The Easter season: a time filled with Easter egg hunts, pastel colors and bunnies. For many, the powerful nature and culture that surrounds Easter is often hidden behind baskets and shiny, too-green fake grass.
In a world that markets to what sells, to what is fun, to what is consumeristic, even the most important death and most meaningful act of perfect love in all of history is shrouded by frills and bows.
The Easter Bunny was most likely a pivitol figure in your childhood. Waking up to a basket filled with goodies and gifts was probably the highlight of your Easter morning. But what about the ultimate gift? What about the ultimate sacrifice and example of the most important, most meaningful act of redemption? Does that truth lie hidden in an egg?
Jesus, the son of God, the ultimate healer and creator and author of everything in the entire world died. He physically, excruciatingly died. He was marred, beaten and broken, hung on a cross to die the most horrific death for us, the most undeserving of people.
The word excruciating, meaning unbearable pain and extreme agony, comes from the Latin word excruciatus, to crucify, or of the cross. A new word was created to describe the pain that comes from crucifixion. There were no words to express the pain and agony that one felt when on the cross, dying the worst death, so a completely new word came into formation.
The severity of that, the unimaginable and unrelenting torture cannot be thought of in full. The greatest gift that could have ever been given to us had to endure so much pain that it could not be described with pre-existing vocabulary.
Imagine the gore, humiliation and hatred that Jesus felt while hanging, nailed and physically broken. We can’t. It is unimaginable, and it is because of this selfless act that we don’t have to imagine it, that we will never have to endure this type of torture.
He died for you. Think about it. He. Died. For. You. In all of your brokenness, in all of your shame, you are seen as so worthy in his eyes that he willingly carried his own cross to his death. Jesus, being fully human and fully God, felt human emotions, cried human tears and was as scared as humanly possible. We cannot pass off his experience, his precious life, his horrendous death or his perfect resurrection.
As he rose from the grave, so did our ultimate punishment for sin. As he ascended into heaven, so did he take our burdens and fears. He took them all.
The Easter season: a time filled with sacrifice, redemption and ultimate restoration. The gift of salvation, that we have the ability to have a relationship with Christ, to be saved, to live in harmony with him, that gift isn’t delivered in a basket. That gift hung on a cross.