Easter is for everyone

The Bible's Palm Sunday cheering crowds have become jeering crowds only five days later.

Jesus has been arrested — and fake tried — and as planned all along, found guilty by the governing body of the synagogue. They hate Him. They think He's a liar and worse — a blasphemer — saying He is the Son of God — making Himself equal with God. He has upset their power grid. He has challenged their teaching — exposed their hypocrisy.

When Jesus was arrested at night in the garden He said to these same rulers, “This hour and the power of darkness are yours.” He acknowledged the “power of darkness.” He had shown His dominion over it many times in His three years of being God's kingdom on earth. This time He allowed it to play out.

I have no idea how many in the cheering crowd had switched sides by the time Jesus was crucified. Millions gathered in Jerusalem at the Feast of Passover. The fire of discontent the Jewish leaders managed to ignite must have included some palm branch wavers. Even the Roman governor, Pontius Pilate, said he could find no guilt in Jesus — and wanted to release Him. The jeers got louder — and they prevailed.

It seems hate crouches in a person — ready to leap and destroy. True all through history. The power of darkness has not laid down and died. But the One with dominion over it did lay down His life — did die — for a reason. You'd think it would have to be a pretty good reason.

Consider this. Suppose God created humankind in His image because He actually likes people and wants to interact with us. Suppose He had big plans for an unending close mutual relationship based on who He is — and humankind destroyed that through our choices. Suppose God was so distressed and grieved over this separation that He made a way for the relationship He longed to have with us to be restored.

Only He could die to take away the sin of the world. Only He — as God and Creator — could save His world. And that's just what He did. The power of darkness thought it had prevailed again. The crowds had called for Jesus' death on cue — and now there was a lifeless broken body placed in a tomb.

Jesus' own followers and friends thought it was over — even after all the miracles they had witnessed. Is it surprising He is patient through the generations with those who wrestle to believe in Him? But what the disciples didn't know at the time was Jesus' power to rise from the grave. Just as He died for them — for the forgiveness of sin — He also rose for them — to save them from death. The power of darkness saw its days numbered.

The ending to this Easter story is there is no ending. Life — the eternal breath — is in God alone. And it is given from and through a relationship with Jesus — a rich, flourishing love I reach for in faith. Faith has substance, but faith is also a mystery that will never be weighed and measured.

I have to hear who Jesus is — read His life — seek what He offers, and asks of me in return — and choose. Easter is for everyone — but not everyone lays hold of it. For those who do there is this promise, “Things which eye has not seen and ear has not heard, And which have not entered the heart of man, All that God has prepared for those who love Him.”