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LOGOS TRADING POST - EASTER RESURRECTION

The Basis of Christianity

1 Peter 1:3 says, “Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! According to his great mercy, he has caused us to be born again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead.” Easter is a day where we get to celebrate the most incredible miracle the world has ever seen: Jesus coming back to life as a symbol of living hope! It is our pleasure, then, to offer Easter gifts that celebrate this amazing day. If you want Easter gifts delivered straight to you and a great variety of products to choose from, you have certainly come to the right place.

Still, what would be the good of Easter if not for what happened on that Easter Sunday, or as Paul says in 1 Corinthians 13:12 -19, “Now if Christ is proclaimed as raised from the dead, how can some of you say that there is no resurrection of the dead? But if there is no resurrection of the dead, then not even Christ has been raised. And if Christ has not been raised, then our preaching is in vain and your faith is in vain. We are even found to be misrepresenting God, because we testified about God that he raised Christ, whom he did not raise if it is true that the dead are not raised. For if the dead are not raised, not even Christ has been raised. And if Christ has not been raised, your faith is futile and you are still in your sins. Then those also who have fallen asleep in Christ have perished. If in Christ we have hope in this life only, we are of all people most to be pitied.” The resurrection of Jesus Christ is the very basis of Christian belief, and it is also a miracle to put our hope in. He led the way, defeating death and demonstrating His eternal authority over it, so that we could follow Him and share in His resurrection life. Paul continues his thought in 1 Corinthians 13:22, “For as in Adam all die, so also in Christ shall all be made alive.”

The Good Friday

Of course, who can think of Easter without also considering Good Friday? For Jesus to come back to life, He had to experience death. His resurrection is a symbol of hope for all who believe, but His death is not without its own richness of meaning.

Good Friday, three days before the resurrection of Easter Sunday, is naturally the day that we celebrate the death of Jesus. Why is it that we celebrate the most tragic event in all of history, though? Normally, it would be a day to mourn, and on the very first Good Friday, many did. The story of the road to Emmaus in Luke 24 really captures what Christ’s disciples felt before they knew of His return. We can feel the broken hopes in their words in Luke 24:19-21, which reads, “Concerning Jesus of Nazareth, a man who was a prophet mighty in deed and word before God and all of the people, and how our chief priests and rulers delivered him up to be condemned to death, and crucified him. But we had hoped that he was the one to redeem Israel. Yes, and besides all this, it is now the third day since these things happened.”

Indeed, no mistake should be made; Good Friday truly was a sad day. However, the believers of today have context for why it has instead become a day worthy of great celebration! His disciples could not yet understand it from up close, but we can understand the power of the cross just as they came to. After all, Peter, one of his disciples wrote many years later in 1 Peter 2:24, “He himself bore our sin in his body on the tree [the cross], that we might die to sin and live to righteousness. By his wounds you have been healed.”

Yes, generally speaking, though the crucifixion is very rich in meaning, that wooden cross of Christ endures as a Christian symbol one very important reason. Peter was getting at it in that verse from 1 Peter: redemption. As we know from Romans 6:23a, “The wages of sin is death...”, and as we know from Romans 3:23, “All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.” Logically, this means that we are greatly in debt due to our sinfulness, our failures and shortcomings. However, Paul really catches on to this aspect of the cross in Colossians 2:13-14, which says, “You, who were dead in your trespasses and the uncircumcision of your flesh, God made alive together with him, having forgiven us all our trespasses, by cancelling the record of debt that stood against us with its legal demands.” We are redeemed by the cross, both from the price we were indebted to pay for our sin and from the sin itself.

The Easter Sunday

However, back to the resurrection that followed the cross, the next verse of Colossians 2 also has something to say about the primary meaning of the resurrection: triumph. Colossians 2:15 says, “He disarmed the rulers and authorities and put them to open shame, by triumphing over them in him.” Mark 16:19 also says after His resurrection, “So then the Lord Jesus, after he had spoken to them, was taken up into heaven and sat down at the right hand of God.”

Christ triumphed over sin and death. His resurrection proved that neither was too great for Him, and now He is in a seat of transcendent authority. This is something we get to celebrate, because He has encouraged us to trust Him and follow Him. He experienced resurrection life, and so now we can, because of the victory that He one for us on that Easter just about two-thousand years ago. However, you celebrate Easter, whether by having some of our Easter gifts delivered or simply by dedicating yourself to prayer, we hope you will remember the price Jesus was willing to pay for you and the glory of the victory He won on your behalf.