Color Of Easter

Introduction: This morning many of us may be wondering what is this color of Easter? When we spread the canvas of Easter and paint the biblical picture, it has many shades. While Jesus walked the earth, His ministry of love, grace, healing, preaching and teaching was disliked by the Jewish priests. Wherever He went, the crowds gathered and the importance of the temple laws and priests began to recede. Jesus resurrecting Lazarus from the dead triggered the process and death of Christ on the cross. These Jewish people were Middle Eastern Asian folks that very much resembled Sunny and I.

As the Jews were colonized by the Romans, they had no authority to sentence anyone to death. Therefore, the Jewish priests pressed the Roman authorities to sentence Jesus to be crucified. These Roman people were Caucasian European folks that took precedence over much of the world. They very much resembled my dear brothers Peter and Pastor Daniel. It was their consent with the Jewish leaders that brought Jesus to the cross. But Christ willingly gave up His life for us to die on the cross.

After being flogged and scourged, while Jesus carried His cross to Calvary, due to exhaustion, and dehydration He fell and had a hard time to get up and carry it again. Therefore, a man among the crowd by the name of Simon from Cyrene volunteered to carry the cross of Christ for Him to Calvary. Cyrene is in Africa on the Eastern part of Libya. Simon very much resembled our brothers Daryl and Pastor Dooley.

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On Good Friday, the Roman soldiers nailed Christ to the cross and lifted Him high for the world to see the God-Man die for our sins. As His blood flowed at Calvary, it covered all the past, present and future sins of all the world. No matter who we are, from where we come, or what our ethnicity, race or culture is, Christ died for us all. His blood turned our darkest sin to white as snow. His blood covered us all just like the waters cover the seas. This is not a message of hatred. It is a message of hope and love. The black man’s face is in this book; the white man’s face is in it; the brown man’s face is in it … the reason you can’t see it is because all our faces are smeared with His blood of love. TRULY HIS LOVE MATTERS!

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WHY DOES HIS LOVE MATTER?

Reason # 1: His Love Matters because Christ came down to earth to SAVE THE LOST.

Jesus didn't come to please the religious crowd. Jesus didn't come to pander to the social crowd. Jesus didn't come to hang out with the wild bunch. Instead, Jesus came with a vision. He came to the world to save those that are lost.

Illustration: The film Amazing Grace was set in the late 1700s. It tells the story of William Wilberforce, a politician who was driven by his faith in Christ to commit his money and energy to abolishing the slave trade in England. In one scene, Wilberforce’s butler finds him praying. The butler asks, “You found God, Sir?” Wilberforce responds, “I think He found me.” We truly don’t realize that we are lost until we are found.

Jesus showed interest in Zacchaeus, a shunned tax collector in Jericho, and included him in the recipients of His salvation plan (Luke 19:1-10). A marginalized and hated man because of his profession, Zacchaeus was desperate to see Jesus and climbed a tree to get a glimpse of Him. When Jesus passed by, He saw Zacchaeus’ desire and told him to come down because he had a divine appointment at his house. Some complained that Jesus was spending time with a sinner. His loving attention changed Zacchaeus’ life. He repented and offered restitution for those he had defrauded. Salvation came to his house.

Jesus’ mission was simple: Diligently search for lost people, whatever their social standing, and offer them God’s salvation plan. As followers of Christ, we too have that as our mission.

Sometimes we encourage sinners to “come to Christ,” which is entirely biblical. However, if Jesus did not come to us first, we would never come to him at all. That’s what it means to be truly lost.

• Lost without God.

• Lost without hope.

• Lost in a tangled web of sin.

• Lost and trapped forever.

What, then, is our hope if we are so hopelessly lost? We find the answer in the words of Jesus, who came to “to seek and to save what was lost.” He did not come as a tourist or a casual visitor or an educator or an itinerant philosopher. Jesus came as a Savior seeking to save the lost.