Hi friend,
If you’ve read any of the blog, you’ll notice that Alena and I tend to connect with the Lord on a personal and emotional level. That’s how we get closer to God. However, I have found it eye-opening to look to the history and logic of my faith, too. Easter is a great time to dig into understanding who Jesus really is and the events leading up to His death and resurrection.
Easter Sunday is the day Christians celebrate when Jesus was resurrected after His death on the cross. Growing up, I was always told Jesus died for my sins. Although this was a great way to explain Easter to a child, it left me with more questions than answers.
Why did Jesus need to die?
There are several places in the Old Testament (the Hebrew Bible), that contain prophecy of the Messiah. The most important attribute of the Messiah is that He will liberate followers of God, traditionally the Jewish people. This means that the Lord revealed to certain people what the Messiah would do so that everyone would know He was sent by God. Today, Christians can look at these prophecies and see how they have been fulfilled by Jesus, which is why we believe that Jesus is the Messiah.
One claim for the Messiah is that He will be a descendent of King David. This can be seen in several verses including Isaiah 11:1, “A shoot will come up from the stump of Jesse;
from his roots a Branch will bear fruit.” Jesse was the father of David, and therefore a direct connection to the bloodline. In Matthew 1:1, we can see the genealogy of Jesus and understand that He is a descendent of King David like Isaiah prophesied. Jesus’ genealogy is also referenced in several other places in the New Testament.
The Messiah is also said to be forsaken and pierced, and also vindicated. This is another way of saying that Jesus’ hands and feet would be nailed to the cross, He would be abandoned, and finally, He would be cleared of blame. This prophecy occurs in Psalm 22, when the psalter is first, forsaken by God, pierced, then at the end shown to be innocent. In fact, Jesus quotes this psalm moments before He dies on the cross when He cries out, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” (Matthew 27:46 and Mark 15:34). It is through the resurrection that we see that Jesus is vindicated and has conquered death.
We can see through these Scriptures that Jesus fulfilled prophecies of the birth of the Messiah, as well as the death. However, these are truly just a few of the prophecies Jesus fulfilled and only a few verses to support them. There is so much more information, but not all can be included here. Jesus fulfilled hundreds of prophecies (written hundreds of years before His birth) while on Earth! For example, the Messiah was prophesied to be preceded by a messenger (Malachi 3:1 and Matthew 11:10), the Messiah would come riding on a donkey (Zechariah 9:9 and Matthew 21:1-7), and the Messiah would be betrayed for thirty pieces of silver (Zechariah 11:12-13 and Matthew 26: 14-15) just to name a few!
What does Jesus’ death mean?
There are several ideas on why Jesus needed to die for our sins. Throughout Scripture, Jesus is referred to as a lamb and later the Passover lamb, including in John 1. In the Jewish tradition, the passover lamb was a sacrifice made to save the Israelites from the tenth plague: the death of the firstborn son (Exodus 12:29). According to Exodus 12:5 and 12:46, the sacrificial lamb must be perfect and its bones must not be broken. We can see this fulfilled in Jesus’ death because Jesus was without sin and when the Roman soldiers “came to Jesus and saw that he was already dead, they did not break his legs.” (John 19:33).
Just like the Israelites believed the Passover lamb would save them from death (of the firstborn son), Christians believe that Jesus acts as the final Passover lamb and sets us free from death. This is called atonement theology, the belief that Jesus needed to die as a sacrifice to save us.
While it is awe-inspiring to see Jesus fulfill these Scriptures and save us from death, you may not connect with that explanation. Don’t get me wrong, it is absolutely amazing to understand the kind of suffering Jesus went through and to understand the significance of it. However, I’ve always been left with the question: but why did Jesus need to die? Why did God need His son to die to show us mercy? Isn’t God almighty and couldn’t He have saved us anyway without needing Jesus’ blood?
As Cynthia Rigby, a Presbyterian theologian wrote, “It’s not only that God walks in our shoes, but God takes our shoes and goes into places where we couldn’t walk without being destroyed and takes on even that which would annihilate us.” Maybe it’s not that the cross was necessary for us to receive God’s love, but that it was the Lord’s way of proving to us the depths of His love. Though this might seem excessive, think about it for a minute. We are only human. It’s easy to doubt God every once in a while. It’s even easier to doubt that the God of the universe cares about us. However, the Lord gave us the ultimate example of how much we can trust in His love. When I remember the cross, I remember the goodness of God. This sacrifice is something tangible that proves His love for each of us.
I love the song "You Heard My Name" by Taylor Tripodi because it reminds me that Jesus saw His sacrifice as worthwhile because of each of us. He heard my name, He thought of me (and the same goes for you!) when He asked God, "If you are willing, take this cup from me; not my will but yours be done." (Luke 22:42).
The cross is God’s ultimate act of love. The Lord took a symbol of torture and death and made it into the greatest love story. The cross tells us that Jesus, who was sinless but experienced the pain of sin firsthand, has suffered through more than any of us will ever experience. Jesus is Emmanuel, God with us. We are shown through the suffering of Jesus that God is right here with us on Earth.
This sinning world is not something the Lord turns away from in disgust, but instead brings Him to turn toward us in love. When Jesus cries, “My God, My God, why have you forsaken me?” (Matthew 27:46 and Mark 15:34) it is not because God turned on Jesus. In Jesus’ time, quoting Scripture implied the entire passage. Therefore, Jesus was reminding the crowd that it had seemed like God had abandoned us before, but God’s story is a redemption story just like what is shown in the implied Psalm 22. Jesus’ presence on Earth tells us, “I not only see your suffering, I have experienced it firsthand. This sin is not too ugly for me. This is not the end of your story.”
It is because of Jesus that we know that the pain of this world is not the end. We have hope because shortly after the darkest day when Jesus was crucified, we are reminded in the most amazing way that the Lord is bigger than suffering and death. Our God just wants us to be with Him. That is an amazing truth we can celebrate every Easter, and throughout our lives.
I pray that you find new significance in the resurrection story this Easter! What does Jesus’ death and resurrection mean to you? How can we carry the Easter hope into our daily lives?
In Christ Our Hope,
Shaina
