What does the Bible say about Easter?
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WELCOME
0:00 - Welcome with Matt
TALK with Peter Farrington
08:50 - What Does The Bible Say About Easter?
09:17 - What Is Easter All About?
10:02 - There Is A Cost To Sin
11:30 - We All Feel Like We're Not Enough
13:27 - Children Of Wrath
15:14 - What Hope Is There?
20:08 - There Is More Good News
23:43 - Living Hope
27:52 - How Do We Stop Our Doubts?
PRAYER
32:07 - Prayer For Ukraine
WORSHIP
34:41 - When I Survey with Lyrics
CONVERSATION STREET with Matt
Podcast:
What Does The Bible Say About Easter?
- Pete Farrington
What Is Easter All About?
I’d like to begin with a verse that encapsulates in one sentence what Easter is all about. The Apostle Paul wrote this,
“For I delivered to you as of first importance what I also received: that Christ died for our sins in accordance with the Scriptures, that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day in accordance with the Scriptures...”
This is of first importance, whether you are indifferent to Jesus, whether you hate him, whether you have known Him for 5 days or even if you have been a Christian for fifty years. This is of first importance and it always will be.
There Is A Cost To Sin
A number of years ago I was sitting on the banks of the Arno river in Florence, Italy where I was living at the time drinking an espresso in the Tuscan sun. I was wearing a tank top which revealed self-inflicted scars on my bare upper arm. A good friend was sitting next to me and saw those scars for the first time that day. After hearing me tell the story of my struggle with self harm in my late teens, he said to me “You know, it’s funny because those scars actually point to something true, that blood had to be spilled.” The penny dropped for me in that moment. I had been a Christian for a long time but in some ways I felt like I was born again again in that moment. Every problem finds its answer in the Cross and empty tomb of Jesus Christ.
More on that a bit later but my friend was right. A debt was owed, a payment had to be made. The Bible says as much.
It says in the book of Hebrews that,
“...without the shedding of blood there is no forgiveness of sins.”
We All Feel Like We're Not Enough
For most of my life I have had a profound sense deep inside that I am not enough. I’ve sought after and lived on the approval of others. And no matter how much I've tried to please, and no matter how much I have pleased others I was still left feeling like I had to make up for something. My self loathing was not merely a problem with self esteem and not just something that could be fixed with self-affirmation. I think we all struggle with that nagging feeling of not being enough. It may not have manifested itself in self-harm for you, it may look like masking that feeling with ambition, relationships, sex, raw experiences or career. We all try and fill up what we know is lacking in us. You can work your fingers to the bone, but it will never be enough. You can try to just love yourself more. That won’t work either. You will never be enough. The world will tell you that you just need to have more bubble baths, you need more "me time", that you just need to find your authentic, true self, and that you can love yourself into wholeness. But this is flawed reasoning.
I think something Allie Beth Stuckey said is really powerful.
“If our problem is that we’re insecure or unfulfilled, we’re not going to be able to find the antidote to these things in the same place our insecurities and fear are coming from.”
You cannot love yourself into wholeness. We need outside help.
Children Of Wrath
Now when describing mankind’s state without Jesus, we sometimes use language like “You are broken and just need fixing”. But the Bible goes much much further than that. You are not just broken, I am not just broken. We are dead without Jesus. Numerous times in the Bible it speaks of us being dead in our sins. In fact, in Ephesians it even says that without Jesus we are “Children of wrath”. What does that mean?
“…they exchanged the truth about God for a lie and worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator...”
Our sin is an offence to a holy, righteous and perfect God.
And so, that feeling I spoke about of not being enough is only one part of the problem. The biggest issue that we face is that our sin, our disobedience and rebellion against God, puts us under the wrath of God. We are children of wrath. The Bible talks of sin being a wall of hostility between us and god. And God, being a just judge is right to punish sin. He would be wrong not to.
“…the Lord will by no means clear the guilty.”
“…the wages of sin is death...”
What Hope Is There?
So if I am guilty and the wages of sin is death and there is no forgiveness without the shedding of blood, what hope can I possibly have?
Let’s look at something that Jesus said about why he came into the world in the book of Luke.
Jesus is actually speaking about himself in this passage and tells us about his purpose of coming into the world.
“….The Son of Man (Jesus) must suffer many things and be rejected by the elders and chief priests and scribes, and be killed, and on the third day be raised.”
That’s an interesting word, “must”. You see, God the Father had a definite rescue plan. We were his enemies but God had a plan to save those very same people who had rejected him.
