Do You Remember Easter?

By the time you read this you’ll have finished the Easter eggs, and the hot-cross buns will be but a distant memory. Hopefully what we celebrated in Church at Easter will be fresher in our minds – but what do we celebrate at Easter? What is it that Jesus did on that first Easter?

The answer to this is also the answer to the question “What did Jesus come to Earth to do?” On a holiday once, we visited some spectacularly ornate churches in Austria. The focus in these appeared to be on the suffering and death of Jesus. This brought home the price He paid for me, and the love that led Him to pay it. In the Gospels of Matthew and Mark we’re told that Jesus came to give his life as a ransom for many. These churches illustrated that fact; but it seemed, somehow, an incomplete picture of what Jesus did.

Jesus did come to Earth to die for our sins, but He also came to be raised from the dead, to win – as only He could – a final and permanent victory over death and to give us the prize for that victory – eternal life. If you look through the Gospels you will find that whenever Jesus talked to His disciples about His death, he always also told them about His resurrection. The two are inseparable in God’s plan: the resurrection victory of Easter had been planned from eternity, but it had to follow the suffering and death of Good Friday.

Jesus told us that He had come so that we might have life – life to the full! (John 10:10) This abundant, full life comes in our relationship with God, which God created us for. What Jesus did on that first Easter was to restore that relationship eternally for those who choose to have it. He had to endure death in our place, taking our sins on Himself to do this, and He had to be raised from the dead.

What Jesus did for us by His death and resurrection, and the benefit we get from it, is so amazing that we celebrate it not just at Easter, but every Sunday!

With love
David (Bates)

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