It's Easter time. I love Easter, although I prefer to call it passover personally, because Easter as it is portrayed and celebrated now just doesn't seem like any kind of true representation or celebration of the cross and resurrection. Passover, if you study it from the old testament, is a shadow of Easter. Either way, passover/easter : I love it, I love it, I love it. I get so excited - more so than Christmas.
For me, it's the biggest Christian event in the year as it celebrates the death of Jesus, and the Resurrection. For me, and many millions of Christians all over the globe, this is what our faith hangs on. This one event in history changed everything, and Jesus' death on that cross made a way for us all to enter straight into the Father's presence and into His arms. Jesus made it personal.
It means so much to me, I can hardly even write it all down. What I feel when I focus on the cross is literally overwhelming, that I often find tears running down my cheeks, my heart races, and simultaneously it melts at the love that was poured out for me. I don't feel this way just once, not just at Easter, because the cross is something I think about and meditate on pretty much daily. Not in a morbid way, but rather in a way of continual thanksgiving, gratitude and awe. I don't think I can ever fully understand whilst I am on this earth, exactly all that Jesus did for me at Calvary. As the years go by, I continue to learn something new about my salvation and my redemption; I learn something new about my Redeemer, Jesus, and it gets more exciting, more personal, more real, more meaningful.
So when Easter/passover comes around, it feels alien to me that other people don't feel the same way that I do. Eggs, chicks, chocolate, bunnies.....they're all very nice, we all love an Easter egg, and cute little bunnies. As I look around, and I listen to people and I am perplexed at how little Jesus fits into peoples' Easter. But I realised it is because you can't get excited about something or someone you don't know. If Jesus isn't real to you then it's just a story you heard about at school, or in a church you were dragged along to as a child. If you don't get to know the Person Who hung on that cross, it will never touch you and impact your life.
So I could stand on the rooftops and tell anyone who could hear me that God Himself, so holy and so just, desperately wanted to reconcile mankind to Himself. When sin got in the way, as a righteous and holy God, sin needed to be dealt with. So from the moment man first sinned, way back in Genesis chapter 3, God had a plan. He declared it right there. Jesus was the plan. God gave part of Himself, allowed Himself to be ridiculed, beaten beyond recognition, spat upon, mocked and made fun of (they put a crown of thorns on His head and stripped Him naked, then put a royal robe around Him to mock Him, His body ripped apart by the beatings), then they hung Him on a cross. Even though at His trial He wasn't found guilty of anything. Even though He didn't deserve it.
At the beginning of His earthly ministry, He preached in a synagogue and the pharisees didn't like His teaching. They took hold of Him, a huge crowd of men, and took Him to a cliff edge and actually had Him in their grip to throw Him off the cliff. However, miraculously He walked away. No fighting, or hustle and bustle. He just walked away. They physically could not hold Him and kill Him. No one can put Jesus into a situation He doesn't want to be in. The fact that He chose right at the final moment, the most difficult and precarious time to show forth His power and miraculously walk away in the presence of dozens and dozens of men who had just moments ago dragged Him forcibly through a whole town, just shows that He was demonstrating that He has all the power of heaven at His disposal. When He was betrayed and the mob came to arrest Him, they asked Him Who He was, and when He answered, they all fell to the ground. He didn't touch them, they just fell. Big burly men. He didn't escape, He didn't run and at that point, He could have being so all the men armed with their weapons were on the floor, flat out.
There's no doubt in my mind that it wasn't the nails that held Him to that cross. He could have said at any point, "Get me down" and a hundred angels would have come immediately, or the cross would have collapsed.....one way or another, He'd have been down from that cross at the word of His mouth.
It was LOVE that held Him there. Love for you, love for me, love for all mankind. He knew what was coming. Before He was betrayed, He sweat blood: that's some major stress that causes you to sweat drops of blood. I also have no doubt that when He was hanging there on that cross, YOU were on His mind. I was on His mind. It is completely mind-blowing that God Himself would suffer so brutally at the hands of the very men He created, and do it so willingly. He willingly gave Himself for you.
