To really understand Easter we need to go back to Christmas the holiday that celebrates the birth of Jesus. This is important because the story actually starts with the birth of Jesus, His name means savior because he will save the world from sin.
“She will give birth to a Son, and you are to give Him the name Jesus, because He will save His people from their sins.” Matt 1:21
This is the greatest sacrifice of all, a one for all sacrifice that required the Son of God to be sacrificed for the sins of the World. To begin we have to go back a week before Easter to when Jesus is traveling to Jerusalem to celebrate a very special Jewish holiday called the Passover. Jesus and His disciples with lots of other people from all over Israel headed to Jerusalem to celebrate Passover. Many of them had heard about Jesus and when he entered Jerusalem a huge crowd came out laying down their coats and palm branches shouting Hosanna blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord, blessed is the coming kingdom of our Father David. That’s like what we do in church right before Easter it is our way of remembering that event every year on Palm Sunday.
It sounds like the crowd knows Jesus is the Messiah but they did not understand this new kind of kingdom. This kind of scene is really going to attract the attention of the Romans so the Pharisees and the Sadducees know they have to do something about Jesus and quick. So Jesus and his disciples gather for the Passover meal just like all the Jews did every year, but Jesus does something very different that no one expects first he says one of his 12 disciples is going to betray him. Then Jesus picks up a piece of the bread they were eating and says this is my body which is given for you, then he picks up the cup they were drinking from and says this cup that is poured out for you is the New Covenant in my blood. This is Jesus saying that he was the Passover lamb, he was the one who would die so that we could live. Jesus took the Passover meal where Israelites celebrated being saved from death and from slavery by the blood of a lamb and said he was that lamb that his blood could take away sin and death from everyone.
The blood of Jesus is the New Covenant the whole Bible points to this moment from Genesis when we learn how creation was broken by sin to Abraham, Moses in David to the prophets who say the answer is coming, the Savior is coming, the Messiah is coming. The entire Bible is about this, but the story isn’t over yet. Jesus goes to a garden to pray he knows what he has to do now and it isn’t going to be easy. After he prays, he turns to his friends and says the hour has come, and right then his disciple Judas shows up leading a crowd of guards to arrest Jesus. They put Jesus on trial first at the Jewish court called the Sanhedrin run by the Sadducees and Pharisees his crime – blasphemy saying he was equal to God. His punishment death, but the Romans don’t let the Sanhedrin put anyone to death themselves so the members of the court dragged Jesus to the Roman governor Pontius Pilate and even though Pilate doesn’t think Jesus has done anything wrong he doesn’t want the Sadducees and Pharisees to complain about him to Rome like they’ve done with other governors before him, so he gives in.
However, he washes his hands in front of everyone in a way of saying this isn’t my fault and he has Jesus killed by nailing him to a wooden cross, he was beaten stripped naked, mocked, spat at by the same people who herald his entrance into Jerusalem. On the cross, as Jesus is dying he looks up to heaven and says Father forgive them they don’t know what they’re doing.
As Jesus dies the curtain in the temple rips from top to bottom the Roman guards standing closest to Jesus see all these and say surely this man was the son of God. During his life Jesus on earth showed us who God was, Jesus said to see me is to see the Father. God the Son shows us what God the Father is like, He is incredibly loving, incredibly good, incredibly powerful. The life of Jesus tells us a lot about who God is. Jesus also announced the kingdom of God and showed us what it would be like. The kingdom of God, what is that exactly? Before Adam and Eve sinned God reigned on earth and Adam and Eve reigned with him as children of the King. They were never hungry, they were never sick, they never had to worry about death because they lived in God’s kingdom, creation the way it was supposed to be. But when they sinned, all that was ruined. So Jesus shows up and announces that the kingdom of God is back, then he gives everyone a taste of what that kingdom is like through his miracles. There will be no sickness – He heals people, the crippled, the blind, whatever is broken about us is fixed the way it was supposed to be. He calms the storm and even raises people from the dead to show that in this kingdom of God there is nothing to fear not even death itself.
But what about sin, our sins meant we can’t be with God, how can we reign with him if we can’t be with him. This is the most amazing part of the Great Sacrifice! While people around Jesus just saw a man dying on a cross, God saw something very different happening, God saw his Son the Son of God on a cross, then he saw the stain of our sin appearing on Jesus. Your sins, my sins, everything selfish and mean we have ever done or ever could do. The stain of all that sin was appearing on Jesus even though he had never done anything wrong at all. God saw his son stained with all the sin of the world he saw him buried under all that sin; he saw him die under all that sin. Since the punishment for all that sin is death, death away from God is how Jesus died alone, away from God. The last thing Jesus said was “Eli, Eli, lema sabachthani?” which means “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?”.
Jesus was crucified on a Friday and placed in a tomb that night. On Sunday morning two women who were followers of Jesus went to the tomb and discovered something incredible. It was empty the huge stone that blocked the entrance had been rolled away and Jesus wasn’t there. Matthew and Luke both tell us that the women meet an angel, who says Jesus is no longer dead he is alive. This is what we celebrate on Easter Sunday, this is what we celebrate every Sunday, but especially on Easter Sunday. They didn’t have to take the Angel’s word for it though, because Jesus appeared to his disciples and then to more than 500 people. Jesus proved that he had authority over death itself and that the power of sin and death was broken, that the kingdom of God was real, and that we can all be a part of it. This is amazing news and Jesus tells his disciples to go tell everyone, spread the blessing to the whole world. According to Luke, Jesus blessed his disciples and ascended into the clouds.
God is good, God is for us, He is a God of Mercy, He really does have a plan and purpose for all of our lives. Most people are growing up today with the idea that God is far off in some heavenly realm, God is angry at me constantly as I offend him, and that God is full of rules. But the truth is this; God is a loving father, more loving than the best of earthly parents. Now imagine the most caring and loving father anywhere on earth. What will that father wish for his children? Now imagine this lovely father is the most wealthy and powerful person on earth. What will be his plans for his children? Take some minutes to close your eyes and imagine the above scenario. Now the idea you just imagined is a little fraction of how you can see our relationship with God as our Father. His love cannot be compared to anything we know. He loves you and this LOVE is the essence of Easter. That is the Son of God paid the price for our sins as he took our place and died on the cross and rose again to reconcile us to God. This is the Great Sacrifice!
Happy Easter Celebration!