And this is something we could never do. We could never save ourselves. No matter how many chances we got, we could never work our way up to God's level. Someone had to die in our place. Jesus in his willing submission to the Father followed through on that plan all the way through to the cross.
“For there is one God, and there is one mediator between God and men, (remember that wall of hostility?) the man Christ Jesus, who gave himself as a ransom for all, which is the testimony given at the proper time.”
“The gospel is this: We are more sinful and flawed in ourselves than we ever dared believe, yet at the very same time we are more loved and accepted in Christ Jesus than we ever dared hope.”
So let’s go back to the Peter drinking an espresso in the sun a few years ago. I suddenly realised that day a little bit of what Timothy Keller talks about in that quote, that I had tried my best for most of my life to believe that I was actually better than I was in reality. Sure, I needed a helping hand but I wasn’t too bad off without Jesus. I could work my way to God. And yet I was left wondering if there were things about myself, things I’ve done which the blood of Christ couldn’t and didn’t cover. And so as a result of subconsciously believing this I’d need to take matters into my own hands. But Christ paid the debt in full. He took all of God’s wrath against us upon himself. All of our sin and shame. Jesus’ final words on the cross just before he died were incredible.
“…it is finished...”
We see an echo of this in Colossians…
“And you, who were dead in your trespasses and the uncircumcision of your flesh, God made alive together with him, having forgiven us all our trespasses, by cancelling the record of debt that stood against us with its legal demands. This he set aside, nailing it to the cross. He disarmed the rulers and authorities and put them to open shame, by triumphing over them in him.”
It is finished.
There is no amount outstanding. The record of debt has been cleared from your account. If you repent and call on Jesus’ name, you walk free. And if that were all, it would still be unfathomably good news.
There Is More Good News
But we are not morally neutral before God’s eyes thanks to what Jesus has done for us. He does not merely tolerate us. We have been welcomed into his family. We now call him father. We were once his enemies, no different from the very soldiers who nailed him to the cross. It was our sin, your sin, my sin that put him there. But he now calls us his sons and daughters. Jesus’ blood has brought us peace and we now have access to God. Not the kind of access that a servant or an employee has but rather the access that a child has to a father.
“For our sake he (God) made him (Jesus) to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him (Jesus) we might become the righteousness of God. ”
So Jesus' perfect record is transferred to our account.
“In this the love of God was made manifest among us, that God sent his only Son into the world, so that we might live through him. In this is love, not that we have loved God but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins.”
You might be sitting there thinking, "I don't see how Jesus could possibly be present in my life. I don't see any evidence of God in my days. But the love of God was made manifest among us that he sent his only Son into the world. He has displayed His love for you on the cross.
There may be things that you have done which you play over in your mind at night, fears that keep you awake and haunt you when you’re alone in your thoughts, regrets that eat you up inside. But you can know complete and total forgiveness in Jesus.
“...as far as the east is from the west,
so far does he remove our transgressions from us.”
And as we read earlier, He has disarmed the enemy and put him to open shame. In his resurrection he has declared victory over sin, death and the devil. You can be totally forgiven and you can be totally free.
“According to his great mercy, he has caused us to be born again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, to an inheritance that is imperishable, undefiled, and unfading, kept in heaven for you...”
Living Hope
That phrase, "a living hope" is something which I've really experienced in the last year.
Just over a year ago my wife and I had a baby boy. Our little boy’s health deteriorated very rapidly during the first few hours after birth, and within 24 hours he was whisked off to the NICU and diagnosed with meningitis and had to be resuscitated. For about 48 hours my wife and I were faced with the very real possibility that our boy might not make it. It was totally agony. A living nightmare. The panic and the terror of what could happen was unbearable.
But I remember, during the months leading up to his birth, I had been reflecting a lot on this passage:
“For while we were still weak, at the right time Christ died for the ungodly. For one will scarcely die for a righteous person—though perhaps for a good person one would dare even to die— but God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. Since, therefore, we have now been justified by his blood, much more shall we be saved by him from the wrath of God. For if while we were enemies we were reconciled to God by the death of his Son, much more, now that we are reconciled, shall we be saved by his life. More than that, we also rejoice in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have now received reconciliation.”
In those 48 hours where we just didn't know if our little boy was going to make it, amidst the panic and the terror, although I couldn't articulate it at the time, I had a calm deep inside because I knew that I did not need God to save my son for Him to prove His goodness to me. I knew that God's love for me, and being convinced of it, was not contingent on whether or not he saved my son. I knew He could save him and I knew He might, but I knew that after feasting on those verses in Romans in the months leading up to my boy's birth, I knew I could look to the cross and be utterly convinced of His love and His goodness regardless of my circumstances. And praise God my son his healthy and is a delight. He pulled through and he is a total joy.
