Easter

Categories: uncategorized

Date: 21 March 2008 08:22:19

So today is Good Friday when they took him out to die, in agony. A death that we, in our western "civillised" culture, cannot truly get our heads around because it was so awful. A death he willing, but reluctantly, undertook for us so that we may be reconcilled with God. A death that puts us all in the position of Lady Macbeth screaming, "out damn spot" when we realise that we have his blood on our hands. Yet, as I say, it was a death he undertook through love not a death we inflicted through malice or fear. It was not, as some would claim, an act of cosmic child abuse on the part of the father rather an act of pure sacrificial love on the part of the son. God chose to put part of himself through that for us.

Tomorrow will be Easter Saturday, when we will forget the body in the tomb. The body that lay there whilst the powers of light and darkness were engaged in the most unimaginable conflict. It was a day when in our world it was quiet, where those who had known and loved our Lord sat bewildered, angry and overcome by shock and grief. In other realms, though, it was a day when our eternal future was being decided, when heaven visited hell to sort it out once and for all.

Then on Sunday we have the resurrection, the bit we all remember and which is celebrated throughout the church. Sunday is the day when woman (and then man) saw the risen Lord and we knew that love had conquered all. Sunday is the day which demands our response, not necessarily as some evangelicals would say a response simply based on acknowledging the saving grace of Jesus rather a response based on letting that saving grace impact our lives and the way we live those lives. We cannot escape the saving grace of Jesus, Jesus gave that to us when he died and rose again - he did not democratically just die for those who were willing to put him to death to save their eternal souls, rather he died for all. What we can escape, but ought not to though, is living our lives in thankful response, putting the principles of the gospel into action as far as we are able and in the ways we are led through the Holy Spirit.

The above is why I think today, Good Friday, Easter Saturday and Easter Sunday cannot and must not be seperated (just as the trinity cannot and should not be seperated, fully). I am saved by grace through what happened over the whole of the three days, and most significantly by Jesus deciding to die on the cross but equally I am called to use my free will to live as a Christian (somebody who seeks to model their life on Jesus) through what happened over those three days aswell (and particularly what happened on Easter Sunday). It is also why I believe hell is a very real place but equally why I am not so sure that only those who "choose Jesus" will reach heaven - the scandal of grace. However, I do believe that only those who respond by trying, however imperfectly, to live in true response to Christ (in what ever way that means) will be able to enter the Kingdom of God within heaven and come face to face with God. So to sum up I think we enter heaven through grace, but our "works" and more importantly the motivation behind our works will determine what experience we have in heaven.

I'm not sure which "box" of Christianity that puts me in this Easter, and whether it makes me acceptably evangelical or a complete heretic in some circles but it's what I believe and why I be will celebrating, reflecting and asking again for the strength to do my best in following God this weekend.