We celebrate a unique and massive historical event on this day ... the Resurrection. Paul wrote, "I delivered to you as of first importance what I also received, that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, and that He was buried, and that He was raised on the third day according to the Scriptures ..." (1 Cor 15:3-4). Christ lived a sinless life, died for sins He didn't commit, and ... was raised on the third day. "Of first importance." The message is clear. "For this is the way God loved the world: He gave His one and only Son, so that everyone who believes in Him will not perish but have eternal life" (John 3:16). First and foremost, then, the Resurrection is a message ... of the magnitude of God's love for His own.
Now, don't get all mushy here. We're not talking about mere "warm affection." We're talking about a hard core, gritty, "death for another" kind of love. Jesus said, "Greater love has no one than this, that one lay down his life for his friends" (John 15:13). Paul wrote, "One will hardly die for a righteous man; though perhaps for the good man someone would dare even to die" (Rom 5:7) and clarified, "But God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us" (Rom 5:8). Note the motivation: a demonstration of "His own love toward us." Scripture says He gave us new life (Jesus's resurrected life--Rom 6:3-7) "because of His great love with which He loved us" (Eph 2:4). So great is this love that Paul prays for the spiritual strength in believers so they "may be able to comprehend with all the saints what is the breadth and length and height and depth, and to know the love of Christ which surpasses knowledge, that you may be filled up to all the fullness of God" (Eph 3:18-19). His love surpasses knowledge.
I hope, as you go about your Easter festivities, it isn't "Easter." I hope it's "Resurrection Sunday," a celebration of a kind of love not found in humans but only in God and in the love that God has "poured out within our hearts through the Holy Spirit who was given to us" (Rom 5:5). Not just "warm affection" ... big love that exceeds our understanding even as we experience it richly in salvation and His Holy Spirit in us. We love because He first loved us (1 John 4:19). We're supposed to love as He loved us (John 13:34). It's a really big love.
3 comments:
That I “may be able to comprehend with all the saints what is the breadth and length and height and depth … [of God’s love for us].” I rejoice in that “really big love” every moment of every day--a gracious, redeeming love that doesn’t wax and wane with the seasons or change its nature with the calendar but an unwavering love that will see me through to eternity.
It's the kind of love that nobody would simply make up. It is outside of any kind of normal understanding. Who creates a God that sacrifices Himself on behalf of rebels that hate Him?
I knew I could count on your to deliver a wonderful and proper Easter message! Happy Resurrection Day! God Bless you!
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