In the rattle and hum that constitutes life today, it is easy to miss the magnitude of God's love and to have a surface level appreciation of why Easter is significant. The secularization of the church and culture's co-opting of faith based holidays work together to separate the hearts of the casually religious from understanding the true significance of the crucifixion and resurrection. Even diligent believer's can be challenged in grasping the implications of our God inserting himself into our lives to rescue us from sin and death; it is a gesture of love that is beyond our comprehension. Several years ago, Mel Gibson delivered a wrenching visualization of Christ's atoning love in 'The Passion of The Christ'. If you saw the film you were mortified by the brutality of Christ's final day as a man. It is possible that you wept uncontrollably as I did. Maybe you struggled to stand at the end, weakened by what you 'experienced' in participating in that portrayal of our Savior's condemnation and death. Easter might have changed for you after seeing that film but the real question is how have you changed for Easter's sake?
In acknowledging our sin and the need for Christ to come and die for us, we necessarily have a perspective that is focused on our debt, our culpability, our guilt. We respond with sorrow, brokenness, and gratitude for the incredible love that allowed God's Son to bear our sentence and redeem our lives and for most of us that is it.
We have been saved, our record is expunged, eternity is assured...what's for lunch? We are barely capable of grasping the majesty and mystery of grace so we tend to rest right there, huddled amongst fellow believers, waiting. This Easter was different for me and to be transparent, it was well into the following week before the realization came to me. Some circumstances gave me pause, and in the reflection that followed I realized how one sided and single minded my perception of Easter has been.
In considering Christ's mistreatment, maiming, and death for our sins, we are aware of the physical agony that He endured. We are physical beings and we can understand the excruciating experience that His flogging and crucifixion surely was. We recoil at the violence and abuse that He was subjected to. If we would attempt to understand the mechanics of His atonement, we realize that there was another type of suffering when the most holy one, sinless and guiltless, was smeared with our corruption and vileness. The light has nothing in common with the dark, the east and west can never meet, yet his perfect righteousness was forced to accept the totality of the world's evil, bitterness, and venom. Without fully knowing how God made that transference we can still surmise that the pain of that burden would surpass the physical torment of the cross. The measure of God's love and that of his Son is difficult to understand but we can grasp that He died because He could not endure our separation and condemnation. We are able to understand that because being made in His image, we would die to save the life of a spouse, child, or friend. What we miss is that Jesus died for everyone, for all mankind and that means He willingly submitted to that suffering for people who would reject Him, revile Him, and resent Him. Consider the hurt when someone you love denounces your concern and compassion and realize that Jesus knew those people who would reject Him before their conception. What does the weight of loving people who will refuse your love feel like on the scale that our Lord experienced it? How big is God's hurt when the ones He created to have fellowship and relationship with, reject Him?
In the epistles we learn that the apostles counted it joy to be persecuted and suffer for Christ because they were 'found worthy' to have shared in His suffering. We should study their example and strive to be worthy as well. Our burden, our hurt, should be for the prodigal and the lost, for those who through ignorance or deceit have not found the Father. We should share in the pain of loving others, even if they will revile and despise us.
2 Grace and peace be yours in abundance through the knowledge of God and of Jesus our Lord.
3 His divine power has given us everything we need for a godly life through our knowledge of him who called us by his own glory and goodness. 4 Through these he has given us his very great and precious promises, so that through them you may participate in the divine nature, having escaped the corruption in the world caused by evil desires.
I have been trying to discern what this verse meant for some time. The divine nature? I did not know what to do with that. I did not know how that looked or if I was supposed to figure it out or if that applied to me?
Our redemption is huge and its scale and scope can take a lifetime to assimilate. Is that enough time?
Relationship is collaborative and conflicting, embracing and recoiling, losing ourselves and gaining another.
This is what Easter means for me now. Having a heart that hurts for those who need God, regardless of the cost, irrespective of their response. Caring enough to say something, instead of huddling up with other believers and waiting.
In acknowledging our sin and the need for Christ to come and die for us, we necessarily have a perspective that is focused on our debt, our culpability, our guilt. We respond with sorrow, brokenness, and gratitude for the incredible love that allowed God's Son to bear our sentence and redeem our lives and for most of us that is it.
In considering Christ's mistreatment, maiming, and death for our sins, we are aware of the physical agony that He endured. We are physical beings and we can understand the excruciating experience that His flogging and crucifixion surely was. We recoil at the violence and abuse that He was subjected to. If we would attempt to understand the mechanics of His atonement, we realize that there was another type of suffering when the most holy one, sinless and guiltless, was smeared with our corruption and vileness. The light has nothing in common with the dark, the east and west can never meet, yet his perfect righteousness was forced to accept the totality of the world's evil, bitterness, and venom. Without fully knowing how God made that transference we can still surmise that the pain of that burden would surpass the physical torment of the cross. The measure of God's love and that of his Son is difficult to understand but we can grasp that He died because He could not endure our separation and condemnation. We are able to understand that because being made in His image, we would die to save the life of a spouse, child, or friend. What we miss is that Jesus died for everyone, for all mankind and that means He willingly submitted to that suffering for people who would reject Him, revile Him, and resent Him. Consider the hurt when someone you love denounces your concern and compassion and realize that Jesus knew those people who would reject Him before their conception. What does the weight of loving people who will refuse your love feel like on the scale that our Lord experienced it? How big is God's hurt when the ones He created to have fellowship and relationship with, reject Him?
In the epistles we learn that the apostles counted it joy to be persecuted and suffer for Christ because they were 'found worthy' to have shared in His suffering. We should study their example and strive to be worthy as well. Our burden, our hurt, should be for the prodigal and the lost, for those who through ignorance or deceit have not found the Father. We should share in the pain of loving others, even if they will revile and despise us.
2 Peter1:2-6
3 His divine power has given us everything we need for a godly life through our knowledge of him who called us by his own glory and goodness. 4 Through these he has given us his very great and precious promises, so that through them you may participate in the divine nature, having escaped the corruption in the world caused by evil desires.
I have been trying to discern what this verse meant for some time. The divine nature? I did not know what to do with that. I did not know how that looked or if I was supposed to figure it out or if that applied to me?
Our redemption is huge and its scale and scope can take a lifetime to assimilate. Is that enough time?
Relationship is collaborative and conflicting, embracing and recoiling, losing ourselves and gaining another.
This is what Easter means for me now. Having a heart that hurts for those who need God, regardless of the cost, irrespective of their response. Caring enough to say something, instead of huddling up with other believers and waiting.
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