Canceling Easter?

As Christians approach the Easter season we wonder about the world around us.  Should we cancel Easter?  It really doesn’t matter though.  In the long run we don’t need a special Easter ……….we only need knowledge and faith that there was a point in history when a Jewish man living in the 1^st century was crucified on a Roman cross on some particular day closely associated with the Jewish holiday of Passover. 

He claimed to be the Messiah.  He brought Good News….He was declaring that God was stepping into history and was bringing about the promised Messianic Kingdom.  He was here to declare that the time was coming when Heaven would come to earth.  He told his disciples to pray….”Thy Kingdom come”…. that is to pray that God’s will for man would be accomplished on earth.    He himself was the Promised One sent by God.  His actions and His words fulfilled many of the prophecies of the Hebrew Scriptures and the covenant given in Jeremiah was about to begin…….

“The days are coming says the Lord…….when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah.  It will not be like the covenant I made with their fathers…………I will put my Torah within them and write it on their hearts and  I be their God and they will be my people  No longer will any of them teach his fellow members……….I will forgive their wickedness and remember their sins no more.

In the farewell discourse, we often call the Last Supper (John 13-17) Yeshua (Jesus), explains to the disciples how they will experience the kingdom of heaven in their lives even though the Messianic Era has not commenced.  Wow.  What good news for the Jewish people!! 

However it seemed as though those hopes were smashed.  This man named Jesus didn’t live to be king.  He upset the hierarchy among the temple Priests.  He didn’t belong to one of them and was just an itinerant rabbi who was upsetting their  status with the Romans.  However, He was gathering many followers and the Temple priests needed to get rid of Him.  How best to do that? By declaring that this imposter was a hazard to Roman rule and He was a revolutionary causing disturbance and anarchy.  The Romans had no problem putting another Jewish rebel to death.

However, what happened next would be the basis for life changing events in history.  This Jew was crucified and died.  He was put into a borrowed tomb.  Then something amazing happened…just as He himself had predicted.  He was given life again.  The world would never be the same.  God was giving to humankind a hope and a faith.  Not only would this Messiah of Israel be the promised King Messiah but that all the nations (Gentiles) who believed in Him would be included in that promise of the new covenant.  By His death He fulfilled the laws of sin and death due to man’s disobedience to what God had given to Israel. 

Now even Gentiles who knew not the Torah or anything about the Jewish  sacrifices…….now they too could be counted as part of the elect. Jesus had fulfilled all the requirements of the law and had become the only sinless man to have lived.  

By accepting Him …….we Gentiles have been grafted into the house of Israel by our faith in Jeshua…..the promised Messiah.  The promises to Israel have also been given to us.  We have forgiveness of our sins and we now have access to God’s gifts as well.  We have no fear of death because of our faith.   The new covenant is being fulfilled in history……..but we aren’t there yet.  God’s timing is not ours.  It might take more than a plague, wars and death.  But something wonderful is coming.

               A New Heaven and New Earth. The Messianic Kingdom on earth.                      Now that really is Good News. That is the Easter message.