Today Christians around the world celebrate the
resurrection. Jesus is no longer in the tomb! Death could not hold him in its
bitter grasp. The rejected Messiah is robed in glory and lives. He has the name
above all names and every knee will bow and every tongue confess that Jesus is
Lord of all. And all those who place their faith in his atoning sacrifice will
be resurrected, too. We will no longer be clothed in the body of shame. The
promises made by God will come to pass and all the machinations of the evil one
cannot prevent it. It’s been sealed by the broken body and shed blood of our
Redeemer who lives and reigns for eternity.
I have been locked in a fierce battle for my mind for a long
time. The end of which is still unknown. But today is a day of unrelenting joy
and peace. The burdens I bear and the weight of my sin have been lifted from my
weak shoulders and borne away by my blessed Savior. It is a day of celebration
and we can party hardy! No holds barred. The Lord delights in our unabashed
expressions of praise. David danced before the Ark of the Covenant as it was
brought to the tabernacle. His wife despised him for it, but God was enjoying
every minute of it. Shouldn’t we?
There are holy days in which we take on somber countenances
and rightly so. Our God is awesome God and we do well to bow down in his
presence. The Creator of all seen and unseen, the vast universe that seems endless
and the myriads of angels who do his bidding on earth and in heavenly realms.
And yet the Omnipotent One stooped down to fashion us by hand from the dust of
the earth he created and breathed the breath of life into us. He made us in his
image and blessed us. Then he rested from his creative works saying it was all
good.
Never once has God been surprised by our actions and words.
He foresaw our fall from perfection into a sinful existence. His glory in us
sullied. And yet, there remains in each human a divinely ordained hunger to be
more than we are. In the heart of all who live is an urge to worship something.
The need is overpowering and humans have sought to fulfill it with anything but
the One who placed it within the heart and mind. Driven by carnal instincts men
and women have turned to a vast array of false gods and our fallen natures have
deceived us into believing the next great thing will take away the emptiness we
long to fill. But our desires are never sated.
Enter the promise God first made to Adam and Eve, that a sacrifice
greater than the blood of animals would be provided to pay the ransom for us
from the demand of justice that required the shedding of blood and death. The
Law was given to reveal our hopeless condition. No one, not even one is
righteous before God. All are subject to sin and death. We deceive ourselves if
we deny the truth that the wages of sin are death and try as we might to pay
our way into heaven it’s not good enough to see the face of a holy God.
The good news is God made a way to redeem our fallen race
and the broken body and shed blood of an unblemished sacrificial Lamb paid the
penalty once and for all time. The redemption of the created ones was declared
finished from the cross and the promise of the ages was fulfilled by the resurrection
we celebrate today. The path to the presence of the Almighty One is made
possible through our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.
So let’s party!
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