I could shout from the rooftops that having read the Bible and studied it, that the more I read it, the more it comes alive. And I don't say that lightly as a throw-away comment. It never ceases to produce life and there's mysteries and revelations to be had time and time again - there are layers upon layers in every passage. I could have read a scripture a hundred times, and come back to it another time and find new revelation in it. The more I read it, the more I see and learn of God's amazing grace, and His love. It's difficult to describe until you experience it, but the words are alive. It all links in together like a huge jigsaw puzzle; with over 40 writers across a few thousand years, there's not one thing that doesn't somehow fit together with another part of the Bible. Almost as if Someone has written it from outside time, and orchestrated every word!
I could tell you about my amazing Saviour, Jesus, and how gentle and loving He is. How He loves His Father so much, and how He desires everyone would come to know the Father.
I could tell you about the Holy Spirit and about He loves to help you in everyday life; how interested He is in every detail of your life. How He feels so deeply about something, simply because YOU feel deeply about it. How He never makes you feel condemned or ashamed, but always points you to Jesus, and how He constantly reminds you how forgiven and loved you are. Completely the opposite to how God is portrayed - as some despot Who beats you with a lightning rod each time you do wrong. He's just not like that, and it must be horrible to be so misrepresented.
I could tell you that, unfortunately, religion has put this amazing God in a box, and told the world that there's a certain standard you need to achieve to be holy and righteous and worthy. God is portrayed as boring, and many churches are sadly cold (quite literally and in atmosphere), boring and quiet, with hard pews and boring old hymns with no life and no joy. I could tell you that God hates religion, because religion separates His creation from His heart.
In reality Heaven is NOISY. I'm sure of it. There are angels around the throne of God continually singing and proclaiming praises to Him (Revelation 4). There's no way it's quiet. He loves music, after all, He created it! The longest book in the Bible is the Psalms. These are 150 songs set to music. David, who wrote quite a large amount of the psalms, was famed for his music, and his dancing. He had a team of worshippers and people whose job it was to make music and sing praises to God constantly. He was even known to get naked and dance....but the less said about that the better! Dancing good, naked.....hmmm maybe not. Just goes to show you that God has a sense of humour. He made sure that nugget of information got into the Bible!
I could tell you a million other things about Him. Each one would challenge your perception of the God who supposedly requires quiet, big imposing buildings, stained glass windows, candles, nice little prayers and soft hymns to horrendous sounding organs. No offence if that's your bag. There's a time for reverence and quiet worship, but let's not put God in a box. God's temple is His church and His church are the people. He longs to be among His people and He's not averse to some lively music, and lots of fun. Yes, it amazed me too when I found out that actually God is fun. He's funny, He's joyful and He's not fond of pity-parties so if you're prone to them (like I myself am occasionally), He will zap that pity right out of you and replace it with rejoicing and joy.
But, just like the Easter story, all this is just someone telling you about someone. You can't feel the joy, the excitement, the awe, the indescribable love that I feel, until you get to know my amazing Jesus for yourself. Over 20 years now I have sought this Person called Jesus. I find out more about Him everyday. I have never once stopped learning, and I never cease to be amazed the more I come to know Him. In fact the more I know, the more I realise there's so much more yet to know. The more I spend time with Him, the more I crave spending even more time with Him. The more of His love I feel, the more I realise that I haven't even experienced the tip of the iceberg of His love for me yet. It just gets better and better. All of this doesn't mean life is suddenly perfect, or even that I am perfect. If I could ever be perfect then Jesus would have died for no reason. So yes, I will make mistakes, I will be a proper cowbag at times, I will mess up royally sometimes and life will still throw me some lemons. But it's all so much better with Jesus, because when I make mistakes, He just whispers "You're forgiven". When I'm being a cowbag and I mess up, He says "come on, rest at My feet a while, and then let's go do this together." And when I get lemons, forget making lemonade, He's busy making a stonking lemon meringue pie for me!
I can only urge you to ask yourself some questions this Easter time:
Who Is this Jesus?
If He really was God, and He really did die for me, why did He do that and what am I going to do with that information?
What held Him to that cross - if it was His love wouldn't it be great to experience it?
If He's alive and He loves me, should I get to know Him?
With my whole heart, I can tell you that once you begin the journey of getting to know Him, you won't be disappointed. Just ask Him. He'll be over-joyed and He'll be more than willing to show you Who He is.
Happy Easter. Happy Passover.
Shalom x
