I love Easter. Easter is the most important holiday we celebrate.
Christmas is all warm and fuzzy. A newborn baby, gifts, and celebrating with family and friends makes us think happy thoughts about new beginnings, hopeful tomorrows and unlimited possibilities for better things to come. That feels good. Even if our present lives are full of hardship, heartache and struggle, the Christmas story lets us know that it’s all going to be okay eventually. God hasn’t given up on us yet.
Easter is more somber.
Granted it ends happy, but before the happy ending we’ve got to slog through horror, gore and death. Just like Christmas, Easter paints pictures in our minds about God. But this time, instead of happy, hopeful pictures, we get visions of a holy God, our own inadequacies, judgement and damnation, and what it really costs to be in a relationship with Him. That doesn’t feel so good … until you get it.
Because Easter is all about a war won, restoration, life and unexplainable peace. The kind of profound peace that no one can ever take away.
That encourages us, because our daily lives can be hard. Even if we live seemingly comfy lives, we will not be immune forever from facing some sort of heartache, sickness and eventual death. Some of us get a disproportionate amount of hardships and sorrow in life. Our troubles and woes may be the direct consequences of our own poor choices and actions, or we may simply be the hapless victims of tragic misfortune.
But even if our lives are happy, the world at large is a mess. We can refuse to watch the evening news and withdraw from society, but we can only do that to a point … because we are part of the world and we need to be connected to that world in order to live and thrive. That’s hard, because some of the systems and authorities we are subject to are not just, and pushing back can be a futile endeavor.
Our history is full of stories of heroism and brave souls who took stands, pushed back and revolted in order to make the world a little better and safer for everyone. And that’s good, of course, as far as it goes. And absolutely that is what we should be doing.
But we’re putting band aids over open sores and ignoring the deadly tumor hiding beneath. The band aids will make life a little easier and more comfortable for now, but we are still going to die.
The world is full of an evil and darkness that we don’t really understand. Despite what the governments and billionaires think, our world is controlled and run by authorities and powers that we are helpless to stand against. This is what the Easter story is all about.
We are caught up in a war being waged in the spiritual realm. It’s not our war. We're merely the spoils being fought over. Unfortunately, we were born into and live in enemy territory in the physical realm, separated forever from the Source of life in the spiritual realm.
When Christ stepped out of that tomb, our sin was atoned for and our salvation was secured. Now we’re on the winning side, physical beings reconnected to the spiritual realm and life. The deadly tumor has been removed and we live! But more than that, He rolled back the veil for those willing to see and shined His light … showing us that His victory is assured and exposing the enemy and his tactics.