Easter is really a far more graphic holiday than our pastel colors, perky flowers, and fluffy bunnies reveal. The whole season begins with the brutal death, murder really, of the very Son of God. In the most horrific scenes he is tortured, mocked, dehumanized, and crucified. Good Friday, as it is so termed, is a bloody mess! And what it points back to, theologically, in the Old Testament is equally as bloody. The Day of Atonement marked the day of sacrifice for the sins of the nation of Israel. The slaughtering of animals is bloody and gruesome. But then comes Easter morning, and it is sweet and beautiful, right? Well, of course it is for those of us who have repented of our rebellion against God and trusted in Jesus’ death as payment for our rebellion. But the truth of the matter is that Jesus’ resurrection from the dead is really a fatal blow to death, hell, and Satan! Jesus essentially kicks them in the teeth and pronounces certain destruction on them all!
Our God is not some impotent pansy who got crucified because he was in the wrong place at the wrong time. No, Jesus tells us in John 10:
17 For this reason the Father loves me, because I lay down my life that I may take it up again. 18 No one takes it from me, but I lay it down of my own accord. I have authority to lay it down, and I have authority to take it up again.
His death is designed to make payment for my sin, but when he is ready to take up his life again it is the death blow to death itself. I loved the way the old Puritan theologian John Owen put it when he titled his book “The Death of Death in the Death of Christ!”
There is a reason we don’t view Easter as the celebration of Jesus the victim, but Jesus the conqueror: because His resurrection destroys the power of death and hell and Satan! Easter is a celebration of a violent act, but one that means peace for us. Because of the resurrection I can rest assured that death has no sting, and all because Jesus pulled its stinger out!
Sparrow & Heart Soul Care 