Easter is probably the most challenging of the Christian festivals. Christmas is so caught up in material standards, the giving and receiving of presents, the special food and feasting, the seasonal programs on television, that the real meaning of the baby in the manger gets lost to all except the few who attend Church regularly. Harvest Festival is a time to thank God for His generous provision towards our welfare, but it could be any god who is being worshipped, on the surface at least there is no special place for Jesus, the founder of Christianity.

On the other hand Easter brings us face to face with the challenge of Christianity, the death and resurrection of the Son of God. The challenge is there on a number of counts. Firstly we are confronted with the necessity of the death, especially when we contemplate its utter pain, shame and barbarity. Personally I find the actual crucifixion itself too remote to identify with easily, but we are told that prior to that act, Jesus was stripped and beaten with a whip, and historical evidence fills in the details of that form of flogging by the Roman soldiers. The lash used would have had sharp pieces of flint embedded in it. I can imagine being bound naked to a stake to receive such a torture. Jesus bore that for me. Perhaps I can imagine being made to carry the cross piece of the cross on a raw back up the cobbled streets and out onto the hill. Jesus bore that for me. Perhaps even being laid out and having the nails hammered through wrists and ankles, and feeling the jar of the post as it dropped into the slot that held it upright. Jesus bore that for me. But I shut out the six hours of agony in the heat during one of the most cruel forms of execution ever devised. I forget about the shame of hanging there naked, and the humiliation of hanging on a tree, which for the Jew was one of the most shameful ways a man could die, indicating his utter rejection by the God whom he worshipped, no wonder the Jewish authorities covered their ears when later they were told that they had caused the Son of God, i.e. God Himself, to be executed in this manner.

Now that brings us right to the second great challenge of Easter, just who was Jesus, were his claims to be God with us really true or was he just a madman. Because if his claim was false that is precisely what he was, a madman. Making claims like that does not leave open the option that he was a Good teacher. It is a claim that we have all got to test if we really consider who Jesus was and what his purpose was. The Jewish authorities certainly believed that Jesus was claiming to be the Son of God, that was one of the prime reasons for their desire to see him executed, and they probably thought that the method of execution vindicated their scepticism, because surely God would not allow Himself to be so humiliated. So what is the evidence for the truth of Jesus' claim? As I see it the ancient Jewish scriptures, our Old Testament of the Bible, give one pointer, for many writings in it predict the coming of someone called the Messiah, the chosen one, who would be not just a representative of God, as were the prophets, but God himself walking with us. Some of these predictions tell of the birth of this person which are exactly born out in the scenes surrounding the birth of Jesus and its place, something which Jesus could hardly have organised himself. Many of the prophesies tell of his teaching and healing activities. And some tell of his death in graphic detail and were given at a time when no Hebrew could ever have conceived of execution by crucifixion. There is also the remarkable detail of the sword thrust into his side and his legs not being broken, this spoken of hundreds of years before it happened.

The other thing that points to the truth of Jesus claim to be the Son of God brings us to the third and greatest challenge of Easter, the Resurrection of Christ. Dead men don't get up and walk out of a sealed tomb guarded by Roman soldiers. Men who have hung on a cross until the life ebbed out of them and had a sword thrust into their side, letting out blood and water, don't rise up off a cold slab and walk on two feet again. But what if Jesus Christ really was God, the Son, the 'exact representation of the Father', the one who had been in on the creation of the universe and 'flung the stars into their places'. God can do anything in this physical world He wants, including bringing His earthly form alive from the grave.

But what evidence do we have that Jesus did rise again and visit his disciples. We do have the direct records of those disciples in the form of the writings called the Gospels and the New Testament book called the Acts of the Apostles. The very fact that they exist testify to something very life changing happening to the writers of these books. Something very compelling turned timid, frightened, bewildered men into people of tremendous courage and fortitude, people willing to suffer and die for their beliefs. No madman would evoke such a change, and if there was no resurrection of Jesus he was proved to be a madman. The only alternative is that Jesus is just who he claimed to be, God amongst men, God with Us.

But why Good Friday, why the cross, why the utter pain, shame and rejection. Because Jesus cared so much for us, everybody ever born. Because God loved us so much that He had to do something to save us from that total separation from Him which is the result of our Sin, our rejection of His perfect plan for us. Jesus bore that utter abandonment by God, on our behalf, he took our place as he hung on a cruel, shameful, humiliating cross. But we do not receive the benefits of that act unless we acknowledge our Sin, repent of it and seek His forgiveness in faith. We must own up to rejecting God's standards and trying to live by our own rules.

It is living by our own rules that causes people to take to drink or drugs, which often lead to violence and crime. Sometimes people reject God and turn to all sorts of abuse which harms other people. Sometimes it causes rifts in families and fellowships through unforgiving or censorious attitudes. Sometimes sin is found as selfishness, apathy and pride. No one is immune, whether it be the most degraded drunkard or junkie, or even a 'good living' preacher, or bishop.

We all need to reach out to Jesus in sincere repentance and faith. And when we do, we move with Christ, from the darkness of the tomb to the light of Eternal (Real) Life.

Written - 20th March. 2002

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