Eggs, bunnies, Peeps, and loads of chocolate. Mmm…chocolate. In our city, that short list is often what comes to mind when we think about Easter. To be fair, some people also think about time with family, eating ham (or not), the beginnings of Spring, a day off work (woo hoo!), and maybe going to a church gathering.
Like Charlie Brown’s confusion about the meaning of Christmas in his Christmas Special, we can similarly find ourselves confused about the meaning of Easter. Commercialization, candy consumption, baskets overflowing with colorful eggs, and even guilt about going to church can take our eyes off the amazing truth that is found in God’s word, the Bible. If you will let us, we’ll try to play the role of Linus here and give you the opportunity to dig into the beautiful, life-giving, and relationship-restoring story of Easter.
First off, we need to know that Easter is a single moment in a MUCH bigger story that reaches all the way back to the beginning of human life.
Humanity’s origin story in the Bible starts with God creating a world and a people that would share in his unending love, goodness, and provision. He created humans in his own image, with the ability to love, think, create, and live in relationship with him and with one another. He also created a world where they were so well provided for that they were unashamedly naked in a home that was like a lush, fruitful garden. God met all their needs, and they had no guilt, no fear, no scarcity, and no lack of intimacy. Everything was good. All the time. Amazing, right?
Well, after a time of this beautiful way of life, a spiritual enemy presented the first humans with a choice: to follow God’s ways or to create their own way of life apart from him. God, their Father, warned them that living in his good ways would bring life, but rejecting his ways and following their own would open the floodgates of death and destruction. Ultimately, they chose to forge their own path apart from him. That’s what “sin” means - rather than trusting their Father, they rejected him and his ways and did their own thing.
As the first humans rejected God, he could have pressed reset and started over. But he didn’t. Instead, he did two amazing and unexpected things: One, he protected them by sacrificing animals to cover their bodies (which had never needed protecting before). Two, he made a promise to them, a promise that he would send a savior to crush the enemy who tempted them toward their rebellion. The consequences of this rebellion were terrible and included the introduction of pain, hostility, division, and death. Bad news.
So what does this have to do with Easter? Why go all the way back to the biblical origin story? Here’s why…
As we fast-forward through history, we see that God wasn’t kidding when he said that, by doing life our way, sin would open the floodgates of death and destruction. For thousands of years, we have seen the results of shame, pride, power grabs, resource hoarding, murder, theft, and stepping on others to fulfill desires. These are the opposite of God’s ways, and they are the result of humankind trying to run things their own way.
The wonderful thing is that, because we were made in God’s image, we still see glimpses of his ways. Beautiful things that bring life and light to the darkness of our world. And that’s where the main character of this big story, and the main character of Easter comes in.
Light is about to shine in the darkness, but it starts as a tiny flicker in an unlikely place. One day in the first century, in the Roman Empire, in the middle of the Middle East, in an out-of-the-way village called Nazareth, God spoke to a seemingly random teenage girl who was a virgin (that fact ends up being important, as we will see). He told her that through her, the promised savior, the one who would crush the enemy, would be born. And she believed him. He then told her to give this baby the name Jesus. Jesus’ entry into the story is incredibly unassuming, and he becomes the most unlikely main character that humanity could have mustered up. In fact, his story trips up people all the time because it’s just so wild.
Here’s the synopsis: God the Father creates all things, including humans, in a wonderfully good way. Humans reject his ways and do things on their own. They have moments of goodness that still show that they are made in the Father’s image, but they hurt one another, they hurt the creation, and they cause great pain and sorrow to God himself. Instead of rejecting them, God comes to earth as a human, Jesus of Nazareth. He feels all they feel, he is tempted in all the ways they are tempted, yet he lives out his life according to the way he originally created humans to live…according to the Father’s own good, perfect, life-giving ways. But humans reject him and he is ultimately killed for living this way.
Okay, we know that’s a lot. And if you’re completely new to this idea you’re likely asking about a million questions…which is 100% understandable. Bear with us for a second, though, because we just got to Easter.
Let’s back up to Jesus’ birth. Jesus was born, not of an earthly father, but of a miraculous birth by a teenage virgin. Why? Because it broke the lineage of humanity’s rebellion. God himself came on the scene to live a perfect life and die a brutal death. To become a sacrifice and die in the place of humanity, whose lineage of death, destruction, and sin deserved punishment. Just as God the Father had sacrificed animals to protect humanity’s physical bodies way back at the beginning, God was sacrificing himself so that humanity’s eternal souls could be protected. To quote from the Bible, “God made (Jesus) who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in (Jesus) we might become the righteousness of God.” (2 Corinthians 5:21) Humans now have the opportunity to have their relationship with their Father restored because God himself took all of humanity’s sin upon himself and buried it in the grave. But what then? If he’s in the grave, then God is dead…that can’t be good.
Finally, we get to Easter! Easter is the celebration of the fact that Jesus didn’t stay in the grave. Instead, he rose again as the champion over, not just humanity’s sin, but also over death itself! Death could not keep Jesus in the grave because he himself is the author of all life. As God, he created all things and sustains all things. He took the sins of humanity into the grave by becoming a sacrifice - a stand-in for what we deserved - and he left our sins in the grave and victoriously came back to life! Both sin AND death have been conquered by Jesus.
That’s why Easter is such a big deal. Easter is the celebration of God himself putting death to death and creating the opportunity for all of humanity to enter back into a relationship with their true Father. As we saw earlier, the first humans enjoyed a relationship with God the Father and with each other that was beautiful and intimate; without sin, shame, and guilt. Jesus, through his work of dying, leaving sin in the grave, and rising again, is inviting us into that same type of relationship today. And just like Jesus, even though our physical bodies may die, we are invited into eternal life - a resurrected life - through him!
That’s what Easter is. The celebration of new life in and through Jesus.
This small excerpt is simply a sketch of the bigger story of Easter, but there’s so much more to it! Think about these questions:
- If this story is true, even part of it, what does that mean for your life?
- Where do you fit in this story or where do you WANT to fit in it?
At New Community Church we are finding ourselves in this big, big story, and we are helping others find themselves in it as well. It’s a joy to come alongside people and walk with them as they discover that God is for them, that he loves them, and that he is so delighted to be in a restored relationship with them! We would love to walk with you in this journey, so let us know if we can be helpful by sending us a message or by coming to one of our gatherings or events. Info on our Egg Dash for kids up through 5th grade and info on Easter Sunday are both below, and we'd love to see you at one or both!
You can also learn more by watching the videos from The Bible Project
on this page, or on
their website or app (
bibleproject.com). They walk through the life of Jesus as it unfolds in the book of Luke in the Bible and may help fill in some of the blanks from the brief story above.
Thanks for taking the time to check out this page! Again, let us know if we can be helpful.
-The New Community Church Family
