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As we welcome April, we are drawn to return to the story of Christ’s passion and resurrection. Our annual commemoration is an important reminder, but the repetition can blunt the impact of the most pivotal event in human history. It is essential for us to fix our heart, minds, and spirits on what our Savior has done on our behalf. But beyond that, Good Friday and Easter give us an opportunity to consider that these events are the most reliable in ancient history. They really happened! And since they really happened, the consequences are of eternal consequences.
We live in a world where personal, independent power and performance are a high priority and vague spirituality is glorified. History, especially ancient history is irrelevant. Life is fast-paced and distracting. It is easy even for believers to let Good Friday and Easter come and go with limited focus and spiritual impact. But Scripture calls us to remember, to remember, to remember what the Lord has done for us….
I find it helpful to consider how much the reality of Good Friday and Easter highlights the foundational truths found in God’s Word: Mankind is sinful. From the fall in the Garden of Eden, the influence of Satan and sin has corrupted the entirety of creation. Men and women continue the legacy of Adam and Eve with our “do it myself” and the lack of love in our relationships. We cannot save ourselves from ourselves! We need a Savior.
And then since God is the God of both righteousness and justice, there must be some accounting for our sin. Our sin debt is beyond our reckoning, and we have no way to pay that debt. Only God Himself can pay it, and that is precisely why Christ died on the cross. The ugliness of our sin is highlighted by the brutality of the crucifixion, but it also stands in sharp contrast to the beauty and depth of our Lord’s love for us.
Of course, the cross is only a portion of the story. The resurrection reminds us that it was God Incarnate who died on the cross, but since Christ was fully God as well as fully man, He is eternal; death itself cannot contain Him. He was, and is, and is to come…. And the resurrection is the first fruits of the eternal life now offered to us by faith.
Finally, since Jesus’s sacrifice on the cross has covered our sin debt, we now have a restored and abiding relationship with the Triune Godhead. By faith, we have the Holy Spirt—God Himself!—living within us. As life on this side of the kingdom confronts us with our shortcomings, weaknesses, and failures, we can depend upon the faithful work of our Lord who has promised to complete the work He has begun in us. The same power that raised Jesus from the dead is at work in us!
Truly, the death and resurrection of Christ is beyond our human comprehension. It is a more spectacular reality than anything Christ created. But it is also incredibly personal. The Godhead wants you and me to know Him more truly and more deeply as time on earth passes. He calls us to repent of the sins that continue to cause us to stumble and to walk in faith before Him, embracing the resurrection power within us to become who He has created us to be and to fulfill His purposes for us.
Now if Christ is preached, that He has been raised from the dead, how do some among you say that there is no resurrection of the dead? But if there is no resurrection of the dead, not even Christ has been raised; and if Christ has not been raised, then our preaching is vary, your faith also is vain…. If we have hoped in Christ in this life only, we are of all men most to be pitied. But now Christ has been raised from the dead, the first fruits of those who are asleep.
I Corinthians 15:12-14, 19-20
