Resurrection Sunday

This Sunday is the day in which Christians around the world celebrate the day of Jesus' resurrection from the dead.  We do this not merely in memorial, though.  When we join together to worship our Lord and Savior, Christ Jesus, risen from the grave, we do so understanding the great salvation that He offers through His flesh.  This is the very heart of Easter; it's the only reason we celebrate the day at all!

Let us not neglect this as we join together over food and family this Easter.  Let us, instead, only offer the sincerest of praises to our Lord for what He did upon the cross!

Easter: Today and Beyond

Easter is a sacred day for the Christians around the world.  It is a day, really the day, when all around the world considers this historical man, Jesus of Nazarene, and the remarkable events that surrounded His life, His death by the hands of Pontius Pilate, and the strange events of His post-death life.  It is the day when, around the world, people who would rather never consider the reality of the events of Jesus of Nazarene.

But for Christians, this is a day of remembrance of a different sort.  For Christians, this is a day marked on the calendar not merely as a remembrance of what Christ Jesus did in His life, in His horrid death, and by His resurrection; it is also a day of particular importance because we remember, more particularly, what Jesus has done for us.

Today's blog, therefore, is one meant especially for those who would come to Christ in faith.  Today, on this very day, I exhort you to consider all that God has done for you in Christ Jesus, and to set as a mark upon your foreheads your commitment in faith to Christ Jesus for the remainder of this year.  Use this day in concert with the rest of your days as a podium to herald the King and to sing of His praise.  It is, of course, not merely a day like any other for it is a day of supreme testimony by which we recognize the sin offering and propitiation that Christ has won on our behalf.  AMEN!

Pointing to Isaiah on Easter

Easter is fast upon us.  It is a marvelous day by which the Christian commemorates the death and resurrection of Christ.  On this day, more than any other day of the year, the Christian is exhorted to truly consider the weight of sin placed on the whipped shoulders of Christ as He breathed His last breath splayed upon the cross.

Because of the sheer exuberant heaviness hereof, it seems sufficient a study today to read the two passages of Scripture that seems most appropriate at this time: Isaiah 53 and John 19-20.  As an obedience of love and faith, let us commit ourselves to study and contemplation today.

Good Friday and Easter Weekend

Although Christmas has a special place in the Christian calendar, it is the final week of Christ' life, the Passion week, that takes the supreme place in our year.  To be sure, the events surrounding Jesus' death are of such pinnacle importance to all Christianity that they warrant observance and remembrance throughout the year.  However, for this week, this Easter week, we have the unique opportunity to consider at length the obedient suffering reckoned by our Lord Jesus by which He was crucified and died to pay the penalty for sin.  Because of Christ's great misery unto the cross, we have redemption, the forgiveness of sin, and have become sons and daughters of God by virtue of our rebirth in Jesus, which is made sure by His blood shed at the cross.

Because of all this, my exhortation today is to spend some time in prayer and in study, remembering the precious blood willingly spilt for our sin and iniquity.

Engaging Easter

Across the earth on this Easter sunday, Christians unite in worship and remembrance of Christ Jesus, His life, death, and resurrection.  It is on this day, Easter, that the centuries old story is told and retold as families get together around the table for feasts and fellowship while the kids hunt for dyed eggs strewn about the home.  However, for this Easter, let us engage the story of Jesus again.

For starters, Jesus was the fulfillment of prophecy.  Not only prophecy, but Jesus' life, death, and resurrection fulfilled the whole of the Old Testament.  This all being true, understanding the meaning of Jesus is something else entirely.

The Jewish faith, at the time of Jesus, was a closed religious system.  Their Law and Writings had been well-established for several centuries and the nation was all-too aware of their special status as the Chosen People of God.  The major feature of becoming the Chosen People was that the Israelites were given the Law, the perfect and absolute moral ethic of God.  The Law revealed the character of God as it pointed out the transgressions of sin.  It is the Law that condemned Israel but it did much more than that, preparing the world for the Messiah to take on the sin of mankind.

The Law's primary function was to expose sin.  More than that, the Law condemned the transgressors.  Forgiveness for the sin could be accounted for by sacrifice, but only in part because the blood of bulls and goats is not sufficient to cover the sins of man.  However, the Law acted as a funnel, in that the sin of all mankind was able to be concentrated and pressed upon Israel.  Thus, when the Messiah came as a Hebrew, the God Man Jesus became the perfect atoning sacrificial lamb who could take on the sin of the whole world by condemning sin in His own flesh upon the cross.

Easter is an important holiday.  In fact, it is on Easter that the most important event in all of history is remembered.  This Easter, let us take a step beyond gluttonous consumption and obligatory family engagements to dig into the Word and to seek after the Lord for what He has done.  This is truly a wonderful day for He is risen, and as a result we can live too!