What is Easter all about?

I think that most people know it’s not about bunnies who lay chocolate eggs. When I think of Easter, I think of spring. I think of new life and believe this is what Easter is about.

Among our misconceptions of chocolate egg-laying bunnies is the idea of an angry God punishing His son.

This is ludicrous.

We deserved to be abandoned by God. But God did not abandon us. Instead, what God did was demonstrate His love for us.

As the Apostle Paul says, “While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.” (Romans 5:8). Jesus burst on the scene and showed us the full manifestation of God. If Jesus is the full embodiment of who God is, it tells us there is more going on at the crucifixion than what meets the eye.

Rather, Jesus came and chose to suffer at our hands and experience divine abandonment. Did Jesus drink God’s “wrath”? Yes, but only by allowing Himself to fall into our hands.

What we know is Jesus gave His life, and He gave His life for us. Not as an act to appease God’s wrath, but to pay the debt we incurred. A debt we were powerless to suffice.

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Our misdeeds exclaimed that we are unworthy of a relationship with God. However, God would have none of that. It’s not because we were so great and kind and marvelous and righteous. It’s because God is. God is the one who abounds in love, and it “is shed abroad in our hearts.” (Romans 5:5).

This brings us to Easter.

It’s not just that Christ gave His life as a payment for the moral debt we’ve racked up. Christ rose from the grave that beloved Easter morning, defeated death, and declared that just as He had conquered the grave, so too will those who find life in Him.

This life isn’t about something that happens when you die. It’s a new life that begins in the now and reaches into eternity.

As Ravi Zacharias loves to say, “Jesus did not come to make wrong people right. He came to make dead people live.”

Let’s remember the joy that is Easter. It is not a day to say, “Phew, Jesus took God’s blows.” It is a day to say, “Thank you, Jesus, for taking the worst man could throw at you and turning it into a blessing.”