What Will You Do With What You Have Heard-Easter Sunday

This weekend we are celebrating Easter. Now the word Easter is not found in the Bible, but we know this day as Resurrection Day. This is the day in which we celebrate Jesus being raised from the dead three days later after he was put to death on a cross.

As Christians, we know that this day is the most important day this world has seen in history. Without this day, we would not be gathered here today. Without this day there we would have no hope of life after death, or even living an abundant life here and now.

So let's turn back the clock to 2000 years ago, it was the time of the Passover. Jerusalem was very busy with people who had come to town to celebrate this tradition. This was a celebration that Jewish people had celebrated since the time of the Exodus when the angel of the Lord went throughout Egypt and passed over all of the doors that had blood painted on the front of the house. But if not, the people were killed. This would lead to Pharaoh finally allowing the Israelites to go.

So now Jerusalem was in the middle of the Passover celebration, but this was also the setting that God chose to bring his redemption plan. Now this word redemption means to 'buy back,' so why did God send Jesus to buy something back? And what was being bought back?

Let's go back all the way to the very beginning. So, if you are walking in the street of Jerusalem at the time of the resurrection, now we are going back 4000 years to the creation of the world. Because to understand why Jesus died and rose again, we have to see what happened that put God's plan of redemption into motion.

In the first two chapters of Genesis, we see the account of God speaking creation into existence. The heavens and earth, the land, the seas, light and darkness, the animals, and even the first man and woman. Everything was perfect, there was no sin. A perfect God was able to walk in the Garden and fellowship with Adam & Eve because there was no sin. And one important thing to remember is that God cannot be in the presence of sin. Everything was good.

Until Chapter 3. In chapter 3 we see how Satan shows his ugly mug and lives up to his name of the deceiver. ...

Revelation 12:9 (ESV)

9 And the great dragon was thrown down, that ancient serpent, who is called the devil and Satan, the deceiver of the whole world he was thrown down to the earth, and his angels were thrown down with him.

I love how the first book of the Bible and the last book of the Bible, separated by at least 6000 years point to the deception from not only Satan but Satan in the form of a snake.

So because Adam and Even gave into sin, now sin was on the Earth. Remember what I said, God and sin cannot be in the same place, so God put his redemption plan into motion. 4000 years would pass until we see the plan revealed.

This plan begins with the birth of a baby, but not just any baby, the Messiah, God's son Jesus Christ. But he was God. All of the prophecies over the last 4000 years that we see in the Old Testament pointed to a Messiah being born in Bethlehem, from the line of David. This birth would begin the last stage of redemption. This baby would grow up, teach of a coming new kingdom, reveal that he was God, and ultimately say that if someone wanted to go to heaven it must be through him. But again, what does all of this have to do with Easter?

The only way to enter heaven is through Jesus, but sin was still a part of this world and we could not stand in his presence because of sin, so someone had to buy back our holiness. Someone had to be the perfect sacrifice, the Sacrificial Lamb. That, someone, was Jesus. God in the form of a man. John the Baptist said it prophetically before Jesus began his earthly ministry,

John 1:29 (ESV)

29 ...Behold, the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world!

God knew before he created the world that man would sin, and his plan of redemption was set up long before Eve took the first bite. Peter stated this...

1 Peter 1:19-20 (ESV)

19 but with the precious blood of Christ, like that of a lamb without blemish or spot.

20 He was foreknown before the foundation of the world but was made manifest in the last times for the sake of you