Easter is in a few days. I’ve been feeling like I should write something about it, but I couldn’t figure out what. I just chalked it up to the fact that this year’s Easter is going to be, well, quite different from the ones in the past. Then I woke up this morning and thought, that’s it!
Yes, this Easter will be very different from every other Easter you have ever celebrated. There won’t be neighborhood egg hunts. There won’t be churches full of people. There won’t even be big family gatherings. No fancy Easter dresses, and no pictures with the Easter bunny. Different indeed.
But the more I thought about all that there won’t be, I began to think of all that there will be. There will still be the day that Jesus died on the cross (Good Friday as we know it); and there will still be the day that Jesus rose from the grave. Which is all we need for Easter. The things we are missing this year aren’t specifically bad. Maybe God is removing them so we can focus on Him and what He sacrificed at Easter.
If you’re like me, and I am going to guess a lot of you are, you don’t like sad things. I think it’s maybe our western culture. We don’t do well with death; especial an unfair one at that. So when we mention the cross we call it Good Friday and then skip over to the resurrection – the happy part of the story. So today I’m choosing to camp on the hard part of Easter – the sacrifice. Because without the sacrifice and hardship that Jesus was and did, there would be no Sunday celebration.
Stick with me here. We see it throughout the Bible. Sacrifices are common in the Bible. Maybe so common we skip over them, or maybe we think they are mean, or maybe we simple don’t understand them. But they are there. Specifically blood sacrifices. We see them applied to both forgiveness and healings.
The first sacrifice made was in the Garden of Eden in Genesis 3:21 where the Lord made garments of animal skin for Adam and Eve. An animal gave it’s life, and bled to cover them. We see over and over animal sacrifices for forgiveness of sins. In Leviticus 14:3-7 we see a bird sacrifice for healing of a disease. We even see Jesus tell the man with leprosy after healing him to go show himself to the Priest and offer the sacrifices that Moses commanded for your cleansing. (See Luke 5:14)
You see the cross and the Blood that Jesus shed and the beatings that He took were His great sacrifices for us. The stripes that he bore are our means to healing. We can proclaim that we are healed by the Stripes of Jesus (Is. 53:5 and Matthew 8:17). We see in Eph. 1:7 and Hebrews 9:12-14 that we have forgiveness and are made righteous by the Blood of Jesus.
So this Easter, as things look a lot different than what we are used to; let’s look at Easter in a way we maybe aren’t used to either. Take time to reflect on the sacrifice that Jesus made. Take time to understand the power of the Blood. And then on Sunday praise Him from a new place of understanding. Shout praises to the one whose Blood truly makes us clean.
