Thoughts at Easter

Last spring, Bro. Reg Hawman submitted the following article for publication in the community newspaper. They gladly accepted it for publication just prior to Easter. The opening paragraph provides some local color as Bro. Reg lives in Ontario, Canada at the southern end of Georgian Bay.

Easter and spring — what a lovely time of year as all creation awakens from the grip of winter. Every day another species of returning birds can be seen; the creeks are swollen as they carry winter’s snows to the lake. It’s pussy willow time and we feel the winds off the bay, still with some bite, as we tidy our lawns and flower beds.

Above all these features of spring is our consideration of that which was accomplished by our Lord Jesus. Release from the power of death has been made possible through him to any who will believe in him and faithfully wait for his return to establish wonderful reforms in this earth.

Easter

When we speak of Easter, we mean Good Friday and Easter Sunday, when we consider the crucifixion, death, burial and resurrection of our Lord Je­sus Christ. Yet the origin of the term Easter has no connection with these things. The word is derived from Teutonic mythology and is our name for the Anglo Saxon “Oestra” or “Ostara,” which means “goddess of spring.”

“Easter” appears once in the King James Version of the Bible in Acts 12:4. When we look up the meaning of the word in Young’s Analytical Concordance, we find it means “pass-over.”

Jesus died the same day as the Jewish passover lamb was slain. This was no coincidence as it tied in with a golden cord of promise that threads its way through the history of the Jewish people.

The promises

The promise begins with Abraham, the father of that nation, “in thee shall all the families of the earth be blessed.” At every turn in his life, God directed and Abraham obeyed, often against seemingly insurmountable odds.

Some time after the promise was given, Abraham complained to God that he was childless and Sarah, his wife, was past the childbearing age. God’s response was to assure him that he would indeed have a child by Sarah who would be his heir. Abraham be­lieved this divine promise and God counted his faith for righteousness: “He believed in the LORD, and he counted it to him for righteousness.”

The promise was kept when Abraham was 100 and Sarah 90; God acted upon them and they produced their promised son, Isaac.

A shocking command

When Isaac was quite young, God commanded Abraham to do an amazing thing. Abraham was told to offer Isaac “in the land of Moriah for a burnt offering upon one of the mountains that I will show thee.”

We all must ponder how Abraham received this command. The promise of a son had finally been miraculously fulfilled and now this? Yet Abraham “staggered not” in unbelief but set about to execute this order.

It is no coincidence that the place to which they were directed is now the area of the temple mount in Jerusalem. It is the place where Solomon, centuries later, erected his magnificent temple. It is near where Christ was crucified and is the area where we are promised there will be “a house of prayer for all people” in the coming age.

As Abraham and Isaac were nearing the site, Isaac asked, “Behold the fire and the wood, but where is the lamb for the burnt offering?” Significantly, Abraham answered, “My son, God will provide himself a lamb for a burnt offering.”

The animal was provided, but only at the last minute. Abraham bound Isaac and was in the very act of raising his hand to slay him when God called out to him. The significance of Abraham’s action is that he displayed faith that, though Isaac be slain, God would raise him from death, “from whence he received him in a figure.”

Abraham thus demonstrated total faith in the promise of God and remained convinced that God would eventually provide Himself a lamb -­the lamb of God.

Passover

Centuries later, after migrating to Egypt, Abraham’s posterity grew into a significant nation. Fearing their growing numbers, the Egyptians enslaved and persecuted the Jewish people until the set time that God had determined to return them to the land He had promised to their fathers. Of course, the Egyptians refused to let them go and God, through Moses and Aaron, brought many plagues on the Egyptians. When Pharaoh remained adamant, God declared He would destroy all the firstborn throughout Egypt both of man and beast.

At this point, the passover occurred. The children of Israel were instructed to select a lamb or goat, a male of the first year without blemish, on the tenth day of the month. On the fourteenth day, it was to be slain and roasted with fire. They were to eat it within their dwellings without breaking any of its bones. Its blood was to be dashed on the lintel and door posts of their dwellings. If they did this and stayed indoors, no harm would befall any within the marked house. All others would suffer from the plague. “At midnight, the LORD smote all the firstborn in the land of Egypt, from the firstborn of Pharaoh that sat on the throne unto the firstborn of the captive that was in the dungeon, and all the firstborn of cattle.”

The disaster was so great that the Egyptians did all in their power to hurry the departure of the Israelites. To this day, the children of Israel celebrate this deliverance by keeping the passover.

The golden thread

At the time of Jesus’s death, they were preparing for this same feast.

Let’s go back to Abraham’s reply to his son Isaac nearly two thousand years before Christ and five hundred years before the first passover in Egypt, “My son, God will provide himself a lamb.” In fulfillment, God did provide Jesus of whom John the Baptist proclaimed, “Behold, the Lamb of God, which taketh away the sin of the world.”

At the first passover in Egypt, the blood of the lamb dashed on the lintels and door posts spared the Israel­ites’ firstborn and delivered them from bondage to the Egyptians. At the time of Christ’s crucifixion, the children of Israel were again in bondage, this time to the Romans. Did Jesus, this Lamb of God’s providing, deliver them from Roman domination? No! God had a much greater deliverance in view, a deliverance that could benefit Israel and any person of any nation.

A greater deliverance

In the beginning, Adam and Eve chose to disobey God. Their disobedience (sin) brought the sentence of death upon them and all their posterity, as it is to this day.

Jesus, Son of God and “born of a woman” and “possessing a like nature to ourselves,” did not sin; he was obedient even unto the death of the cross. In him, the bondage to sin and death is broken. The grave could not hold him so he was resurrected and vested with eternal life. When he was raised and made immortal, he was “the firstfruits of the new creation.” Even though alienated by their sins, any person can be “brought nigh,” or reconciled to God, through belief in the Lamb of God’s providing.

Christ not a substitute

I believe the statement of John the Baptist “Behold, the Lamb of God, which taketh away the sin of the world” has been misinterpreted to mean Christ died as our substitute, thus rendering us, “Scotfree.”

I believe the Bible is clear that Je­sus, “born of a woman” had to destroy the inherent sinful nature in himself by “obedience unto death.” He thus arose to “newness of life” and has been appointed the heir of all things on this earth; he will exercise righteous rule and judgment on this earth at his return.

He has also promised that all who seek to come near to God “through his blood,” and who patiently wait for his coming in hope, will receive an “exceeding great reward.” They will be given a nature like his, being given eternal life on a bountiful, well-ordered earth which will be governed in peace and righteousness. In those condition’s, they “will long enjoy the work of their hands.”

I believe this is what Abraham “saw” in the promise God made with him when God promised, “in thy seed (Christ) shall all the nations of the earth be blessed.”