“If you declare with your mouth, ‘Jesus is Lord,’ and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved.” –Romans 10:9

Easter without gathering for church?  No Easter speeches?  No Easter parade?  No Easter Sunday’s best attire?  No, because our traditions are not important to God.  God is more concerned that we believe in His Son, Jesus Christ, and that we spread the Good News of salvation!  The ongoing situation around the pandemic has Christians all over this nation, observing this significant season in different yet meaningful ways. 

As our family sat together and watched the Passion of Christ movie on Good Friday, at one point, it felt like a horror movie.  The scenes were definitely horrific!  Our family doesn’t watch horror movies.  Those dark stories sometimes end with evil, somehow winning over good, and we just don’t agree with that.  But we watched, and we took in the full awfulness of this dramatic reenactment of Jesus’ crucifixion from the scriptures.  And as we watched, the scenes took hours to go through what we typically read through in minutes.  We were forced to slow down and dwell on what happened over the days and hours between Maundy Thursday through Good Friday to Resurrection Sunday!  I recall from both the movie and the scriptures how those all around Jesus urged him to save himself. 

“He saved others,” they said, “but he can’t save himself! He’s the king of Israel! Let him come down now from the cross, and we will believe in him.  He trusts in God. Let God rescue him now if he wants him, for he said, ‘I am the Son of God.’”  In the same way the rebels who were crucified with him also heaped insults on him. –Matthew 27:42-44 (NIV)

He had already demonstrated his power and authority as the Son of God!  For at least three years before, he had been healing the sick, raising the dead, calming the storm, and preaching the good news that was to come.  Many had testified about his miraculous power, yet the people all around Jesus still needed him to demonstrate that he was who he said he was in order for them to believe in him!  Did they really need just one more demonstration to believe?  Do you?

Had Jesus come down off of that cross to save himself, what would we be believing in today?  You see, Jesus knew the prophecy had to be fulfilled in the way that it was written.  He knew that demonstrating his power and authority by saving himself would abort his mission.  He stayed on that cross, glory to God, to save not himself, but to save you and me!  As the movie continued, Jesus’ suffering seemed to go on and on, then finally it was over.  The last scene of the movie showed Jesus Christ emerging from the borrowed tomb—fully resurrected!  Praise God!  Good won over evil! 

He is not here; he has risen, just as he said. Come and see the place where he lay. –Matthew 28:6 (NIV)

Jesus’ death and resurrection gives us hope today, despite the current state of this world.  God is still in control, just as He was when he sent His Son to die on the cross for our sins.  The scriptures tell us Christ lives!  What more do you need to believe?

“In his great mercy he has given us new birth into a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead” –1 Peter 1:3

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