Celebrating Easter

 

I get excited about holidays, especially Easter and Christmas. If anything is worth celebrating Christ is. Many people claim to celebrate Easter and Christmas, even non Christians though I do not know if you can call it a celebration when you take out the Reason to celebrate. I wonder how the men and women from Genesis to Revelation would celebrate were they alive in this day of grace? I do not wonder about dying eggs and buying Easter hats, those are a matter of personal preference; I wonder how would their hearts celebrate, and if the celebration in my heart come anywhere close? It is true that the Savior died every bit as much for me as for the strongest men of faith but I have grown up knowing grace (more of grace perhaps than the need for it). As much as I enjoy celebrating Easter I confess I prefer the Advent calander to the days of Lent. I would rather eat chocolate than give it up. But in the end, I am often fuller, more satisfied, at the end of the Easter season. Perhaps because I built up more of an appetite for the gift God serves me in Christ.

 

My gratitude for the Cross grows with each passing Easter, not only as I discover more of God’s greatness, but also as I gain awareness of my own depravity.. God is Holy, He is a jealous God and He is serious about sin, dead serious. He was serious about it when Korah, Dathan and Abiram grumbled against God’s chosen leaders Moses and Aaron, and when Israel complained because God’s provision of food and water in the wilderness did not suite them; hence the earth swallowing some of them up and fiery serpents biting others. (Numbers 16 and Numbers 21) I wonder if the Israelites felt the 10 commandments were the only ones that were serious and that things like complaining God could sort of overlook. Either way they were guilty, the book of Leviticus is full of instructions for sin offering for people who “sin unintentionally”. (ie- Leviticus 4,5).

 

To transgress is sin, and the end of sin is death. That is the not so happy part of the “Happy Easter Story”. All of those laws in Leviticus to atone for sin make for a better story, they give hope in that God’s heart is not for the destruction but rather the salvation of His created people. Still, we could spend all day at the altar with grain and oil and slain animals and we would still be flawed, unfit for the presence of Holy God. The story seems dismal, can anything really atone? Insert the Christmas story...Yes, God would provide a sacrifice that will be sufficient, for all men for all time, forever, and His name is Jesus Christ. But the story gets sad again, for the sacrifice requires God’s Son Jesus, must die. God will not force it, He must choose. Then, on that Good Friday, the darkest day in the world, He did. And then, three days later on Easter morning, He conquered death and arose from the grave. Not long after He ascended to Heaven, leaving behind a promise to return so we could join Him forever in that happy place. He left a part of Himself here too, the Holy Spirit, to help us, and do we ever need the help!

 

Easter celebration is just a way of reminding the world that we had a real problem and it got solved. It is an invitation to choose to accept Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior and join the celebration, or to remember you have already accepted Him and to continue to rejoice. God wants us to celebrate. He has made us for praise, He ordains it. But you cannot celebrate the Easter Story if you are not a part of it, if you do not know Jesus, and your celebration will not be as wonderful as it could be if you do not make time to grow in His presence.

 

I do get excited about Christmas and Easter and I hope you do too. I hope the chocolates in your Advent calender get sweeter as the years go by, not because you have given up chocolate for Lent or because the ship you have been waiting for comes in, but because life is sweeter with Jesus. We have been invited to celebrate in a perfect place for all eternity, but even in this imperfect world our celebration starts. Happy celebrating.

 

Happy Easter!

 

 

"For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin,

so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.”

                                            2 Corinthians 5:21 (ESV)