The purpose of this blog is to be mentally challenging, emotionally drawing and spiritually inspiring, with this in mind, I thought it appropriate to spend a moment exploring the topic of Easter. Many find this celebration to be fairly confusing, especially with all the chocolate bunnies who lay eggs? And the "Jesus died for our sins" line we hear over and over again. So for a second I shall step back and reconsider exactly why we celebrate some ones death, which seems reasonably odd.
"Jesus died for our sins"
So first things first, what is sin?
The Bible tells us that sin is our rejection of God's authority over us... So what does that look like in everyday 2011? Well the Bible tells us in Romans 3:10-12, that "... No one is righteous, no, not even one; no one seeks for God. All have turned away; together become worthless" we have not followed God's ruling word in our lives, "...no one does good not even one". So I'm afraid all the best, nicest people, and all the worst, nastiest people you know, we all sit in the same box. And it's not a rad box... Its the box of sin... worthlessness... greed... rebellion... Sin is not obeying God; it's an attitude, an action, a decision, and ultimately a lifestyle choice that we've all made. According to the Bible, God views this rebellion as humans setting themselves up as their own god, rejecting his rule.
So how does an all good, righteous and perfect God respond to this rejection?
Not well... The Bible tells us that for God to be God, he cannot allow this rebellion to continue against him, there is just punishment that needs to take place. According to the Bible "... the wages of sin are death" (Romans 6:23) and "we were dead in our transgressions", so this death is a spiritual death, being cut off from God without any hope of return, the Bible tells us that we are in a hopeless and failed state that we, ourselves cannot escape from. So far not looking good for us then, I mean the Bible describes humans who do not follow Gods rule as dead... we all reject God soooo we're all dead... unrad... dead people can't save themselves, it's a bit like the "game over screen".
BUT then there's a guy called Jesus, no ordinary guy, he is God's only Son. Because of his interesting birth and his relentless obedience to God, he is the perfect chap, he lives the perfect rebellion free life, he is the exception to the sinful world "he committed no sin" 1 Peter 2:22. So he is the only one who is on form with God. His awesomeness perfectly matches our unawesomeness, his righteousness equals the absolute value of our sin. Now here's the shocker... As stated earlier, our rebellion requires just punishment, so God in an act of incredible mercy saves us through plonking the punishment on Jesus, Jesus, obediently goes to the cross to relieve us from our sin, to lift our rebellious status from us. "He himself bore our sins in his body on the cross" 1 Peter 2:24... Intense... And according to the Bible, Gods huge rescue plan from the first week of creation. So Jesus has taken our place of punishment.
BUT that's not all, and this is where Easter gets exciting... every one dies, many where crucified, but Jesus does not stay dead. He rises. Three days after one of the most brutal killing forces ever to rome (excuse the pun) the earth have done their worst, Jesus makes a come back, the stone is rolled away and he lives! This is odd, I mean loads of people have died, statistically I'm guessing that's the norm, according to the bible... Jesus came back...That's rad, he walks around, has a fish braai, is seen by over 500 people, many of who die because of their testamony, some of whom write books about it, Jesus lives, and after some time, goes back to mellow with God. For a little more on the evidence of Jesus' resurrection this is a great link: http://vimeo.com/7412188
So ultimately the Bible calls for a response to this message, it calls for us to trust in Jesus for life, Jesus has now conquered death, and he is set up as the giver of life "In his great mercy he has given us birth into a new hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead" 1 Peter 1:3 (The word Christ here, is not a surname, its a work used for Gods promised king). In this way we are free to be in relationship with God, to live with God, as our rebellion lies dead, and our new upgraded rebellion free life is raised in Jesus! Happy Easter! Jesus has saved us!
Thus the choice the Bible gives us:
1. We can accept this grace, this free forgiveness bought by Jesus' life, we can confess our sin to him, stop rejecting Gods rule and follow him.
- We are promised that we will be purified by God, seen as righteous and given life eternal
2. We can reject this message, perhaps do our own thing, or try our very hardest to be good enough for God, fail and accept God's righteous punishment. The Bible doesn't leave room for a salvation independent of Jesus, its God's rescue plan.
Easter is therefore well summarized by: "God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, that whoever believe in him will not perish but have eternal life. For God did not send his son into the world to condemn the world but in order that the world might be saved through him. Whoever believes in him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe in his name is condemned already in the name of the only Son of God" John 3:16-19
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