Easter Eggs come in all manner of vibrant colors during this time of year and at times laced in chocolate and other yummy stuff. Easter bunnies also seem to surface from hiding typically bringing the Easter eggs with them. I’m not sure where the bunny gets the eggs from, he possibly could not have laid any of them ; that that’s for sure! I want to burst your bubble if your thought Easter is all about them, because it is not. Neither is it about mega shopping offers, or get away holidays to exotic destinations. I’m not saying that shopping or holidaying is a crime; don’t get me wrong .They just aren’t the center of what Easter is.
Easter is a time to celebrate the resurrection of Jesus from the dead. It also coincides with the Jewish Passover .Why is this so significant? One may ask. Simply put the Passover was symbolic of what Jesus would accomplish through his death and resurrection. To get this into perspective let’s go back in time to when the Passover was instituted ,then forward it by a couple of thousand years to the time of Jesus’s death and resurrection then fast forward it again to the present .
During Passover the Lord instructed the Jews to sacrifice a lamb, a 3 year old male lamb, without blemish .Each family would do so on the fourteenth day at twilight. The lambs blood would be then smeared on the sides and the top of the door frames of the houses where they ate the lamb (after it was roasted of course) This would be a sign to the Lord as he went through the land where they were in captivity, any house that had the lamb’s blood the Lord would pass over it and they would be spared ,no destructive plague would befall them .The converse would be true for those that hadn’t smeared lambs blood on their door frames. The blood applied on their homes would spare them and ensure that they lived on. The lamb sacrificed here was the Passover lamb.
Now, let’s jump back into our time travel machine and go to the time of Jesus’s crucifixion.
Crucifixion was a historical method for capital punishment in which the victim would be impaled to a wooden beam ,sometimes in the shape of a cross ,and left there to die. This method was one of the Roman’s favorite as it caused the victim such pain and humiliation, and sent a clear warning to all observers that you did not want to be in the Roman’s bad books.
So how come Jesus was crucified? He wasn’t a roman .He should have been tried and punished under Jewish custom. But this wasn’t the case ,It all happened as it did ,so that all that was written concerning him would come true.
“Just as Moses lifted up the snake in the desert ,So the Son of Man must be lifted up, that everyone who believed may have eternal life” John 3:14 -15
“But I when I am lifted up from the earth ,will draw all men to myself” John 12:32
After he was tried by the Jewish leaders ,they took him to Pontius Pilate ,who found no basis for a charge against him. Pilate then took him out to the people ,but they demanded him to be crucified. “Crucify your King ? “He asked them They responded that they had no king but Caesar. It was as if they wanted him punished for treason , for claiming to be king ,yet they had Caesar for a king. Jesus was indeed King and still is King ,but of another kingdom.
He was sentenced to death by the Romans. They had him flogged, severally, with a whip that tore off Jesus’ flesh with every single whip. This whip was made of leather and knotted with a number of small pieces of metal or sharp bones. Already weakened by this, he was made to carry his large wooden cross uphill to where he would be crucified .They nailed him to the cross and left to hang there for hours.
In the case of Jesus, he was not a victim, he had no sin in him, and he did nothing deserving punishment. He did not attempt to fight back or save his own life. He could have called unto his Father who could have sent 12 legions of angels to help him (That’s like an entire platoon or battleship of reinforcements!) but he did not. He knew he was going to die this way, For this very reason he came to the earth .
He knew that his blood had to be shed ,and enough blood to cover all people on earth , those living back in the day and those living now approx. 7 billion and even for those in the future. He knew that for all of humanity to be ransomed ,a few drops of blood wouldn’t do , it had to be all his blood ,every drop of it. He hang on the cross ,feeling his blood draining from his body for 3 hours and just before he gave up his spirit, he proclaimed “ It is finished” .The work he was sent to do on earth was done ,he shed his blood so that through it we may be forgiven our sins and have eternal life . “…This is eternal life, that they May know you the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom you have sent.” John 17: 3
It had to be HIS blood to be shed because HE was holy from birth ,born of a virgin by the power of the Holy Spirit, lived without sin in this vile world ,and was in constant communication with God, he was and still is perfection.
All this happened during the Passover feast . This is the reason Jesus is referred to as the lamb of God ,who takes away the sin of the world. After his death ,the people no longer needed to sacrifice a lamb and smear its blood .Jesus IS the Lamb of God ,without blemish , without sin ,Pure and Holy .HIS blood is now what we need to apply symbolically .By declaring that one’s loved ones and homes are covered by the blood of Jesus .
He was later laid in a tomb , and its entrance sealed but Lo and behold , the earth quaked and the stone was rolled away and he rose from the dead on the third day ,Easter Sunday. Jesus had told his disciples before his crucifixion that he had the power to lay down his life and take it up again.
“ The reason my Father loves me is that I lay down my life – only to take it up again. No one takes it from me , but I lay it down on my own accord. I have authority to lay it down and to take it up again. This command I received from my Father.” John 10:18
Jesus suffered willingly .He was not a victim of circumstance as some have portrayed him to be.
Most of us enjoy watching movies ,for me I have a weakness for action. Don’t we love it when the hero or heroine in the movie takes a bullet for another, jumps on a grenade to save a loved one ? Or even the outlandish ones of carrying a huge missile that was directed on earth and the hero manages single handedly to propel it to outer space and into a huge black hole, risking his very life to save all of humanity! And we all adore the hero saying “oh so brave!” some even shedding a tear “how self-less, he must really love the country ”, and the hero is honored as the movie ends and he sometimes gets called back into active service. We then rush for the premiere tickets and tweet about how awesome the hero was and the film directors lauded for their inspiring work…..
Wait a minute ; Jesus is the real Hero here !Why don’t we react to him the same way ? He alone died selflessly and had to have his blood drained ,poured out, for all of us so that we may live. So that anyone, anyone from any part of the world ,any race ,no matter what you did or didn’t do would have eternal life just by simply believing in him and his word.
How come we don’t live our lives adoring him and being thankful for saving us ,yet we are the sinners ,we are the ones deserving the punishment ,but he took it on our behalf ,so that we can be free .
He Died for you, are you willing to live for him?
ComeFullCircle 