Why Does Easter Matter?

So why does Easter matter?

Today is the day that the story changes

-        It’s the big twist, the reveal, the surprise in the season finale

The disciples have been following Jesus on a path towards death for three years now.

-        Jesus has been a rabble-rouser, a critic of religion, a breaker of rules, someone who has repeatedly and openly challenged the ruling religious elites to their faces, often before crowds of witnesses.

-        He has been gathering crowds out in the countryside, filling their ears and minds with who knows what kind of dangerous nonsense.

-        He has been seen interacting with demons

-        He eats with prostitutes, tax men, zealots, and poor nobodies.

-        He touches lepers and the unclean

-        He went on a rampage in the temple courts

-        This man is a shameless trouble-maker of the highest order!

Where does behaviour like that take you? To a swift execution, that’s where.

-        When the priests met to talk about Jesus, one said: “If we let him go on like this, everyone will believe in him, and then the Romans will come and take away both our temple and our nation!”

-        Rome doesn’t mess around with trouble-makers like him. They kill people like that. And the priests are only too happy to encourage them.

It’s obvious to all involved: Jesus is courting death in what he does.

And then it happens! What the disciples feared and tried so hard to prevent comes to pass. The priests and soldiers get ahold of Jesus, drag him off and beat him up, sentence him to death under cover of darkness, and ship him off to be executed before his followers can interfere.

It’s all playing out just like the story is expected to go.

And then he really dies, as the suffocation or bleeding or lash wounds do their work

There is no angel army that flattens the Romans before they can kill him

Jesus dies for real

And that’s how the story should end. The rabble disperses. The mourning turns into memory. And Jesus becomes just another dead rabbi.

But then Easter Sunday comes rolling along.

I have always pictured a hush falling over the garden where he was buried.

-        Before the women got there to mourn, and to make their great discovery, there was just the garden, still and quiet in the wee hours of the morning.

-        The spiritual forces of evil have finished their party over his grave, bragging to one another about their unbelievable victory, to have killed God Himself. They’ve all gone home again to pat themselves on the back some more.

-        And in the stillness of that most beautiful of mornings, a hush falls over the garden.

-        The grass and trees and flowers can feel something happening, and they lean in, attentive to the moment.

-        The Lord of all Creation draws near. His footsteps in the garden are soft, tender.

-        He has come to do something new. All Creation leans in to find out what.

Within the tomb, the rock itself has mourned for its fallen King. It shelters Jesus’ broken body with the solemn reverence of stone as the Father arrives.

-        I picture the tears of the Father wetting the grave clothes as He sees His Beloved Son lying there, dead at the hands of His other children.

-        But the tears of sorrow won’t last.

-        Because the Father has come to write a new ending to our story, beginning here in the morning darkness of a tomb.

In the perfect stillness of that rocky cave, the Father puts His hand on Jesus’ chest and breathes new life into Him.

-        In the deepest depths of the grave, the life-giving breath of the Father resurrects him, shattering the chain of death binding his Son.

-        And as all of Heaven and Creation sing and blow their golden trumpets in triumph, the powerful, radiant heart of Jesus starts beating once more

o   The gates of hell quake and shudder at the sound, snapping in two

-        The colour starts coming back to his skin,

o   And Death itself realizes its been played for a fool!

-        As Jesus takes the first breath of the new creation.

Holy, Holy, Holy is the Lord God Almighty, Maker of Heaven and Earth!

Heaven and Earth are full of your Glory!

Holy, Holy, Holy is Jesus, the Beloved Son, Saviour and Redeemer!

The First and the Last, the Living One!

Holy, Holy, Holy is the Spirit of your Love, True Companion!

Breath of Life that is True Life!

Why does Easter matter?

That morning the tomb was opened forever and for all

That morning Death’s cold grip on us was broken

Sin’s iron chain was snapped

And Life Himself was crowned the King of this Story.

Because of that morning, all who call on the name of the Lord will be saved

From evil, from death, from sin

He is here to lead us out of our tombs

To rewrite the tragedy into triumph

To wake others from their slumber, from their graves

You, watching this today. There is Good News for you today.

          Your story does not need to end in despair

          In fear, loss, terror, defeat, and ruin, false hope and failure.

Though all the world around us shakes with war or plague or dashed dreams …

We have Hope today, as the Redeemed

          Sin and Evil do not get the last laugh

We have Resurrection Life today, in Jesus, the Living One, alive for ever and ever.

          His heartbeat sends Death itself running

We have Healing today, at His touch.

          Your brokenness does not need to define or shackle you any longer

          Where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom

And we have a Call today, to bring others to meet Him,

          The Living Lord, the King who broke the grave wide open

          Who sought the bottom, not the top

          Who met us in the mud and desperate pain of our brokenness,

at the brink of death,

in the hells of our own making,

and took our hopeless faces in his hands,

calling us by name, saying:

It was all for you, my daughter, my son

          I died to find you and bring you home with me

          I have bought you back from your misery, your bondage

          Your sin is forgiven, your mistakes are pardoned

          The way is clear to come back to my waiting arms

          There is nothing I want more than to hold you again

          Take off the grave wraps and come with me

          Hear my voice and live.

          For I am the Resurrection and the Life.

          Those who believe in me will live, even though they die;

          And whoever lives by believing in me will never die

This story will not end in death, friends, but in Life

Abundant and eternal

Flowing with justice and mercy,

Healing and wholeness

A table set for all

And there is a place of welcome for you there

Eternal Life starts now and it continues forever

The grave has no hold on us!

No fear for us.

Let our lives reflect that truth and hope

For Christ is risen!

He is risen indeed!