The Cosmic Import of Easter

March 25 (John 17:5)

And now, Father, glorify me in your own presence with the glory that I had with you before the world existed.  (ESV)

Today is Palm Sunday.  Later this week Christians will celebrate the other holy days of Easter Week with Maundy Thursday, Good Friday, Holy Saturday, and Easter Sunday itself.  Yet celebrating days associated with a certain person can become routine.  We have days to honor Presidents and days to honor great public servants like Martin Luther King, Jr.  We honor mothers, fathers, and grandparents.  Then there are the wacky celebrations like National Hot Dog Day, which this year is July 18^th, and National Sock Day on December 4^th.  And let’s face it.  The year in, year out celebrations around Easter can numb us with their regularity to what is really going on.

The holy days of Easter do not mark important moments in a man’s life.  They acknowledge unparalleled moments in the history of human beings when God intervened and walked among us.  Consider the verse above, which comes from the last meal that Jesus shared with His disciples.  Scripture says that God knew us before we were born (see Jeremiah 1:5), but neither you nor I existed before the world began, and we certainly did not share in the Father’s glory.  The words Jesus uses here speak clearly to His divine nature.

Easter is about the awe-inspiring, indescribable work of God, Who is transcendent past all our understanding, yet became one of us that we might know Him fully.  These are days of truly cosmic import, for the Greek word used for “world” in this verse is kosmos, which indicates all of the created order, the entire universe.  There have been many good people who have done wonderful things, and we put their names on buildings and dedicate days to their remembrance.  The days of Easter are about so much more than that.  We set them aside to enter once again into the mysterious interaction of the divine and the human, the heavenly and the earthly, when God Himself was man and changed our experience of reality forever.

O Lord, as the poet John Donne once wrote, You were immensity cloistered in Your mother’s womb, You Who created Your mother and then were born through her.  The very thought of You expands my heart and soul and mind past all the feelings and wisdom and knowledge of this world.  May Your praise be ever on my lips and Your worship the very fabric of my life, both in these days of the Easter season and in all the days of my life.  In the name of King Jesus, my risen Savior, amen.

Copyright © 2018 by Steven R. Perkins

Working Our Salvation

April 16 (1 Samuel 25:33)

Blessed be your discretion, and blessed be you, who have kept me this day from bloodguilt and from working salvation with my own hand!  (ESV)

Christ the Lord is risen today!  Alleluia!  This is the single greatest day in the history of the world…but why?  It is hard to understand in a do-it-yourself culture.  From the time we are children, we learn that we must work salvation with our own hands.  Do this so that you may get that.  Good grades keep you on the team.  The right transcript and references get you a job.  Fulfilling the boss’s desires leads to money that leads to possessions that leads to…that leads to…

.

David was set to murder a man when that man’s wife came to him and begged him not to do so.  David’s words to her, as with so much that David said, carried a message for us.  We do not work out our own salvation.  We cannot, for there is nothing God needs that we could provide to make right the sins of our lives.  We would indeed be in a most desperate state if the story ended there.  Praise be to God it did not!

There is no more important day than Easter for the simple reason that God Himself has worked out salvation for us.  He took all the sins of the world to the cross, and they crushed the life from Him.  And then He crushed death.  He rose from the dead and opened the way to true life, both now and in eternity, for all who choose to receive His gift.  Blessed is He Who has worked our salvation with His own blood-stained hands!

Father, I praise You!  Lord Jesus, I praise!  Holy Spirit, I praise You!  I praise You, one God, now and forever, amen!

Copyright © 2017 by Steven R. Perkins

Where Would You Be Without God's Love?

April 9 (Romans 3:23)

For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.  (ESV)

Spring is a time to think of life, not death, right?  It is a time of bright sunshine, not darkness.  Stay with the darkness for a moment and consider death…your own.  You can talk about its being unfair or just an ancient belief all you want, but the simple fact is that you, your sweet grandmother who never spoke an unkind word, and the toddler next door have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.  Oh, and the consequence for each one is eternal separation from Him.

Everything in you rebels against that thought.  It just does not seem right.  We would never be so harsh or judgmental.  Okay.  I get that.  And a three-paragraph devotion does not have the space to discuss those reasonable objections.  Yet here’s the thing.  Stay with the anger and frustration.  Stay with the confusion and worry.  Now you are ready to appreciate the unspeakable glory of Easter.

Next Sunday Christians will celebrate the resurrection of Jesus Christ.  We celebrate because that event proved the love of God beyond all doubt and removed all of the sin and all of the punishment for each and every person who chooses to receive that gift of grace.  But you can’t come close to appreciating the enormity of that gift and the sheer magnitude of the love behind it if you don’t take a moment to ponder where you would be without it.

Father, I want to take some time to consider where I would be without Your love.  It is a scary proposition, but I need to be scared, at least a little, so I can fully appreciate what Jesus did for me.  O God, I want You to have my full praise as we move toward Easter.  Help me to see the full measure of what You have done for me.  In the name of Jesus, Who made it all possible, amen.

Copyright © 2017 by Steven R. Perkins

Living the Alleluia

March 27 (1 Peter 2:24)

He himself bore our sins in his body on the tree, that we might die to sin and live to righteousness. By his wounds you have been healed.  (ESV)

Christ the Lord is risen today!  Alleluia!  But why?  Why alleluia?  Why the celebration, the triumphant music, the unbridled joy?  We may have some family gatherings, but they are nothing like Christmas.  Familiar chocolate candies are wrapped in pastel colors, but there are no weeks of parties and vibrant decorations on and in businesses and homes.  Why alleluia?  What is so special about Easter?

Easter changed nature itself.  Death, the undeniable and unavoidable common experience of all living things, was stripped of its power when Jesus left the tomb.  You and I deserve to die.  Not only was death the destiny of all human beings, but we deserved to be separated from God forever because of our sins.  Yet Jesus took each and every sin of yours and mine with Him to the cross and left them in the grave when He walked out that Sunday morning.

So what does alleluia look like?  Is it tiny chocolates in pastel foil?  Jesus died so that we might live to righteousness.  Our greatest and best act of celebration is to live fully and richly, not in any way we choose as if our will and our rights were still paramount, but in the way of our risen Lord.  Christ the Lord is risen today!  May my life be the alleluia!

With all that I am and all that I have, I praise You God, one Lord, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit!  Glory to You forever in all that I say and do!  Thank You for the immeasurable gift of love and grace and forgiveness in Jesus!  I accept it, all of it, and give it back to You in my life, lived to righteousness.  Amen.

Copyright © 2016 by Steven R. Perkins

April 5 (Matthew 28:6)

He is not here, for he has risen.  (ESV)

Many people have been brought back from death, especially in a time of advanced medical knowledge.  Only one raised Himself.  Note the language in this simple announcement of the angel to the women at the tomb of Jesus.  The angel did not say, “He has been raised.”  This would have implied that someone else did the raising. 

Pause.  That is a sobering thought.  Jesus was not raised.  He rose.  You rise when you get up out of your chair, but you do this because you are already alive.  Jesus was dead, and yet He rose.  He died because He was human.  He rose because He is God.

Jesus never shouted it, but everything He did and said pointed to the truth that He is God.  Easter is not about celebrating the life of a good man.  It is about acknowledging the truth.  The One with Whom we live as brother and friend, because He invited us to do so, is the living God of the universe.

Jesus, I praise You!  You are my God, my life, and my friend!  May every day of my life be one of praise to You!  Amen.

Copyright © 2015 by Steven R. Perkins