Easter Week
If you can see the invisible landscape, Easter week is the most important week in the history of the universe.
Easter is when Christians celebrate the resurrection of Jesus. For those who don’t believe in the existence of the invisible landscape, Easter is either a relic of our superstitious past or an occasion for scorn. But for people who are walking with Jesus in his kingdom - who have an interactive relationship with him, it is a time to rejoice in God’s love for us and to just reflect on how much God has done to bring us back from the tragic predicament we were in.
IN THE BEGINNING - CREATED IN THE IMAGE OF GOD
Genesis 1:26-28 (NLT): 26Then God said, “Let us make human beings in our image, to be like us. They will reign over the fish in the sea, the birds in the sky, the livestock, all the wild animals on the earth, and the small animals that scurry along the ground.” 27 So God created human beings in his own image. In the image of God he created them; male and female he created them. 28 Then God blessed them and said, “Be fruitful and multiply. Fill the earth and govern it. Reign over the fish in the sea, the birds in the sky, and all the animals that scurry along the ground.”
Things started so well. We were created in the image of God - men and women, to be like him (v 26)! Wow. Have you ever seen that before? You were made to be like God! In what ways were we to be like him? Well, this passage tells us some of the ways God intended for us to be like him:
“They will reign.” “Fill the earth and govern it.” Your translation may say “subdue it,” bring it into submission. God created us and gave us the responsibility of ruling over his creation. In Gen. 2:15 God commissions Adam and Eve to tend and watch over the garden he had created for them. He gave them work to do. Did you know you were created for reigning?!? Of course, God’s plan was that we would be reigning over his creation with him and in submission to his benevolent leadership. We had a great assignment with unlimited possibilities!
“Be fruitful and multiply. Fill the earth . . .” God wanted us to be creative, as he is creative. One of the most amazing privileges and responsibilities we have as God’s image bearers is bringing into existence more persons bearing his image. It blows my mind thinking about it. If you are a parent and have held that tiny fragile human being that you help bring into the world for the first time, you probably experienced that amazement and wonder at the gift of life.
Genesis 1:31 (ESV): And God saw everything that he had made, and behold, it was very good.
God looked at all that he had created and was very pleased. It was all very good. Remember, the visible landscape is created by God and is good. The problem is there was a rebellion that created chaos in the midst of this paradise.
WHAT WENT WRONG?
There was only one prohibition that God had for his image bearers, and that was to refrain from eating from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. He warned them if they did eat of it they would die. You can read about the interaction of God’s image bearers with Satan in Genesis 3, how the devil planted in their minds the idea that God was holding something back from them, and that perhaps God didn’t have their best interest at heart after all. . . That he wasn’t trustworthy.
So they decided to trust Satan instead of God(link) and decided that they would do what they thought was best. In other words, they decided to be independent from their Creator and be gods unto themselves. They turned their back on God and drove a wedge of separation between themselves and God by their rebellion - rebellion also known as sin. This separation from God is spiritual death. They were still alive in the physical landscape, but because they were separated from God, they were dead to the invisible landscape, and eventually died physically as well. And all those born into the visible landscape after them also died.
What a horrible tragedy. A tragedy that brought all the brokenness and evil that has infested God’s good creation, marring it and breaking God’s heart. Listen to what he had to say after a few generations had passed:
Genesis 6:5–6 (NLT): The Lord observed the extent of human wickedness on the earth, and he saw that everything they thought or imagined was consistently and totally evil. 6 So the Lord was sorry he had ever made them and put them on the earth. It broke his heart.
THE PLAN TO RESCUE US FROM DESTRUCTION
This is where Easter comes in.
Philip Yancey has a quote that I like a lot:
“In a nutshell, the Bible from Genesis 3 to Revelation 22 tells the story of a God reckless with desire to get his family back.”
I don’t think any of God’s actions are reckless. However, I like this quote because it uses an analogy with which human fathers can identify to help us catch a glimpse of the intensity and motivation of God in his quest to restore his relationship with those he loved so much.
