Easter Blessings

Easter changes everything.  Easter matters.

You and I may not think about it every day, but Easter really matters.  It matters because Jesus Christ matters.  The whole Jesus matters: not just the man Jesus, who taught the things recorded for us in the gospels; not just the Jesus who suffered and died on the cross; not just the Jesus whom God raised from death and who showed himself in body to the disciples; not just the Christ Jesus who spoke to Paul on the road to Damascus; and not just the Jesus Christ known to any one person or another.  The whole of the New Testament tells us about Jesus Christ, the man in whom the fullness of God was pleased to dwell.  All that he was and is and all that he said and did and continues to do is important for us in order to really know him and through him to know God.

Easter matters because in order to be raised to new life, Jesus had to be really and truly dead.  He couldn't just appear that way, using some kind of God power.  Even though God was in Jesus, Jesus had to trust that when he died, God would continue to be with him in death and beyond.  That thrust is faith, Jesus' faith in God.  That faith is a faith that we can understand, or at least try to.  We can relate to this faith.  It is the faith in God with which each of us may find both joy and struggle over the course of our lives.  But this by itself is not the faith that makes Easter so important, that makes Easter matter.  There is a second faith to which Easter testifies:  God's faith.  God showed faith in Jesus.  God trusted Jesus to do and be all that he needed to do and be as a man so that Jesus would ultimately be able to testify and point to God, to who God really is.  Easter matters because in Easter, God demonstrates God's trust and faith in us, people.  Easter is God's demonstration of faithfulness to us.  God promises to be with us always, in life, death and beyond.  Raising Jesus Christ from death proves to us that God is trustworthy, that God is true.

Paul said it this way in his Letter to the Romans:  For I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor rulers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord. (Rom 8:38-39 NRSV)  God loves us and has demonstrated that love through Jesus Christ:  his birth, life, teaching, death on the cross AND his resurrection.  Placing our faith and trust in this faithful and trustworthy God, we may dare to live in a big way, a way that will truly honor and testify to God.  And should we ever fall short in our lives, we may dare to try again.  Why?  Because Easter matters@! 

I pray the blessings of Easter for you.  Have faith; and dare to be Christ's witnesses in the world. 

Blessings,

Rev. Andrew