Christ the Lord is Risen, today! I love having this reminder of the true meaning of Easter beside my back door. Nothing says who Jesus really is more than seeing the stone rolled away. Death couldn’t hold him back.
My husband is always full of insight, even when he doesn’t know it…One day he asked me if I knew why Jesus rose from the dead? Of course I go into some discourse starting in Genesis…:) about it being God’s plan for the redemption of mankind…etc, etc…he said….but do you know why death could not hold him in the grave? And what he said is so simple, yet I’d never put these thoughts into words… He said:
“The wages of sin is death and Jesus never sinned, so death could not hold him.” I just looked at him stunned and amazed at the simplicity and truth in those simple words.
And you know what? Jesus took our sins…all of our sins, the nasty, dirty, rotten, sinful things we have thought and done or that have been done to us…and dumped them at Satan’s feet. Because they all originated with him and they belong to him and Jesus just gave them back to their original owner…
The Bible says Jesus is “the author and finisher of our faith.” Craftsmen and builders put the finishing touches on their work…and when they are done, they clean up all the debris and trash, sweep the floors clean and dump it all in the garbage so the house is presentable to the new owners.
That’s what Jesus did for us…he, by the Holy Spirit, called us… making him the author…or the one who authorizes our salvation….and then he put the finishing touches on us and got rid of our trash, to make us presentable to God.
Jesus, the Bible says, made a public spectacle of satan. In front of all the minions of hell, Jesus showed him just what all the heartaches and ruined lives and hurt and pain he caused people on earth, was worth. Jesus took our sin and dumped it all at satan’s feet. It was nothing but garbage. Jesus gave it all back to its rightful owner.
As I sit in church this morning, I’m going to look around at all our friends and think about how new and clean and pretty everyone is today and remember, …the stone was rolled away because Jesus never sinned. He lived a perfect life for me…because I certainly couldn’t.
Thankfully, we don’t have to pay for our sin and we don’t have to carry the load of guilt anymore. We only have to accept the gift of God, His son, and believe Jesus died and rose again, for us.
It’s Resurrection Sunday and the stone is rolled away!
Christ the Lord is Risen Today!
Alleluia!