Easter

The most important day in the Christian calendar is this day, Easter Sunday. Though Christmas displayed the miracle of the glorious son of the transcendent God emptying himself by taking on the nature of a human and veiling his glory, Christianity would be utterly worthless if there was no Easter Sunday. Indeed, the only reason that Good Friday is Good is because it is followed by Resurrection Sunday.

This day is like the rays of spring sunshine creeping through a permafrost forest in the soft hours of the morning. This day is a messenger on the horizon, running to a starved and besieged encampment of warriors to tell them that their King has won, the enemy has surrendered, and all the known world is theirs for the taking. It is a hot shower, clean clothes and a warm bowl of soup in the winter. Easter is the final and glorious cadence of an unpredictable symphony, one that had just spent three movements in a mysterious Fugue.

Easter is the counter-cultural elevation of the role of women in first-century society, and the dangerous news that a troupe of Roman guards would be sentenced to execution for not keeping a certain tomb shut. However, one couldn’t blame the guards who were ordered to guard Jesus’ tomb. The very Word of God, the second person of the Trinity, the Prince of Peace himself, the one who wrought all of creation with his majestic power, cannot be stopped by a heavy rock, or a wooden cross.

Brothers and sisters, let our faces light up at the mention of Easter. Let our first reaction be “He is Risen!”, “Risen indeed!”, and not “Well actually, some aspects of the Western tradition of Easter celebration allegedly have their roots in certain pagan deities and practices…”

Let us encourage you to love Easter, and to be proud to be messengers of the greatest news. The news presenters who proclaimed the end of World War 2 brought a weighty and glorious news bulletin that day, but in comparison to Easter, it is utterly insignificant! We proclaim that all the spiritual powers, all the earthly tyrants, all the sting of the curse and sin, all the wiles of the Adversary and all the temptations of the flesh have been decisively conquered, and now all that remains for human history is our clean up mission of rounding up God’s lost sheep and our conquering of his embittered enemies.

This author proclaims this news to the non-Christian as to the Christian: there is a new King, and his throne will never be usurped. You will bow to him one day. He offers for you to come to him now in faith, and to be received as a precious Son or Daughter. We know this is true, because there is an empty tomb in Jerusalem. He is risen. Risen, indeed.