EASTER SUNDAY

By Cougan Collins

lgchurchofchrist@cableone.net

For some, Easter Sunday is a time for hunting Easter Eggs. For others, it is once-a-year event to sport their new Easter dress and to make their once-a-year appearance to church.

How about doing something different this Easter Sunday? Instead of turning Jesus’ death, burial, and resurrection into a once-a-year event, why not make this Easter Sunday the beginning of a renewed commitment to God? We must stop treating the great sacrifice Jesus made for all humanity as something equal to Groundhog Day or Valentines Day.

We need to remind ourselves that we were hopeless lost and doomed to suffer the consequences of sin, but Jesus loved us enough to give up the riches of heaven so we might become spiritually rich (2 Cor. 8:9).

Romans 5:8 But God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. ⁹ Much more then, having now been justified by His blood, we shall be saved from wrath through Him. ¹⁰ For if when we were enemies we were reconciled to God through the death of His Son, much more, having been reconciled, we shall be saved by His life. ¹¹ And not only that, but we also rejoice in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have now received the reconciliation.

Jesus chose to come to earth knowing He would have to give His life for us. We did not deserve it, but He did it anyway. At the end of His ministry, we find Jesus in the garden full of agony, and His sweat became like great drops of blood (Lk. 22:44). At that point, He had the weight of the world’s sins on His shoulders, but He knew what He had to do to be our Savior.

Starting from Judas’s betrayal kiss, Jesus could have called twelve legions of angles to rescue Him from the senseless brutal death He would endure for us (Mt. 26:53). He could have escaped the illegal trial and abuse from the Jewish leaders. He could have avoided the flogging that tore His skin to shreds. He could have avoided the nails being driven through His hands and His feet and all the shame and ridicule He received (Mt. 27; Mk. 15; Lk. 23; Jn. 19). Instead of avoiding such misery, He endured it all so we could be saved.

Though Jesus suffered for us on the cross, He was raised on the 3^rd day, which was the first day of the week. Not only did He die for us, He showed us that we too can conquer the sting of death. His death, burial, and resurrection is the greatest news humankind has ever had because it means that we can have power over sin, and we can have the confidence of eternal life in heaven when we choose to commit ourselves to God by being faithful till the day we die (Rev. 2:10).

Jesus did not go through everything He did just for us to make His great sacrifice into a once-a-year remembrance. Instead, Jesus tells us to remember what He did for us on the cross by partaking of the Lord’s Supper on the first day of every week (1 Cor. 11:23-29; Acts 20:7). I encourage you to make this Easter Sunday the beginning of a weekly remembrance of Jesus’ death, burial, and resurrection because He is worth it. We invite you to worship and study with us to learn more about first century Christianity – lgchurchofchrist.com.