But, Jesus never promised an easy life. In fact he promised that there would be difficulty, there would be trials. But, whatever you are walking through today you can be totally convinced of God's love for you. He has displayed, manifested, demonstrated His love for you on the cross.
How Do We Stop Our Doubts?
There was an old school theologian called Jonathan Edwards who wrote a whole bunch of resolutions for himself. One of them I come back to from time to time:
“Resolved, to examine carefully, and constantly, what that one thing in me is which causes me in the least to doubt the love of God; and to direct all my forces against it.”
The question is, how do we do that? How do we direct all our forces against anything that causes us to doubt God's love. We do that by looking to the cross. There are a thousand ways in which God demonstrates his love toward us every single day. Most of them we are oblivious to don't even notice, but none more so than on the cross. Whether you have been a Christian for 5 minutes or fifty years, there is nothing more important on this day or on any other day than to look at the Cross and empty tomb of Christ. I plead with you today to turn from your sin, look to Jesus and put your trust in Him and in what he has accomplished out of his great love for you.
“But God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us, even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ—by grace you have been saved—”
CONVERSATION STREET
With: Matt Edmundson
What is Conversation Street?
Conversation Street is part of our live stream, where the hosts (in this case, Matt) chat through Pete’s talk and answer questions that were sent in through the live stream. To watch the conversation now, click here.
Did Jesus Rise From The Dead?
One of the things I want to draw out from Pete's talk was right at the start. He said, "tThis is of first importance. And it always will be." He was talking about the resurrection of Christ. Why did Pete say that? Paul in 1 Corinthians 15 said that if there is no resurrection, then your faith is in vain. It's quite a strong phrase that he uses. It's a waste of time. It's utter nonsense, an absolute joke. So how can the Christian faith become an absolute joke? Well, you disprove the resurrection. The thing is, we know that Jesus lived on the earth, and we know therefore that Jesus died. So the question is not whether Jesus was here, or whether he lived, or whether he died. The question is, did he rise from the dead? This is what Easter is all about. Like Pete said, this is the first importance and it always will be. Because without the resurrection, there is no Christian faith. It's a waste of time. It's utter nonsense. And in the last couple thousand years, no one has been able to disprove the resurrection. In fact, I would there's actually a lot of evidence for the resurrection. You can look at some of the talks we've done on evidence for the resurrection, and study those because I think it's such a critical part of our Christian faith.
God's Resurrection Power In Our Lives
Now take a look at people's lives. Pete shared the story about the scar on his arm from when he used to self-harm. That came out of a deep sense of worthlessness. Well, that transformation in his life came because of the resurrection. Jesus is risen and the Bible talks about how because we have been risen with him, transformational power is at work in us which which Peter so beautifully articulated.
So how does the resurrection of Christ affect your life? What's your story?
You Can't Find The Truth In Yourself
I find this is fascinating in the modern world because we have this whole idea of, you've got to find your own truth. You've got to know who you are, find your identity in yourself, just discover it. Don't let anybody tell you different, and ironically we're encouraged to be intolerant of anything that says the contrary, although we don't use this word in culture. We're told to be intolerant of anybody that says you're not who you think you are are. Shoot them down, shut them out. They're your enemies. Don't have a conversation with them.
But this whole idea of finding your own truth, I think is fundamentally flawed. If we're broken people, and let's just be frank, we are. We have some good points, but some really evil points too. On one hand, we can create art and poetry, on the other hand, we can launch missiles on one of our neighbours. On the one hand, we can be kind and generous, on the other, we can walk past a stranger who is struggling on the street, and not even care about them. We are not the solution. The goodness in us is because humans are created in the image of God.
But the Christian faith is not about self-love, it's about receiving God's love, because that is pure, that is holy, that is just, that is perfect. That is all it needs to be. And you can receive that from God, which I I really love. So, this whole idea that Pete said that it's not about more me-time, or having more bubble baths. The truth of the matter is your identity can only come from one place, and that is from the God who made us. And the only way you can experience the God who made us is through the resurrection of Jesus. That's the Christian message. That's the Christian gospel in a nutshell.
Is Easter A Pagan Holiday?
