Isaiah 25:8

“He will swallow up death in victory; and the Lord GOD will wipe away tears from off all faces.”

Luke 24:46-47

“The Christ will suffer and rise from the dead on the third day, and repentance and forgiveness of sins will be preached in his name.”

1 Corinthians 15:55

“O death, where is your victory? O death, where is your sting?”

We’re two weeks away from Easter Weekend. This means we ought to be thinking about what it all means and teaching our children, like we do at Christmas time, that there is more to this story than meets the eye. Good Friday and Resurrection Sunday are two days that represent the pinnacle of what our faith in Christ revolves around – the day he died and the day he was raised; the day our sins were forgiven forever and the day death and Satan were conquered. Sometimes we see Easter as a holiday time and another round of public holidays on the calendar, but we don’t really spend time dwelling on it. If you think about how much you dwell on Christmas when that comes around, you’ll probably find that Easter gets a lot less airtime in your own walk with Christ. Why is that?

The fact is that Jesus died and rose again and it really happened in history. If someone died tomorrow and rose from the dead three days later, I bet you would be pretty shocked. And whatever that person had to say you would deem to be mighty important. But sometimes I think the familiarity of Easter causes us to forget what we ought to be doing with it. As Christians, we are to always look back at what Jesus did so that we can see what He is doing today, and so we can look forward to what He will do – wipe away tears from all faces. We are to live in the story of Easter.

Easter means we no longer have to search for God. He meets us in Jesus. He met us on the cross when Jesus took the punishment of sin for us, so that our conscience is clear when we put our faith in Him, and we are free. We do not live trying to stack up enough good works to impress God so that we will escape judgement. In Jesus, by faith in Him, we have passed through judgement and have already received eternal life.

Here’s a question for you to think about as we lead up to Easter:

Are your sins forgiven? Or are you trying to pay for them yourself?