Easter Explains Everything!

Easter explains everything. Because the cross of Jesus Christ is the centre of everything. And I mean everything! 

• Most amazingly it explains creation. Why creation? So that God can display the glory of his grace for his praise. And he does that in clearest and most extreme splendour at the cross. Picture the vast expanse of creation in all its magnificence with a searing white hot focal point to all time and space. A singularity, a coalescence of all the eternal purposes and infinite power of God in one place and instance.  That focus is the cross
• It explains why the world is the way it is - rebellion that needs atonement; creation subjected to decay and groaning waiting for the glorious liberation of the children of God, supremely accomplished through the cross
• It explains the depths of distress and degradation in the human heart - the ultimate expression of human evil is the desire to kill God and usurp his place. We saw it at the Fall, we see it most completely at the cross. If we do it to God no wonder we do it to each other
• It reveals the greatest glory of God: that the magnification of his grace is clearest and fullest when the best person dies for the worst people. The best human love is laying down life for your friends. God's love is like this - the Son laid his down for his enemies
• It explains how God has chosen to act deciscively for his glory, for our good, for the defeat of evil, to produce a people for his praise at the cost of his blood (Acts 20:28)
• It explains the answer to death

But best of all it doesn't just explain. It accomplishes it. A retired missionary friend rang me recently to ask if my generation has forgotten that the reason Christ was revealed was to destroy the work of the evil one. I suspect I and my contemporaries are not nearly as atuned to the raging of the spiritual battle as he would have been in Borneo, so he is probably right. I want to remember it at Easter - Jesus is the victor over sin, the flesh, the world, the devil and over death. Amazing!

As we contemplate the work of our Christ at Easter we aren't meant to just comprehend what God has done, we are meant to bow. We are meant to kneel and lie prostrate before the king who conquers through a cross.