Just before the sun rose on the sleeping city of Jerusalem, that original Easter Sunday morning, a group of tired guards paced in front of a large boulder that hid the tomb of Jesus. It was in that half light time and their inner chemistry would then have been telling them that the new day was upon them. The Bible says that suddenly an angel of the Lord appeared with amazing whiteness and this awesome figure rolled that great two ton boulder away and then sat there on it in terrifying light. The guards fell to the ground paralysed and unconscious with fear. But the angel did not roll the stone away to let the Lord Jesus out for he was already gone. The Easter Miracle of Christ’s actual resurrection happened without any human observation. The angel rolled the stone away to let the people then, and all of humanity now, look in on an empty tomb. Easter is about our taking the occasion to look in on the greatest miracle of all time. That is why you are here worshipping today.
Why is Easter remembering the greatest miracle of all time? Firstly because it is about the greatest Person of all time. Jesus only is the God-man. He was the eternal Son of God who added on humanity and came from eternity to be born as a man. He was fully human without that meaning he was any less divine. There has never been and never will be another equal. In the centre of history the greatest miracle has been performed by the greatest person.
Secondly, Easter is about this God-man doing something beyond both God and man before He came. Jesus achieved that which He could not do while He was only divine. In Heaven before He came, the eternal Son of God could not die and so also could not be the subject of the resurrection. He voluntarily took on humanity to be the fitting, sinless and perfect, sacrifice for our sins. And so He died for us…That death earned our forgiveness. Then God the Father raised Him (Jesus, the God-man) to life again. The tomb was empty because it was a bodily resurrection. It was the raising of the body of Jesus out of the tomb never to die again. It was the first lifting of our humanity to be totally immortal and the other side of death. There had been other resuscitations, but this was the first resurrection. It took God to be in a man for that God-man to beat death.
This has been the greatest action of all history. When Jesus rose again He made available a new humanity to offer to you and to me. We don’t have to be locked in to the old man that always fails in sin. Now we have a new humanity in the God-man Christ.
When to come by faith to Jesus, God gives us a new “human nature transplant” whereby our connection to the fallen Adam is cancelled and we are aligned with, connected to and recreated in the new man Christ.
That is why the Bible says:
[box]If any person be in Christ he is a new creation. Old things are passed away. Behold, all things have become new!”
2 Corinthians 5: 17 [/box]
The making available of this new humanity to us all was achieved by Jesus coming to life again.
Praise Him. Worship Him. Trust Him.
Jim Gibson
Thank Sri 🙂