THE MESSAGE OF EASTER- GOODMORNING

The message of Easter- Part 1‏
By Herbert Mugwagwa

Published: April 9, 2012

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The Easter eggs and bunnies disappeared from supermarket shelves at a terrific speed, beer also vanished at an equally horrific speed, at various places in town people are busy revelling and others in town or communal lands are holding memorial services for dear departed relatives or just enjoying with friends and family.

Faith wise, you see a few ‘faithfuls’ gathering at their places of worship and yet others who would move around carrying a wooden cross. That’s Easter for many of us-either we are busy pursuing our own agendas or we are busy undergoing some rigorous religious exercise that does not add value to our spirituality. But what is this period all about?

What is its significance? The period is about a person- about Jesus Christ, about the torture and torment he went through, his crucification, his burial and his resurrection. Ironically, this is called the good news or evangelion in Greek. Very soon, we’ll find out why someone’s death, which should be untimely and very tragic, be said to be good news.

Death, under normal circumstances, should leave us sorrowful and devastated but this one leaves us jubilant and triumphant for though it is an ordinary death in some way, its also extraordinary in another.

In order for one to fully understand Easter, one does not start with what happened around 33 A.D but goes back to the very beginning of time, the genesis of creation, of happiness, of civilisation, of polygamy, of murder, of animal and crop husbandry, of everything, etc. Adam and his beauty queen, Eve, have been created and have been placed in a heaven-on-earth garden of wonderful delights and pleasures and then they rebel against God.

They sin. They lose it all. But these people had been created in the very image of God for fellowship with Him( Gen.1v26,Gen.3v8) and yet cut off that rapport, that fellowship, that relationship, because sinful man cannot have a relationship with a holy God. That can not do- its like trying to mix oil and water or better still, water and potassium- the explosion can send someone either to heaven or hell! So a way had to be found to reconcile man and God for man was now naked and spiritually dirty(Gen.3v10,11).

He could no longer countenance a holy God and hence God clothed him with garments of skin instead of fig leaf garments that man had made for himself (Gen.3v8,22).

There are two religious truths to be gleaned here 1.man’s ways are different from God’s ways(clothes of leaves that are easily torn and garments of skin that are long lasting) Isaiah 55v8-11. God takes the iniative to reconcile to man unlike in religion where man takes the initiative and comes to God using his own ways and methods bringing us to 2. The skin garments mean an animal has been slaughtered. Blood has been shed. Hebrews 9v22 is very clear: without the shedding of blood there is no forgiveness of sin.

In other words He sets his own requirements in order to forgive man. Man, who needs God, is not the one who sets the standards and the requirements. Its like an institution of learning-it sets its own requirements and without fulfilling them you can not enter it. The blood shed propitiates or turns away God’s wrath or anger from the sinner.

What we see in the Old Testament are called types and shadows which prefigure what is to come. Thus, the animal that has been killed is foreshadowing Jesus Christ, the lamb of God that takes away the sins of mankind (Jn.1v29). It should be noted that God has three general qualities that he alone possesses which makes him unique. He is omnipresent i.e all-present, omnipotent i.e all- powerful and he is omniscient i.e all-knowing.

It is the last trait of God that is significant in this discourse right now for it tells us that nothing is hidden from Him and we can not surprise Him with our idiosyncrasies or our actions, behaviour or words. He knows it all before is manifestated. Thus, he knew one day he would create man who would fall from grace and hence before that He hadJesus Christ “before the creation of the world, but was revealed in these last days for your sake”(1 Peter 1v20).

Thus, Christ was chosen before the foundation of the world to save mankind. We call this predestination or to put it in another way we could simply say our redemption was planned by God before the creation of the world. Isn’t that awesome? And lets not be confused by the big word ‘redemption’. It simply means to ransom or buy back.

Our first parents disobeyed God and obeyed Satan. Remember you belong to the one whom you obey. So by obeying Satan they were now saying we belong to you, we are now no longer God’s. This is a fact that even God Himself acknowledges but then man had been tricked or deceived into this situation, into this predicament and God decides to help man out. He slaughters an animal in order to cleanse man and cover his nakedness. Someone calls this redemption prepared but l call it redemption instituted. (to be continued). (ZimEye)