The Meaning of Resurrection Sunday
Created for Love
Why did God create life? More specifically, why did God create you? To be His servant? To “use” you for a specific purpose? While these are components of a life with God, they are not the purpose of it. In my search for affirmation and purpose, I asked the Lord this question directly: Why did you create me? The response I received was a crystal clear whisper directly from the Spirit of the Lord to my own: “I created you because I want to love you.” That answer applies to every human who has ever walked this earth. Out of the purest form of love, God breathed life into your lungs and call you into existence. Then, He looked at you and said, “It is good.” The God of this universe desires to lavish an eternal love upon you sweeter than you could ever imagine.
Why is God so good at loving people? Because He was already pouring out His love before any of us existed. Before the world was created, Jesus was being loved lavishly by His Father (John 17:24). This perfect expression of love has always existed in God. It is not, then, that God needed to create us for love. In Jackie Hill Perry’s Holier Than Thou, she pens these words:
“God is the epitome of independence. Meaning, free of the need for anything else. If and when we imagine a God who needs us for anything, we are dreaming of an idol.”
Creation was a selfless, generous overflow of the love perfected in God. We are extensions of this lavish gift, created for the highest privilege and purpose of living in full satisfaction and joy of an intimate, loving relationship with our Creator. For a period of time, humans lived out the God-given purpose of walking in love with the Creator every day. The Lover, face to face with the beloved. This perfect expression of love was breached on account of our sin. We, the Creator’s beloved, “traded the truth about God for a lie. So we worshiped and served the things God created instead of the Creator himself, who is worthy of eternal praise!” (Romans 1:25).
To preserve the life God created in us, a temporary distance was introduced between the Lord’s holiness and our choice of sin. We’ve been in a broken fellowship ever since. It is not out of God’s hostility that we were separated, but out of God’s holiness. In a perfect class all alone, anything sinful in close proximity to God cannot live. We are no exception.
We get a glimpse of this broken fellowship in Genesis. Moses, a sinner with a past of murder, devotes the rest of his life to a sinless God where he finds true, genuine friendship. He simply cannot get enough. He tastes the deep love of his Creator. This insatiable desire moves the beloved to seek closer proximity to his Lover. He demands more of God with his heart’s earnest request: “Please, show me your glory.” (Exodus 33:18) They both knew a sinful human cannot see a sinless God and live. God’s heart, burning with love for Moses, seeks to honor his request. So the Lord said:
“Here is a place by Me, and you shall stand on the rock. So it shall be, while My glory passes by, that I will put you in the cleft of the rock, and will cover you with My hand while I pass by. Then I will take away My hand, and you shall see My back; but My face shall not be seen. For no man can see Me, and live.”
This dilemma has repeated itself throughout all of human history. The perpetual sin of man continuously severing direct connection to God. God continuously operating in a perfectly delicate balance of justice and mercy. From Genesis to Revelation is God’s relentless, tireless pursuit of humankind. In all the pages of scripture between “In the beginning” and “I am coming quickly” is the history of how God bent over backward with blood to pull us out of the sin we chose over God. All so we can deeply find, know, and love the Person Who loves us most. That is a miracle. Tim Keller puts it this way in his apologetic book, Hidden Christmas:
A God who was only holy would not have come down to us in Jesus Christ. He would have simply demanded that we pull ourselves together… moral and holy enough to merit a relationship. A deity that was an “all accepting God of love” would not have come to earth either. This God of the modern imagination would have just overlooked sin and evil and embraced us. Neither the God of moralism nor the God of relativism would have bothered. The Biblical God, however, comes directly [to earth] to fetch us Himself.
We are fetched by God Himself with the most expensive currency in heaven, on earth, and in hell. That is, the blood of Jesus, the visible image of the invisible God. (Col. 1:15-17) This is how much God loved the world; that He gave His one and only, unique Son as a gift. So now everyone who believes in him will never perish but experience everlasting life. (John 3:16). The Triune God of perfect love has given selflessly in a deeply personal way: through the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus on earth. As Marlin D. Harris would put it, “Sin is so ugly that it took a bloody death to eradicate it.”
