easter for dummies – part 2 – the save

so a quick recap then:

# everyone has sinned and as the bible says “fallen short of the glory (or high standard) of God”
# the wages/punishment/outcome of sin is death (both now in various areas, but also spiritually and eternally at the end)
# on Easter Friday, the man many believed had come to save the world is lying stretched out on a cross, dying an agonising death.

# one of the statements Jesus calls from the cross is “Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do”
# a second statement from the cross is where Jesus asks one of His followers John to look after His mother
# a third statement occurs when Jesus grants salvation to one of the thieves dying on the cross alongside Him, who acknowledges Him and Jesus tells him “this day you will be in paradise with Me.”

but this is where the twist occurs:

# Sunday arrives, the third day, a significant number to God as witnessed throughout the Bible and as spoken of by Jesus while He was alive and the women who are heading to the tomb to anoint the body with traditional herbs are surprised by an empty tomb and the news that Jesus is alive

# various of His followers witness Jesus alive over the next few days – He speaks to them, walks with them, even prepares a fish braai on the beach for some of them and finally He sends them off with a mission [“Go and make disciples of all mankind, baptising them in the name of the Father, and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you.”] and then, before their eyes, He is taken up to heaven.

# in John 3.16 Jesus has spoken one of the most well-known passages of scripture to Nicodemus the pharisee who visited Him at night – “For God so loved the world that He sent His only Son that whoever believes in Him will not perish but have eternal life.”

# and so yes, we all have sinned and are all due the penalty of death that is spoken of in the Bible. But God in His love has made a way [which still satisfies His justice] of coming Himself and taking on the punishment in our place [as evidenced throughout most of the Old Testament when an animal was sacrificed in the place of a person and why Jesus is referred to as the lamb of God, fulfilling that same duty] so that we do not have to die.

and so the bottom line of the Christ-following faith is this – God is offering a gift, the gift of life – when Jesus was here He spoke about bringing “abundant life” or “life to the full” which speaks both of life now on earth as well as life after our physical bodies die – and you either choose to receive it [acknowledge Jesus as God and bow your knee and life to Him] or reject it [and one day be turned away by God] – the choice is yours – it is a free gift on the one hand, but also a gift that costs everything [nothing you can do can earn you the gift, hence it’s free, but God calls for you to follow Him with everything you have, and so it is costly]

the choice is yours. choose life.

‘Then Jesus said, “If anyone would follow Me, he must deny himself, and take up his cross daily and follow Me.” [luke 9.23]

easter for dummies – part 1 – the problem

so for anyone out there not familiar with the Christian faith, this is what this holiday is all about in the shell of a nut:

# mankind is sinful – this is a pretty easy one to verify – read a newspaper, watch the news, hang out with yourself for a 24 hour period or anyone else that you like or specifically some people you don’t – you don’t need test tubes in a lab to verify that we are not perfect, none of us – we mess up, we hurt people, we hurt ourselves, we do stupid things, and we often fail to do good and right things

# the punishment for sin is death – this is a harder one to verify [our reasoning is ‘because the Bible says so’ and that is enough for me, but it may not be enough for you, and that’s okay, this is where faith and belief start to kick in] although i would say not completely. if you follow the natural progression of sin in someone’s life it always leads to a death of some type – death of trust, of relationship, of good health, of life possibility etc. however, we are talking about a spiritual/eternal death – we believe that one day every person will stand in front of God and be judged and that those who have not dealt with their sin will receive an eternal death or punishment

# that paints a pretty bleak picture because if all of us have sinned and the punishment is death, that means we all have to die – if the story ends here, we’re all in a lot of trouble and that is kind of the picture of Good Friday – Jesus Christ, who many believed to be the Messiah who had come to save the world [many of the jews believed He had simply come to free them from roman control and persecution] hanging on a cross, dying the worst kind of death known to man. It all looked like a bit of an epic universal fail.

[which is why you should not stop reading here – it gets better – click somewhere over here]

keeping the cross in cross-mas

it is fascinating to see what gets christians all passionate and excited (in a pitchfork and flaming torches mob kind of way) – i remember the whole furore around the Christmas to X-mas campaign with stickers and articles and sermons declaring ‘put the Christ back into X-mas’ [it is only mildly funny that those people would campaign so strongly about that and yet for the most part be completely sucked into the capitalistic greed-focus of the event enjoying lavish feasts and piles of un-needed gifts while people just down the road from them lived in a box and had maybe a crust of bread to ‘enjoy’ on the day]

i get it, i really do, and clearly a world that is not Jesus-following will do everything it can to suck the meaningful spiritual significance out of an event that holds no meaningful spiritual significance for them, but i would suggest it is not the Christ in Christmas that needs saving [cue angry mob] but rather the cross [angry mob mutter to themselves and slowly disperse]

because without easter, Christmas actually doesn’t mean a whole lot – a baby is born, God comes to live with us – cool and everything… but it only becomes meaningful when you watch how the story plays out in its completeness and you see the end (and the beginning) take place on the cross when Jesus is crucified – in my place for my sin taking on the punishment of death that should rightfully, legally, be mine [and of course, yours]

for God so loved the world…

and so it’s really important that we view Christmas through the lens of Easter – God could have made some other plan of redemption but He chose to come Himself – that is mindblowing and worth celebrating and sharing with the world

in a time of wide scale greed and what will be (if you include new years) drunkenness and debauchery and it’s-all-about-me’ness, it is important to realise that Jesus came with a message of love – not the hollywood feel good, have-own-needs-satisfied love – but a love that requires choice, as well as sacrifice and surrender, that uplifts others above yourself, that seeks to always hope and protect and persevere, that wipes the slate clean of previous wrongs, that looks to bring hope to the hopeless and need to the needy (oh wait, no, they already have that) um, i mean to meet the needs of the needy.

when you keep the cross in Christmas, then it truly becomes true and observable that love never fails. it makes mistakes, it gets it wrong (and horribly wrong sometimes), and it even hurts people unintentionally when doing so, but it never ever fails.

let your Christmas be about love.