The message of easter

STEPHEN WORKMAN | Friday April 9, 2010 00:00

Christmas is all about the birth of the baby Jesus, the beginning of a perfect life.  It conjures up images of mangers and angels, wise men from afar and stars that shine brightly in the skies.  Everyone loves babies and everyone loves Christmas!

The images of Easter, however, are far different.  Easter is the story of the end of a perfect life.  Apart from chocolate bunnies and children in new clothes, the images of Easter are not pretty.  In fact, they can be gruesome and disturbing.  They are images of torch bearing soldiers being led through the night by a man bent on betrayal.  They are images of swords and clubs, and a whip ripping through the flesh of a man who never did anything wrong.  Reflect on Easter and the reflections will be of angry mobs, denying disciples, ruthless, hypocritical religious leaders, crowns of thorns and a blood stained cross where the Son of God hung on nails that were pounded through his hands and feet. 

Easter is a little hard to explain to people at times, and maybe even harder to understand.   The man on the cross is supposed to be God in the flesh, the Saviour of the world.  But, instead of being hailed as King and welcomed into the world he created, he is treated like a criminal, mocked and ridiculed, then sentenced to die in spite of no real evidence against him.I think the cruelty and injustice of the crucifixion is disturbing to some people.  A friend told me of an Easter play he attended a few years ago where they portrayed the life of Jesus from the manger to the resurrection.  Just as the Roman soldier was raising the hammer to drive the nails into Jesus' hand that would hold him to the cross, a little girl in the audience stood up and yelled, 'Stop!  Don't do that!'  Then she turned to her daddy and in tears pleaded with him, 'Daddy, don't let them do that to Jesus!  They are bad men!'  The hammer stopped in midair and there was a chorus of voices from the audience that joined the little girl's protests! 

But, on the day that Jesus was hung on the cross there were no such protests.  Except for one lone disciple and three brokenhearted women who stood at the foot of the cross, the crowd cried in unison for his death.  Maybe part of the disturbance in our hearts is the question that arises as we imagine that scene through the pages of Scripture.  The question is simply, 'If I had been there that day, which crowd would I be in?  Would I have stood with those who cried for his blood, or with those who wept at his death?'  A song we sing at our church says, 'Ashamed I hear my mocking voice cry out among the scoffers.'

I think a lot of people walk away from Easter feeling a bit uneasy.  They understand the baby in the manger, but they can't seem to grasp the death of the man he grew up to be.  At the very least, they cannot make the connection between the man who died and his relevance in their every day life.  How can a man's death, even a man as good as Jesus, give them a new relationship with God, a place in his family, a home in heaven and a new life here on earth?  Maybe the reason is that they have missed the reason for Christ's death and the message of the cross. 

Message #1  Nothing we do can bring us any closer to God.  The very best we have to offer is not good enough to earn us the relationship with God we want or need.  The book of Romans in the Bible makes two things perfectly plain.  God's standard is perfection, (Romans 3:23, 'For everyone has sinned; we all fall short of God's glorious standard.') and, none of us is perfect, (Romans 3:10, 'No one is righteous, not even one.')  That is not good news if your heart is set on making it to heaven one day.  Only perfect people make it into God's presence, and none of us is perfect!  Picture two mountains with you on one side and God on the other.  Between you and him is an uncrossable expanse.  The message of the cross is, there is nothing you can do to cross over to God.  But, the cross has bridged the gap and will take you to God.  Trust what Jesus did on that cross, and you will be safe.

