Sunday, April 04, 2010

Death gives way to hope.

Christ is risen!

The stone has been rolled away. The darkness has been washed away by brilliant light. Hope returns to the earth. The greatest love mankind has ever known fills the world and changes everything.

No longer are we bound by sin and death. Those chains are gone.

The great part of this is that it is not about us, yet it is for us that God sent His Son to walk among us. The focus of the Resurrection has never been about mankind and his sin, but about the great miracle, the great work of God who loves His creation more than He loves Himself.

The purpose of the Resurrection is to bring everyone home.

When the Lamb of God was slain on the cross, that would have been enough to take away the sins of the world. He offered His life willingly in payment for our ugliness. That would have been more than enough. God could have stopped the process in that moment and we would have been redeemed. It was finished.

But, God wasn't finished. God isn't finished!!!

Jesus' death on the cross was just the beginning. Death was not the end. He overcame the one thing that each of us must face. He walked away from death.

Where, o death, is your victory?
Where, o death, is your sting?
Death has been swallowed up in victory! (1 Cor. 15:54-55)

When all hope was gone that his friends would ever see Him again, He returned.

He showed us love on the cross. He brought us hope with the resurrection.

Hope is revealed every day because the stone was rolled away, the Savior rose from the dead and will return to reign.

Our God is a living, creating Lord!
Darkness can not surround Him. Sin can not bind Him. Death could not contain Him.

We do not have to live in darkness ... sorrow and death have been swept away in one glorious moment by the God who created us and loved us.

Today we celebrate that great love and that incredible hope.

Christ - our Messiah - our Savior is a Risen Lord!

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