Grace and peace to you from our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. As I sit at my desk and write to you this month, I find a question coming to my mind – What does it all mean? We are in the midst of the Lenten season in the church with the great anticipation of another celebration of Easter. However, I am haunted by the reality that I, and maybe others, may not fully grasp what Easter is all about.
When we think of Easter, I believe many of us think of spring, bunnies, candy, pastel colors, sunrise services, special breakfasts, and maybe even a little bit about the resurrection. However, I would contend that the whole concept of Jesus’ death and resurrection is very distant for most of us and at some level, very difficult to understand. Part of the problem is the illogical nature of the whole list of events. Why would a man who was innocent, allow himself to be tortured and nailed to a cross to die? How does the death of Jesus have any impact on my life now? Once someone dies and is placed in a grave (tomb), how could they come back to life? (Unless you are a fan of horror movies, and then it makes perfect sense.) These are questions that confront us when we face the Gospel accounts of Jesus’ death and resurrection.
I would place before you that all of this finds its meaning in one word – LOVE. It is love for us that caused God to become human in Jesus and to dwell here on earth. It is love that propelled Jesus to spend three years ministering and teaching and healing. It is love that led him to endure the ridicule, torture, and pain of the events leading to and including the cross. It is love that caused him to die on that cross even though he had the power to remove himself. It is love that raised him from death into a new life, a new existence. It is love that is extremely relevant to us today and the reason that we should place the death and resurrection of Jesus forefront in our minds when we think of Easter.
Since anyone that has dealt with love knows that there are not logical, or sometimes even practical, aspects to this emotion, we should not be surprised that the events surrounding Easter escape logic. To get a grasp or understanding of Easter, we need to challenge ourselves to try to understand God’s love for us. For it is in Easter that we see the greatest demonstration of that love.
This Easter, I pray that each of you may experience the reality of God’s love. I pray that you may come to understand the extremes of that love as demonstrated in Jesus Christ. I pray that you may be moved to visibly and boldly celebrate that love in our your celebrations this Easter season so that all the world may know that – Jesus loves me, this I know, for the Bible tells me so!
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