Message #2  There is only one way to God.  The religious leaders who crucified Jesus stood at the foot of his cross with mocking glee that their plans had finally come true.  As they stood there hurling insults at him, one of them let slip a statement that gave away their true feelings.  'Let this Messiah, this King of Israel, come down from the cross so we can see it and believe him!'  (Mark 15:32)  Please do not miss what he said!  The  religious leaders didn't mind believing in Jesus as their Messiah.  Prophecies in the Old Testament had promised he would come and they had prayed for his arrival for centuries.  But they wanted to believe in him on their own terms.  They had their own ideas of a good Messiah, and Jesus simply did not fit the job description they had in mind.  They wanted a conquering hero, not a dying Saviour.  As God the Son, Jesus had the power to step off the cross and become the conquering hero they wanted.  But, had he done that, he would have never been the Saviour that we needed.  He had told them earlier, 'I am the way, the truth, and the life.  No one comes to the Father except through me.' (John 14:6)   Jesus did not find himself on the cross by mistake.  He was not a hapless martyr that offended the religious leaders one too many times and ended up dying for his blunders.  The cross was the reason he came to earth and the climax of his life!  He had a choice to make, to save himself or to save us.  He chose to save us!  The problem with approaching God on your own terms is the persistent question of, 'have I done enough of the right things to make God accept me?'  That never leads to a satisfying relationship with God.  When we trust that, on the cross Jesus Christ did everything to satisfy God and we put our faith in him, and nothing we do ourselves, we find an open door to God and a relationship with him that is truly satisfying.

Message #3  God loved us so much he made the ultimate sacrifice.  One of the most quoted verses in the Bible is John 3:16, 'For God loved the world {that is you and me} so much that he gave his one and only Son, so that everyone who believes in him will not perish but have eternal life.'  God loved us so much he gave the greatest treasure he had so we could know the unspeakable joys of eternity in his presence!  Could we really understand how much God loves us without the cross?  Blessings and gifts from God to us are wonderful.  But, have you ever been given a gift for ulterior motives?  Have you ever been given a gift with strings attached?  At the cross God gave the very best he had, the only thing he could not re-create if it were destroyed, and he asked nothing in return.  That is Love!  The holiness of God demanded that someone pay for our sins.  Then, the Love of God provided the payment through the cross.  What could we do with such love, except to give our lives back to him in gratitude?  Even then, when we give him our life, he gives us back a life that is infinitely better than anything we could find on our own!

Message #4  The Cross Changed Everything.  Before the cross the human race had some insurmountable problems.  Because of the choices of our original parents, sin had come into the world and a wall stood between us and God.  Then as now, the best they could do could not bring down that wall.  Since God was not a part of their every day lives, the decisions they made on their own brought them even more problems and pain.  God gave the Law of the Old Testament for people to follow.  But, they found that keeping all the laws was impossible.  They made sacrifices to cover the times they broke God's laws, followed the priests teachings and did their best.  But, the sacrifices of animals only covered their sins until their next sin and the priests were only human and often led them astray.  The wall stood firm!When Jesus came everything changed!  He became the final sacrifice for all the sins of all people for all time.  His teachings showed us the perfect way to live and his grace made up for when our best was not good enough.  Best of all, the wall came down! 

The cross became a doorway to the presence of God and gave us total access to his wisdom and power.  What was lost by the first humans, Adam and Eve, was returned to us through what Jesus did on the cross.  Our relationship with God was changed from his enemies to his friends, and members of his own family.  He claimed us as his own and called us his children.  Those who trusted in Jesus had the unspeakable privilege of going directly to their heavenly Father without going through the priests ever again.  He gave us a new place to belong, his church; a place open to everyone, whatever their past.  The cross also changed our abilities.  Before the cross we were powerless to change anything for the good, especially ourselves.  Now, we have the ability to change the world around us. How could the death of one man change the face of history?  If the cross stood alone it would be seen as little more than a sad end to a very good life.  Jesus would be just another good teacher in a long line of religious leaders passed on into history.  But, the cross did not end the life of Christ.  The cross gave way to the grave, which gave way to God's power of resurrection.  The message of the cross is that death is not the end!  Those who believe in the Jesus of the cross have the hope of his resurrection. 

As we celebrate Easter in the next few days, we don't just stand at the foot of a blood stained cross.  We gaze into an empty tomb.  Angels spoke to Jesus' disciples as they did the same that first Easter morning and asked them, 'Why do you look for the living among the dead?  He is not here, he is RISEN!'  Celebrate Easter this year by thanking God, our Saviour, for his gift of love through Jesus Christ, his forgiveness of our sins through Jesus' death on the cross, and the hope we have of a new life here, and an eternal life with him because of Jesus' resurrection.  Have a joyous, blessed Easter!

The author, Reverend Stephen Workman, is the pastor of Desert Streams Fellowship, Plot 39439, Block 6 (The Learning Centre School) Gaborone