Christ is risen! He is risen indeed!
We don’t just say this because it is Resurrection Sunday! This is something we need to say and something we need to live and something we need to breathe and a truth we need to believe with all of our hearts every single moment of our lives because this one truth is the pivotal event of all of humanity on earth.
This one truth is the difference between eternal life and eternal death.
This one truth is the one and only path to salvation!
Prayer
Turned on the TV this past week - The Passion of the Christ was on (with no commercials!)
It is a brutal movie! Brutal!
It will reduce you to tears especially if you love Jesus.
This past Friday was Good Friday and I was amazed how few came to the service.
The suffering and death of Christ is just as necessary and important as the resurrection and if you think the Passion of the Christ was brutal let’s take a look at what just a few Scriptures say.
Isaiah 52:13-15 (CEV)
“The LORD says: My servant will succeed! He will be given great praise and the highest honors.
“Many were horrified at what happened to Him. But everyone who saw Him was even more horrified because He suffered until
He no longer looked human.
“My servant will make nations worthy to worship Me; kings will be silent as they bow in wonder. They will see and think about things they have never seen or thought about before.”
Isaiah 50:6
“I offered my back to those who beat Me, My cheeks to those who pulled out My beard; I did not hide My face from mocking and spitting.”
Isaiah 53:1-8
“Who has believed our message and to whom has the power of the LORD been revealed? He grew up before Him like a tender shoot, and like a root out of dry ground.
“He had no beauty or majesty to attract us to Him, nothing in His appearance that we should desire Him. He was despised and rejected by mankind, a man of suffering, and familiar with pain.
“Like one from whom people hide their faces He was despised, and we held Him in low esteem. Surely He took up our pain and bore our suffering, yet we considered Him punished by God, stricken by Him, and afflicted.
“But He was pierced for our transgressions, He was crushed for our iniquities; the punishment that brought us peace was on Him, and by His wounds we are healed.
“All we, like sheep, have gone astray, each of us has turned to our own way; and the LORD has laid on Him the iniquity of us all.
“He was oppressed and afflicted, yet He did not open His mouth;
He was led like a lamb to the slaughter, and as a sheep before its shearers is silent, so He did not open His mouth.
“By oppression and judgment He was taken away. Yet who of His generation protested? For He was cut off from the land of the living; for the transgression of my people He was punished.
Matthew 27:27-30
“Then the governor’s soldiers took Jesus into the Praetorium and gathered the whole company of soldiers around Him.
“They stripped Him and put a scarlet robe on Him, and then twisted together a crown of thorns and set it on His head. They put a staff in His right hand.
“Then they knelt in front of Him and mocked Him. ‘Hail, king of the Jews!’ they said. They spit on Him, and took the staff and struck Him on the head again and again.”
There are many, many more. It is beyond our comprehension what Jesus went through for our salvation.
Now, really, really … what do we think about at Easter time? Do we get time off from work or school? Will we get candy? Will our child cry when we sit him or her on the Easter Bunny’s lap for a photo? Will family be coming over for dinner? Will church go too long and interfere with the family gathering?
What about each month when we have communion. Do we really remember or do we just cast a passing glance at the image of Jesus on the cross as described in the Bible?
Do we see a lily white Jesus with blue eyes looking sad while hanging in a mildly uncomfortable posture on a cross or do we see unbearable agony being endured voluntarily at our expense?
You see, when the nails were driven through His wrists and through the tops of His feet into the cross He was being pierced for my sins and your sins. If we hadn’t sinned He wouldn’t have needed to provide a way of salvation for us.
You see, when He was beaten, whipped, clubbed and tortured until He was unrecognizable He was being crushed, think about that, being crushed for my iniquity, for the rebellion in my heart, for all of my evil thought and actions, for all the hate and deception and poison that had grown to be me and you. He was crushed for us, for us, for us!
So, when we take this even and primp it an make it into some frilly little semi-Christian holiday it is spitting in the face of Jesus once again! We, with our actions, our thoughts, our neglect of recognizing the tremendous suffering and sacrifice of Christ are actually trivializing our own God!
Today we should be celebrating the unbelievable reality of the resurrection of Christ from the dead giving victory over sin and death but in fact most of us have not even walked the path of suffering and crucifixion with Him yet this week.
His death is not real to us so how could His resurrection be real to us?
There is an old hymn which so poetically describes that awfulness of what happened to our beloved Savior so much better than I could ever describe it.
Verse 1
O sacred Head now wounded
With grief and shame weighed down
Now scornfully surrounded
With thorns Thine only crown
O sacred Head what glory
What bliss till now was Thine
Yet tho' despised and gory
I joy to call Thee mine
Verse 2
What Thou my Lord hast suffered
Was all for sinners' gain
Mine, mine was the transgression
But Thine the deadly pain
Lo here I fall my Savior
'Tis I deserve Thy place
Look on me with Thy favor
And grant to me Thy grace
Verse 3
Men mock and taunt and jeer Thee
Thou noble countenance
Though mighty worlds shall fear Thee
And flee before Thy glance
How art Thou pale with anguish
With sore abuse and scorn
How doth Thy visage languish
That once was bright as morn
Verse 4
Now from Thy cheeks has vanished
Their color once so fair
From Thy red lips is banished
The splendor that was there
Grim death with cruel rigor
Hath robbed Thee of Thy life
Thus Thou hast lost Thy vigor
Thy strength in this sad strife
Verse 5
My burden in Thy Passion
Lord Thou hast borne for me
For it was my transgression
Which brought this woe on Thee
I cast me down before Thee
Wrath were my rightful lot
Have mercy I implore Thee
Redeemer spurn me not
Verse 6
What language shall I borrow
To thank Thee dearest friend
For this Thy dying sorrow
Thy pity without end
O make me Thine forever
And should I fainting be
Lord let me never, never
Outlive my love to Thee
(© Public Domain - Bernard of Clairvaux Hans, Leo Hassler, James W. Alexander, Paulus Gerhardt)
Resurrection Sunday without the suffering and death of Christ is like wanting salvation without repentance - hollow and meaningless.
It is like trying to be baptized by coming up out of the water without ever going under the water. It will never work.
Salvation message and invitation …
