When God was killed

21.APR.11

by Kenyatta Lewis, President of the Association of Evangelical Churches of St Vincent and the Grenadines

What comes to mind when you think about Easter? I am sure the usual sentiments would spring up immediately: family dinner, Easter egg, a rabbit, cross buns, Regatta, vacation, the beach or a time to make your once per year pilgrimage to church. Yet, like most things religious, there has been significant misunderstanding, error and plain confusion with the story of the resurrection of Jesus Christ. So let us tell the story again.{{more}}

A carpenter by trade, Jesus, son of Joseph and Mary, filled with the Holy Spirit, began to preach to the Jews a message of repentance and the ushering in of the Kingdom of God – the reign of God over all that is – in the lives of those who believed on his message. Inciting the jealousy of the religious and aristocratic elite of the day, Jesus was condemned to death by crucifixion, a popular Roman form of judicial punishment that sought to deter would be insurrectionists. End of story. Except for a minor detail, you see this same Jesus had the audacity to call himself the Son of God, understood by everyone to mean the same as being called God. Not only did he go around calling himself God and the creator of everything, he went even further, poignantly stating that as the scriptures had foretold, he would die and be raised from the dead on the third day. And this is where the story takes a sharp turn, never again to be contained to the time and place but to be history’s singular event. This event has become the deciding factor that determines man’s eternal destiny.

The resurrection of Jesus Christ, the Son of God, is one of history’s most disputed events, and rightly so, because if Jesus did raise from the dead, then he is God, and his words are no longer just moral platitudes or pithy comments on life in ancient Israel, but the very words of God, and rejecting him is rejection of God himself, which leads to damnation. However, accepting Jesus as God’s Son and as God himself is to enjoy abundant life, unparalleled in its quality and substance. To put one’s faith in the resurrection of Jesus Christ and his claims to be the Son of God is the most liberating act one could undertake. Is it easy to do? Consider the tons of irrefutable evidence that clearly points towards a resurrection; a dead man, a locked tomb, at least over five hundred witnesses who saw the risen Jesus, lack of evidence to the contrary, changed course of history, and the list can go on.

The Gospel of Jesus Christ is good news, but it is good news that has at its very centre the death of God. To most pesons, death is not good news, and the death of God is certainly not good, but for God it was good, it pleased God the Father to allow God the Son to die at the hands of wicked men. And this is good because on that blood soaked cross where this son of a carpenter died, the sins of all those that believed in him were laid, and his perfect righteousness was imputed to men who believed on him, but the story gets better, because the resurrected Son of God, now seated in Heaven as judge and king, sent God the Holy Spirit into the hearts of those that are his, and into the world to convict the world of its sin, and the need for, but lack of, righteous living.

So what do you think about Easter now? Do you think about death and betrayal, the temporary triumph of wicked over good, darkness, pain nearly unbearable, hope smashed? If you do, then you are on the way to appreciating the truth of Easter. However, you must also think about a victorious God, once and for all putting to rest the lingering but deceptive idea that evil in the world was somehow having the upper hand over God and goodness. You must think of hope that is beyond comprehension, power to serve and live holy lives, peace with the divine and fulfilled promises. Easter is the ultimate contrast; death and undying life, lostness and adoption into family, a dead God and an eternal Trinity that rules over all.

Allow the resurrection of God to be a robust undergirding that brings life into proper focus, that emboldens us to live with certainty in a world of skepticism and speculation, to love when hatred exists, and to trust that God and good have won, all is well with the world, the resurrection of Jesus Christ makes it so.