What Easter Means To Me

Easter is all about Jesus. It’s about his death and his resurrection.

Here’s 10 things that those two events mean for me, and for all who believe in the greatest man who ever lived.

The Cross 

• It wasn’t a tragedy, as Passion of the Christ portrayed it to be. Yes, the suffering was terrible, but ultimately it was the greatest victory. A victory over sin and over death.
• The cross tells me how much of a problem sin is. What we do to hurt others and hurt God is such a big deal that Jesus would have to suffer in such a horrible way in order to bring forgiveness to the whole world.
• The cross shows us that God is familiar with our sufferings. By becoming a man, Jesus chose to subject himself to  the worst physical, spiritual and mental torture on the cross. Jesus can sympathize with our present troubles.
• The cross was the ultimate display of love. The Son of God was willing to suffer in our place. We have turned against God and deserve death, but Jesus took that punishment in order that we might have life. What amazing love!
• The cross proves God is real! Hundreds of years before this event, a number of Old Testament writers predicted the entire event. See here for more.

The Empty Tomb

• The only man to ever raise himself from the dead. No wonder the disciples asked “who is this man?”
• “If Jesus rose from the dead then you have to accept all that he said…” That’s a challenge to all of us. The empty tomb demands that we take Jesus teaching seriously.
• See the evidence for yourself. The early disciples were ridiculed for believing their “saviour” rose from the dead. But they had evidence. The tomb that Jesus was laid in was empty and it remains so today! The disciples claimed to have seen Jesus himself. In fact hundreds of people saw Jesus after he died. The account of the New Testament combined with simple logic has resulted in a solid historical case that Jesus really did rise from the dead. In fact, when Anthony Flew, one of the world’s most famous atheists decided there was a God, he included an appendix in his “There is a God” book from NT Wright which laid out an argument for why, historically speaking, Jesus rose from the dead.
• The empty tomb is the most important part of my faith. If Jesus didn’t rise from dead, then there’s no forgiveness of sins. If there’s no forgivness of sins, the world is doomed as there is no salvation.
• The empty tomb is just the beginning. All kinds of things have been made possible. The only man to ever defeat death is still at work in the world, restoring and renewing. He’s making all things new, and he’s beginning with people. People from every nation, tribe and race. Here’s some stories from some people I know that make up a small part of a massive picture.

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