The Blood of Jesus
God has always acknowledged the spiritual significance in the blood of an animal or person. In fact, God was the first to do so. It’s why God’s chosen people were commanded to drain the blood of the animals they were allowed to eat. They were required to “pour out its blood and cover it with dust” to acknowledge the life of that animal. At the time, neighboring nations drank the blood of their enemies or used it for rituals to false gods - similar to the modern forms of witchcraft today. God called the Israelites to be different. Among the culture of that day, people said: The life is in the blood; I will take that life for myself. In contrast, God’s people say, The life of the flesh is in the blood of creation, and it therefore belongs to the Creator of life itself - not to me.
God found so much significance in blood that it is accepted as payment for our sin. Hebrews 9:11 explains that blood brings purification, and without shedding of blood there is no remission of sin. In the accounts of the Old Testament, we see the people God chose (The Israelites) choosing sin time and time again. The wages of sin is death (Romans 6:23). That means as sinful humans, we owe death for the vices of our lives. Out of preservation for the people He loves and longs to save, God provided an alternative:
For the life of the flesh is in the blood, and I have given it to you upon the altar to make atonement for your souls; for it is the blood that makes atonement for the soul. Leviticus 17:11
The word “life” in this verse translates to the word nephesh (nép̄eš) in the original language it was written (Hebrew). It is used to describe “that which breathes, the breathing substance or being, soul, or the inner being.” It also refers to the “soul and life” of a being. This is where we begin to understand why blood is so powerful: it contains the soul and life of a being. As a substitute for the Israelites offering their own life to compensate for their sins, the life and soul of animals are accepted as a substitute to stand in the gap for God’s chosen people. But the sheer volume of imperfect goats, lambs, and birds were no match for the continuous lifestyle of sin. Not even the blood of every animal, or even sinful human beings could pay the cost of perpetual sin. There would never be enough animals on earth to fully pay our debts, and our own sinful blood lacks the power to atone for sin and live. Only one sinless Man could stand in the gap for us.
While the blood of goats and lambs was still being offered by the Israelites, a foreshadowing of Jesus giving His blood for us is found at the beginning in Genesis. We meet Abraham who was instructed by God to sacrifice his son Isaac as a burnt offering. At face value, this appears heinous. Nevertheless, Abraham believed God would provide a sacrifice, or raise his son from the dead (Hebrews 11:19). Contrary to common belief, historians and Bible scholars agree Isaac was likely a young adult at this time. That changes the whole tone of the account. Isaac is not a helpless child being blindly led against his will, but a strong young man with the strength to resist Abraham at over 100 years old. A willing son accompanies a faith-filled father to the top of the mountain. The passage, then, becomes a parallel to how Christ offered His blood for us: willingly. Imagine God watching Abraham journey up that mountain with his son. His heart pounding: knowing Abraham would not have to allow his son to die, but that He would go through with allowing His Son, Jesus, to die for us.
In the message of the Gospel, we don’t find our Creator bending from the rules He created just because we broke them. That’s justice. We see Jesus shedding His own blood on our behalf. That’s mercy. Kristi McLelland explains it this way in her study, Jesus and Women: “In today’s culture, we talk in terms of what is right or wrong. In the context of the Gospel, Jesus talks in terms of honor and shame. When the honorable reaches down to the shameful and restores their honor, Biblical justice is served.” That is what Jesus did for us when He dwelled among us, submitted to a bloody death, and laid His life before the Father in our place. “As the echo of the crunching of the fruit was still sounding in the Garden of Eden, Jesus was leaving for Calvary.” - Max Lucado.
On Thursday night, Jesus was beaten. Arrested for accurately proclaiming Himself as the great “I Am”, Jesus concealed all His strength and submitted Himself to hatred from His own creation. The Roman government sentenced him to 39 lashes. With every ribbon of skin ripped off his bones, Jesus began to let the life of his blood flow. On Friday, He further submitted Himself to death. A river of blood and water was released from Jesus’ hip at the puncture of the Roman soldier’s spear. In Jesus’ final words to His Father in heaven, He announces, “Into Your hands I commit My Spirit.” Many beings have shed blood throughout history in exchange for power. Only one Being came out of a bloody sacrifice alive, and that’s Jesus Christ. The power, then, is not merely in His death but in His resurrection. Therein lies the freedom that the cross alone could not give us.
