The Message of Easter

Everywhere you look, you see the signs of spring, new beginnings, nature awakening from a long, cold winter. God's Will is always accomplished through the activity of human beings, and His Will will be done. In the council chambers of eternity, He designed everything, every life, every season. God is not shocked at anything, He is certainly not shocked at anything I might say, He planned it all. Mere mortals cannot believe the majesty of God, His sovereignty, His omnipotence, His omniscience, His love for you. The first prophecy of God's Word is Genesis 3:15: it shall bruise thy head, and thou shalt bruise his heel.

In a hotel in Athens, Greece, newly-arrived, I had studied the Acropolis in college, the great Parthenon, I could hardly wait to climb that Athenian hill. I must have felt like Paul as he made that steep climb and then said to his followers, “here is a statue to an unknown God” (Acts 17:23). Before the time of Bibles, few scriptures before 95 AD, before the time of churches, pulpits, preachers, Paul spoke with eloquence about that which he knew, that there were 400 hundred years between Abraham and Moses, and now we know that most of the world's population are descendents of Joesph's two son Ephraim and Manasseh, Caucasians and Anglo-Saxons. The real Jews are Hebrews from the other tribes just as Isaac and Ishmael were brothers, Abraham had children from other concubines, and as the sands of the sea, all of us are related.

One need not be a minister to be spiritual, one would have thought that Peter would have been quiet at Pentecost, but he had experienced something that few men could express and he preached from an experience, 3000 were saved. He knew what it was to deny, and he knew what it was to be forgiven. Most of his hearers, both Jews and Gentiles, knew little about prophecies and promises, but they recognized the real thing when they heard it from someone who was truly convinced, who like the other disciples and followers had had an cataclysmic experience.

At this Easter season, forget about giving and getting, rabbits laying eggs, even egg hunting. The golden thread of the resurrection runs totally through the scriptures, Genesis to Revelation. The message of Easter is our risen Lord, without that, all is lost.

Take the miraculous, take the supernatural out of Christianity and you have nothing left.

Jesus preached Himself, He told us that He is life, way, door, bread, light. He was either the greatest fraud the world has ever known, or He was who He said He was. He told us that we must make Him our master, that He is more important than father, mother, sister, brother. 15 times in the Sermon on the Mount, He proclaimed His authority. Even His disciples, who He chose, those who saw Him raise the dead, heal the sick, give sight to the blind, feed thousands with a small boy's lunch, did not really understand. Think of John, the youngest, self-centered, the only one who did not die as a martyr asking his mother to request from Jesus to let him sit next to Him in glory. John did not show much love, but wrote the epistle of love. Thomas, the hard-headed one, doubted everything and made incredulous statements. Peter warmed himself by the enemies' fire and denied Him at the most critical time in his life.

The pseudo-intellectuals, the Jesus seminar crowd, those who just play church have sought to discount the true power and deity of Jesus Christ. Any person who tells you that they do not believe in the resurrection of Jesus Christ, please do the following: ask several questions about the life of Christ, His resurrection, His ascension, you will find they have never spent 20 hours studying the resurrection of Christ, next to His birth, the greatest event in the history of the world. In order to deny Christ, in order to deny His sacrifice for them, knowing that they have no other alternative, except going to hell, had rather cling to their wisdom of unbelief than the miracle of redemption through Christ. The one fact of faith that separates Christianity from every other religion is the resurrection of Jesus Christ.

Those who knew Him best, His disciples were never the same after the resurrection, it was a cataclysmic event which changed their lives. If they had been weak before, they were strong afterwards. Those of us who have seen the Himalayas can appreciate the disciple Thomas walking across the Himalayas to India, carrying the Gospel, where he was martyred, I have stood by the monument there. Bartholomew was skinned alive in Armenia, Luke hanged from a olive tree in Greece, Mark martyred in Alexandria, Peter crucified upside down, Paul beheaded. There was no telephones, no newspapers, no telegraphs, the word is “alone”; alone, they were martyred knowing that they would never see one another. That even if they had denied in order to save their life, no one would ever know. The cataclysmic experience they had felt and experienced, is the same experience every Christian should feel at this Easter season.

Every one is a expert at religion, particularly at the university level. From the farmer to microbiologist, most can wax and wane about religion and what they think. It makes no difference what you think, the truth is the truth whether anyone believes it or not. The scripture tells us that the disciples, other followers even as many as 500 witnessed His life after clinical death. Some say that the Jews moved Him, some said His disciples stole the body, some said the women were mixed up in the graveyard, the most ridiculous of all, that He resuscitated after a Roman crucifixion, or equally ridiculous the entire matter of the crucifixion was a hallucination.

From that Easter to this Easter, His followers are either liars or tellers of the truth. We know the living Christ, we know the ascension, we expect and await His return. His disciples would not go through what they went through for a lie. Today's Christians will not go through what we go through for a lie.

Thou my everlasting Portion, more than friend or life to me,
All along my pilgrim journey, Savior, let me walk with Thee.

--- Close To Thee – Hymn (Fanny Crosby)