobedience. Jesus was the Passover lamb who died in the place of another so that judgment would pass over. He was judged as a rebel against God though he was innocent.  He died and was buried but that is not the end of the story.  

Jesus came to make a new covenant with them. He came to bring blessing to all nations. He came to lead his people not out of Egypt but out of death and into life.  On the third day, God the Father, through the power of the Holy Spirit, raised Jesus back to life. And so, we say, “Look!  See the wounds of victory, his hands and his feet, and the scars that proclaim, ‘Here is the one who has conquered death!’”

Yet even this is not the end of the story. He is inviting you to come. He will take your dead heart and give you a new living heart. Though you are dead in your disobedience he will make you alive with him. Just as he made creation, he will make you a new creation. God’s Judgment will Passover you. He died your death that you would live in his life.

Yet, even this is not the end of the story. Though we will die and we will be buried, we know Christ will raise our mortal bodies when he comes to finish restoring everything and setting all things right. And for all eternity we will be God’s people and he will be our God. So what do we celebrate at Easter? We remember and celebrate that nothing can separate us from God’s love, not even death, because Christ died for our sins and rose again, giving us new life.