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the meaning of Easter

 


This past weekend I shared in a Bible study at church the incredible blessing of the meaning of Easter and how we need to share with others, especially our children the most important parts.  The following is part of an article from the desiringgod.org website, and it a great reminder of what is important.


WHAT WE NEED TO REMIND OUR CHILDREN OF EASTER


1. The Story of Redemption … Read through the story of our redemption. From creation to and the Fall, from God’s covenant promises in the Old Testament, prophecies about the Messiah (as in Isaiah 53).  Move to Jesus’s birth, baptism, and ministry. During the final week, Holy Week, each day’s focuses on Jesus’ last days.


Isaiah 53:5-6  NLT  

But he was pierced for our rebellion, crushed for our sins. He was beaten so we could be whole. He was whipped so we could be healed.  All of us, like sheep, have strayed away. We have left God’s paths to follow our own. Yet the Lord laid on him the sins of us all.


2. The Importance of the Resurrection … Jesus’ resurrection from the grave is at the heart of our faith. Paul wrote,


1 Corinthians 15:16–19

If the dead are not raised, not even Christ has been raised. And if Christ has not been raised, your faith is futile and you are still in your sins. Then those also who have fallen asleep in Christ have perished. If in Christ we have hope in this life only, we are of all people most to be pitied. 


Through this passage we learn how crucial the resurrection is to our salvation. Christ rose from the grave because he was the perfect Son of God. The grave could not hold him. He conquered sin and death. Not only that, his resurrection assures our own future bodily resurrection.


3. Christ Is the Passover Lamb … Jesus suffered and died during the Passover which has great significance. The original Passover story in Exodus points to Jesus, and because of Jesus we are freed from God’s righteous judgment.


1 Peter 1:19-20  NLT  

It was the precious blood of Christ, the sinless, spotless Lamb of God.  God chose him as your ransom long before the world began, but now in these last days he has been revealed for your sake.


4. Cross Truths … Easter is packed with crucial themes of substitutionary atonement, justification, imputation, and redemption.  Jesus perfectly obeyed his Father, and Jesus’s perfect life has been credited to us in union with him by faith.  In Christ, God now looks at us and sees Christ’s perfect life. The sacrifices made in the Old Testament were not sufficient to atone for our sins.  Jesus became a perfect sacrifice for us at the cross and was fully sufficient for all time. How does Jesus redeem us?


1 John 5:6  NLT  

And Jesus Christ was revealed as God’s Son by his baptism in water and by shedding his blood on the cross—not by water only, but by water and blood. And the Spirit, who is truth, confirms it with his testimony.


Easter is our celebration of our complete dependence on Jesus and God’s perfect gift of Jesus to make us complete.  We must share this truth!

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