FIRST, DEALING WITH OUR REBELLION
1 Peter 3:18 (NLT): Christ suffered for our sins once for all time. He never sinned, but he died for sinners to bring you safely home to God.
And
1 Peter 2:24–25 (NLT): He personally carried our sins in his body on the cross so that we can be dead to sin and live for what is right. By his wounds you are healed. 25 Once you were like sheep who wandered away. But now you have turned to your Shepherd, the Guardian of your souls.
SECOND, RISING FROM THE DEAD
Romans 14:8–9 (NLT): 8 If we live, it’s to honor the Lord. And if we die, it’s to honor the Lord. So whether we live or die, we belong to the Lord. 9 Christ died and rose again for this very purpose—to be Lord both of the living and of the dead.
1 Corinthians 15:14–18, 21-26 (NLT): 14 And if Christ has not been raised, then all our preaching is useless, and your faith is useless. 15 And we apostles would all be lying about God—for we have said that God raised Christ from the grave. But that can’t be true if there is no resurrection of the dead. 16 And if there is no resurrection of the dead, then Christ has not been raised. 17 And if Christ has not been raised, then your faith is useless and you are still guilty of your sins. 18 In that case, all who have died believing in Christ are lost! . . . So you see, just as death came into the world through a man, now the resurrection from the dead has begun through another man. 22 Just as everyone dies because we all belong to Adam, everyone who belongs to Christ will be given new life. 23 But there is an order to this resurrection: Christ was raised as the first of the harvest; then all who belong to Christ will be raised when he comes back. 24 After that the end will come, when he will turn the Kingdom over to God the Father, having destroyed every ruler and authority and power. 25 For Christ must reign until he humbles all his enemies beneath his feet. 26 And the last enemy to be destroyed is death.
THIRD, RESTORATION OF GOOD AND MAKING RIGHT EVERY WRONG
Romans 8:20–25 (NLT): But with eager hope, 21 the creation looks forward to the day when it will join God’s children in glorious freedom from death and decay. 22 For we know that all creation has been groaning as in the pains of childbirth right up to the present time. 23 And we believers also groan, even though we have the Holy Spirit within us as a foretaste of future glory, for we long for our bodies to be released from sin and suffering. We, too, wait with eager hope for the day when God will give us our full rights as his adopted children, including the new bodies he has promised us. 24 We were given this hope when we were saved. (If we already have something, we don’t need to hope for it. 25 But if we look forward to something we don’t yet have, we must wait patiently and confidently.)
Revelation 21:1–5 (ESV): Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and the sea was no more. 2 And I saw the holy city, new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband. 3 And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, “Behold, the dwelling place of God is with man. He will dwell with them, and they will be his people, and God himself will be with them as their God. 4 He will wipe away every tear from their eyes, and death shall be no more, neither shall there be mourning, nor crying, nor pain anymore, for the former things have passed away.” 5 And he who was seated on the throne said, “Behold, I am making all things new.”
CONCLUSION
Easter is about the resurrection of Jesus. Did you see what Paul said in 1 Cor 15:14-15?: 14 And if Christ has not been raised, then all our preaching is useless, and your faith is useless. 15 And we apostles would all be lying about God—for we have said that God raised Christ from the grave.
If Jesus rose from the dead, we have a purpose - we are unceasing spiritual beings with an eternal destiny in God’s great universe. We have a future and our children and grandchildren have hope.
If Jesus didn’t rise from the dead, Christianity has been a farce, the apostles who witnessed everything they wrote about were a bunch of liars (Paul’s own words), and there is no hope of eternal life. There is nothing but the physical landscape and then, when you die, you cease to exist.
Everything hinges on whether we trust what God says about his love, his plan, and our destiny, or whether we don’t.
And “reality is what you run into when you’re wrong.” Dallas Willard.
HIS REDEEMED ONES WILL REIGN WITH HIM FOREVER
Revelation 22:5 (ESV): And night will be no more. They will need no light of lamp or sun, for the Lord God will be their light, and they will reign forever and ever.
In the beginning, God created us to reign over his creation with him. In the end, that is exactly what his redeemed sons and daughters will do!
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