I have no idea how many people will be reading the Good Friday edition of our local paper, the Border Watch, but here’s the pastor’s article that I submitted for inclusion today.
Here’s an exercise for those of you who may be reading or hearing messages relating to Easter this weekend. If the message (article, sermon, whatever) doesn’t include the death of Jesus on the cross and his resurrection to life from an empty tomb, you haven’t really heard an Easter message.
You may read or hear all sorts of other sentiments about family time, safe driving, putting others first, forgiving, drawing together as a community, refraining from violence, not drinking (too much), and a number of social justice concerns; but these aren’t in themselves Easter messages.
That’s not to say there’s anything unworthy about those sentiments, but they’re simply moral and ethical encouragements. We could make them anywhere, anytime. And we should.
Why are the cross and empty tomb essential to the Easter message? Because they are the unattractive emblems of God’s good news, his best news ever.
In the Bible, when teaching the Easter message, the speakers and writers didn’t use compelling language, or seek to overwhelm the hearer’s emotions, or win them over by their own charismatic personalities. Rather they focussed on a singularly repulsive idea: that God had come incarnate into our midst and had accepted the consequences of our rejecting him through the very act of our rejecting him and putting him to death. It is a message of God, taking our punishment on himself, and then sharing reconciliation through union with Jesus, who overcame death.
Even two thousand years ago the idea offended. It was thought to offend the dignity of God to undergo such treatment. It was considered offensive to the dignity of humanity that such an action on their behalf was absolutely necessary.
The Bible makes the point that the only reasons that the idea was ever accepted and believed were: because it was true; and because of the power of the Holy Spirit who enables belief gave people the capacity to believe it.
Then, as now, there are plenty of folk who don’t like the message, or who don’t agree with the message. But it is plain that this is the Easter message as taught and believed by its earliest proponents, and by their descendants in faith through the generations.
If you’re feeling playful, and you hear or read the sort of message on Friday or Sunday that only contains morals and ethics, don’t forget to tell the author that it wasn’t an Easter message because it lacked the cross and empty tomb. Tell them Gary put you up to it.
And if you hear a message that does focus on the cross and empty tomb, whether you hear it in belief or disbelief, at least you’ve heard the real meaning of Easter.
It’s not a pretty message, but it promises an attractive outcome.
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