Don’t Put Easter Away – Keep The Gospel On Display

Word-Of-The-Day:  “(19) Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, (20) and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age.”  (Matthew 28:19-20)

I was thinking that one title I could give this post is, “OK, Easter has come, Jesus has rose, now what?”  Like many of the Biblical accounts, we as Christians often hear them to the point of ‘Yep, got it!’, and tune out.  Christmas and Easter can sometimes become like a M.A.S.H. rerun we’ve seen 100 times; we go through the cursory motion of watching it, but we know the lines and the scenes so much that we don’t really have to be watching it, or picking up what the intent of the story is all about. 

Perhaps it is taken in as a rote rhythmic fashion, “Last Supper, Pontius Pilate, Barabbas, Crucifixion, In the Tomb, Resurrection, Ascension, THE END.  Wait until next Easter to hear it again…”  If you have done this, you have missed the intent of Easter.  It is not just to remember all what happened to our Lord during that Passion week 1,996 years ago (if the historical year of Jesus’ Crucifixion assigned as 29 AD is correct), or that, yes, Jesus rose as our sacrifice so that we are saved by His grace, and become sinless through His intersession. 

The first intent of Easter was to provide us, through Jesus, the ability to be emissaries or ‘carriers’ of His Gospel to others.  We are to be the ones who the non-believers can look at and see that we are possessing something far greater than what they have.  Before Jesus were the priests and the prophets; very little is said about the common man being one who could carry the Word to others, only that they follow the Law.  Jesus gave each of us the gift of being priests in our own right, through His power, so we can proclaim the Gospel throughout our world – as big or as little as it is.

The second intent of Easter is that Jesus, though He does not grace us with His physical presence, is as it says in Matthew 28:20, promises He will continue to be with us, now and forever.  Easter was not the end of ‘Jesus on Earth’, on the contrary it is the beginning of ‘Jesus on Earth with His People’.  Jesus promises us to provide His strength, His comfort, His healing and resolve our issues (in His way, not our way – remember, He may not provide a new Mercedes that one may want, but a good bicycle for reliable transportation that one may need).  Jesus is with you, through the Holy Spirit, from the time you accept Him as your Savior, until the time comes when He will meet you face-to-face.

The third intent of Easter was for Jesus to complete and fulfill the Levitical Law; the first way to have Eternal Life with Father God – follow the Law perfectly – was found to be impossible for mortal ordinary men & women.  Only through Jesus, the only One who could perfectly follow and fulfill the Law, did so, and offered Himself as our sacrifice so as to provide us ‘top cover’ and provide another way (the only real way) to gain Eternal Life with Father God, by accepting the sacrifice Jesus had made, accepting the fact that you are not perfect on your own, and that you need help from Jesus to provide His blanket of perfection to qualify you for entry into Heaven.

Jesus, of course, completed all three of these intents.  He equips us through His Spiritual gifts to accomplish all that He requires of us; the Holy Spirit ensures He is with those who are His followers, providing direction and wisdom in the use of those Spiritual gifts; Jesus provides the Gospel, His message that through Him by way of His sacrifice we can gain Salvation, is shared through our works done by our gifts, and through the strength the Holy Spirit provides to others to ‘go and make disciples’.  The Great Commission (Matthew 28:19-20 and Acts 1:8) encapsulates His intents and all that we are to do for Him is to ensure the Great Commission is performed.

His intentions are incumbent upon our obedience.  If you simply check the box that Easter has came and went for another year, and do the same for Christmas, you likely missed the mark.  As Pastor Ron stated yesterday, though we celebrate Easter and Christmas once a year, the intent of Christ is to acted upon each day of the year.  Jesus’ life is to be celebrated every day, and shared in every opportunity we have.  If you miss one opportunity, don’t panic – seize the next one that comes; share the Gospel with as many as possible. 

Sometimes it may not be welcomed or even scorned, but the next opportunity may yield fruit.  Don’t stop out of fear or discouragement; Jesus is within us and for us!  Don’t walk away from Easter as another holiday date checked off, appreciate the power that Christ has given you, and the activities He is encouraging you to take, and was He did to accomplish His Father’s tasks on that fateful Easter week 1,996 years ago.