At Easter we use certain things to celebrate this time of year which have nothing to do with the Christian message eg. easter eggs and bunny rabbits. I would say Easter is not a pagan holiday. Easter for Christians is all about the death, burial and the resurrection of Christ and what that means for us. It's about new life. The fact that we can come to God in a way that we were never able to do before. That's what Easter is all about. The reason people ask is Easter a pagan holiday, I think is tied into the fact that actually the word Easter is derived from a pagan god or goddess. I don't know how much evidence there is for that, but it's possible. There are obviously some pagan festivals that happen around this time of year. But that doesn't necessarily mean that a Christian Easter service is a pagan festival any more than if I was born on Halloween, and that that would somehow reflect my approval or disapproval of Halloween. It's just a coincidence that they happen to be at the same time. So is Easter a pagan holiday? I would say, no. Easter is all about the death, burial and resurrection of Christ. Now, there may be some things that we bring into it, which don't necessarily make sense, and don't necessarily make sense to me. Although, I quite like the chocolate thing I'm not gonna lie.
Is Easter Mentioned In the Bible?
Easter is not mentioned in the Bible. It's a fairly new word which we've used to describe this time of celebration or festival. It's a time of celebration for Christians to get together and remember the resurrection of Christ and to celebrate that. So Easter itself is not mentioned in the Bible as a word, but the Bible talks a lot, and I mean, a lot about the resurrection of Jesus. Without resurrection there is no Christian faith. So it talks a lot about the resurrection and the power of the resurrection. Paul talks about it, Peter talks about it, Jesus talks about it. It's mentioned everywhere in Scripture. It's talked about a lot less, let's just go with that.
What Is The Biblical Reason For Easter?
Why do we celebrate Easter? Well again, it comes down to this whole thing of without the resurrection, there is no Christian faith. And actually to experience transformation ourselves, we have to experience that resurrection power. Matt's been talking in the comments about how God has been helping him overcome depression. That's resurrection power at work right there. For me, anxiety and fear is something that I've experienced Christ's resurrection power in. God has redeemed me from a whole bunch of stuff that's for sure.
So anyway, have a fantastic week, wherever you are in the world, may you experience the resurrection power of Christ in your life because he is risen. He is risen indeed.
More Easter Bible Verses
1 Peter 1:3 - Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! In his great mercy he has given us new birth into a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead.
Romans 6:3-5 - Or do you not know that as many of us as were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into His death? Therefore we were buried with Him through baptism into death, that just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, even so we also should walk in newness of life. For if we have been united together in the likeness of His death, certainly we also shall be in the likeness of His resurrection.
1 Corinthians 15:3-8 - For I delivered to you as of first importance what I also received: that Christ died for our sins in accordance with the Scriptures, that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day in accordance with the Scriptures, and that he appeared to Cephas, then to the twelve. Then he appeared to more than five hundred brothers at one time, most of whom are still alive, though some have fallen asleep. Then he appeared to James, then to all the apostles. Last of all, as to one untimely born, he appeared also to me.
Mark 15:46-47 - So Joseph bought some linen cloth, took down the body, wrapped it in the linen, and placed it in a tomb cut out of rock. Then he rolled a stone against the entrance of the tomb. Mary Magdalene and Mary the mother of Joseph saw where he was laid.
Luke 24:6-7 - He is not here; he has risen! Remember how he told you, while he was still with you in Galilee: 'The Son of Man must be delivered over to the hands of sinners, be crucified and on the third day be raised again.
Acts 3:15 - You killed the author of life, but God raised him from the dead.
Colossians 1:13-14 - For he has rescued us from the dominion of darkness and brought us into the kingdom of the Son he loves, in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins.
Ephesians 1:20 - He exerted when he raised Christ from the dead and seated him at his right hand in the heavenly realms.
Luke 23:44 - And it was about the sixth hour, and there was a darkness over all the earth until the ninth hour. And when Jesus had cried with a loud voice, he said, "Father, into thy hands I commend my spirit: and having said thus, he gave up the ghost".
Luke 23:46-47 - Jesus called out with a loud voice, "Father, into your hands I commit my spirit. When he had said this, he breathed his last. The centurion, seeing what had happened, praised God and said, "Surely this was a righteous man."
Romans 6:8-11 - Now if we died with Christ, we believe that we will also live with him. For we know that since Christ was raised from the dead, he cannot died again; death no longer has mastery over him. The death he died, he died to sin once for all; but the life he lives, he lives to God. In the same way, count yourselves dead to sin but alive to God in Christ Jesus.
Mark 16:5-7 - As they entered the tomb, they saw a young man dressed in a white robe sitting on the right side, and they were alarmed. "Don't be alarmed," he said. "You are looking for Jesus the Nazarene, who was crucified. He has risen! He is not here. See the place where they laid him. But go, tell his disciples and Peter, "He is going ahead of you into Galilee."
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