No Easter?!
What if there were no Easter? No, I don’t mean no bunny, baskets, or chocolate eggs—I mean no resurrection. What if there were no Jesus, cross, Good Friday, or resurrection—no Easter. Like many of you, just a few weeks ago, I sat in the crowded sanctuary on a chilly Easter morning. We sang the hymns and worship songs, the choir sang triumphantly of the resurrection, and the pastor took his place in the pulpit for his Easter sermon. Since that sermon, this thought keeps bouncing around in my head: What would life be like if there were no such thing as Easter?
Without Easter, we would be forever under Eden’s curse. We would remain in our sins, forever separated from a holy God. However, He paid the debt stacked against us and broke the curse holding us captive since Eden. “Tetelestai!” He cried from the cross, paid in full! By accepting His sacrifice as payment for our debt, we can enter into a vibrant relationship with God. It is humbling, nearly unthinkable, that fallen humans can enter a free-flowing relationship with the Lord of All Creation. However, Scripture declares it to be so. “And you, who were once alienated and hostile in mind, doing evil deeds, he has now reconciled in his body of flesh by his death . . .”
Without Easter, we would be powerless against the evil one. We would be forever spinning in his vortex of lies and deception—powerless, sinking, and without hope of breaking free. Without the cross and resurrection, the Holy Spirit would not indwell believers, as He does now. Because of Easter, Christians now have access to the same power that raised Christ from the dead. The Holy Spirit illuminates the Scriptures, infusing everyday Christians with God-breathed words of truth.
Armed with the sword of truth, we can wage holy warfare with weapons that “are not of the flesh but have divine power to destroy strongholds. We destroy arguments and evil lofty opinion raised against the knowledge of God.” In His strength, we have the power not only to fight, but to be victorious. We have the power to persevere in hardship and see with eyes of faith because the Holy Spirit opens our understanding to the truth of Scripture.
Without Easter, there would be no blessed hope, no hope of heaven or anything beyond this life. We would die in our sins only to enter hell, which is described as the second death. Because of Easter, our blessed hope is a wonderful reality. Jesus not only paid our debt in full, but He defeated death and hell. All humans live forever in one of two places—heaven or hell. Because of Resurrection Day, Jesus “. . .caused us to be born again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead.” He burst open the door, paved the way for us, and shone a bright light down that formerly dark path toward eternity.
His death paid our debt in full, His Holy Spirit gives us access to His power, and His resurrection secured our blessed hope. Without the glorious truth of Resurrection Day, we would have no hope of a one-on-one relationship with God. We would be powerless against the lies of the evil one, and we would have no hope of anything but darkness and misery beyond the grave. Praise be to God, that is not how the story ends! Because of Resurrection Day, we too can burst with effervescent praise along with the Apostle Paul, and declare:
“What shall we say to these things? If God is for us, who can be against us? He who did not spare his own Son but gave him up for us all, how will he not graciously give us all things? . . .No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. For I am sure that neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers, nor height nor depth nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.”