Resurrection Power
What happened between Friday and Sunday? Jesus was facing the death you and I were sentenced to. His blood was a sweet offering atoning for our sins to the Father in heaven, and wreaking havoc in hell. For the first time in all of human history, a Man without sin knocked on death’s door. Death invited Him in. This Visitor was different. He had authority hell could not overthrow. The blood worked.
Keller elaborates with an illustration:
If you are in a large department store, you may purchase an item at a cashier’s station deep inside the store. What if you get to the exit and are stopped by a store employee who questions you about the merchandise you are carrying? You whip out your receipt and say, “This proves that the price has been paid in full.” And with that you are free to go. In the resurrection God stamped “Paid in full” across history and across your life. It is an assurance that the debt of sin has been paid.
Blood, which is life, takes away sins. (Leviticus 17:11) But when that blood belongs to God Himself, one sacrifice covers all of creation. Jesus had sacrificed the most expensive blood heaven or hell had ever seen. It was spotless and without sin. In Jesus’ 33 years of human life, He resisted every temptation of the enemy and kept His life spotless. Jesus looked death in the face, righteously claimed victory, and exited.
As Paul describes the resurrection in 1 Corinthians 15:10, he exclaims that “by the grace of God I am what I am.” Here, we find a man who murdered God’s people relentlessly. He meets Jesus on his journey, and is forgiven. He goes on to write two thirds of the New Testament. How is this possible? How can a man who murdered believers ever be considered worthy of penning the Bible? The mystery is solved by the blood of Jesus. No matter what you have done, the payment of Jesus’ blood will not bounce because we were purchased at the highest price. For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God [that is, His remarkable, overwhelming gift of grace to believers] is life in Christ Jesus our Lord.
The relevancy of Jesus’ blood is that was not shed just so we could survive. It was shed so we can thrive. It gives us 24/7, direct access to the throne of grace. When you pray in Jesus’ name, His blood is as fresh on the altar to the Father today as it was over 2,000 years ago. We aren’t just saved from hell. We’re brought back into the eternal love relationship we were created for. Revelation 21:3 gives a glimpse of what awaits us: “…and He will dwell with them, and they shall be His people. God Himself will be with them and be their God.” With this ending to the greatest love ever documented, the Bible becomes circular. In the end, Jesus’ blood brings us back to where God intended us to be in the beginning: with Him, face to face.
We are no longer called to sacrifice, but to believe and rest in the finished work of the cross. There is no amount of charity, obedience, or good works any of us could do to be saved from hell. Only the blood of Jesus can do that. The Message Translation of Ephesians 2:8-9 summarizes it beautifully:
Now God has us where he wants us, with all the time in this world and the next to shower grace and kindness upon us in Christ Jesus. Saving is all his idea, and all his work. All we do is trust him enough to let him do it. It’s God’s gift from start to finish! We don’t play the major role. If we did, we’d probably go around bragging that we’d done the whole thing! No, we neither make nor save ourselves. God does both the making and saving. He creates each of us by Christ Jesus to join him in the work he does, the good work he has gotten ready for us to do, work we had better be doing.
The same power that saves us from sin also sustains us each day. Jesus is not just the answer for eternity. He’s the answer for today. All we have to do is confess our sins, and God is faithful and just to forgive us and purify us from all unrighteousness. If you have been living life apart from Jesus Christ, you can change that right now. You don’t have to pray a script; you can confess your sins and accept Jesus in your own words straight from your heart. If you would like a guide, here’s a prayer to get you started:
Lord, I’ve heard about the sacrifice you made for me on the cross, and I want to say thank you. I’m sorry for the sins I’ve committed against you, and I want to live my life with you. Jesus, I believe you are God. Please cleanse me of my sins with your precious blood, and pull me close to you from this day forward. Please fill me with your Holy Spirit to guide me into deeper relationship with you. In Jesus’ Name, Amen.
If you’ve prayed that prayer in sincerity, you are now saved by grace alone. You have eternal life with God and you have access to God at all times. It is my prayer that you will let Christ reveal Himself to you personally in your daily life.
