If we were gossiping over the back fence about celebrating Easter, it might go something like this:
God wanted every person He created to live forever with Him in heaven, but God couldn’t have sin there. Sin was a part of the people He created. God had a plan to take care of sin, and established it. It was done from the time sin entered the world, but God used time like humans know to complete it. It meant having His Son live as a man and be crucified.
God wanted to show people about all of this, and used a huge group of people to act it out. He had them live in a country that made them slaves, very like sin makes slaves of us when it has control. Then God arranged to get them out of that situation. It wasn’teasy getting away from that, they had to cooperate, but God got them out.
Then God told the people He freed they were to celebrate their freedom. He gave a time, based on the moons actions they were to do this and told them just how to do it.
Then the time came for God to use it to complete what the Son was to do for us, and boy, did it get complicated! Men were the ones that had to do the celebrating and they just didn’t understand any of it. One group said that the celebration had absolutely nothing to do with the man God sent, that man was still going to come later. So they celebrated, but for a Son who was going to come. Another group said that if you celebrate something like God said, you don’t have to know what it was for or why. Just do it. Another group said that they aren’t celebrating right at all, so we will decide on the way to do it.
So that is how Easter celebration is done. One group says that we will celebrate but for a Messiah yet to come, we don’t accept the one God sent. The other group says that phooey on what God says to celebrate, we will do it our way in our time because we don't want anyhing to do with people who don't recognize the Messiah or their ways. Another group says whoopee, a celebration. We don’t really care what for, let’s party. There are many reasons people have to celebrate Easter.
But through it all, Happy Easter, whatever you decide about it, it is a celebration of Christ freeing us.
God wanted every person He created to live forever with Him in heaven, but God couldn’t have sin there. Sin was a part of the people He created. God had a plan to take care of sin, and established it. It was done from the time sin entered the world, but God used time like humans know to complete it. It meant having His Son live as a man and be crucified.
God wanted to show people about all of this, and used a huge group of people to act it out. He had them live in a country that made them slaves, very like sin makes slaves of us when it has control. Then God arranged to get them out of that situation. It wasn’teasy getting away from that, they had to cooperate, but God got them out.
Then God told the people He freed they were to celebrate their freedom. He gave a time, based on the moons actions they were to do this and told them just how to do it.
Then the time came for God to use it to complete what the Son was to do for us, and boy, did it get complicated! Men were the ones that had to do the celebrating and they just didn’t understand any of it. One group said that the celebration had absolutely nothing to do with the man God sent, that man was still going to come later. So they celebrated, but for a Son who was going to come. Another group said that if you celebrate something like God said, you don’t have to know what it was for or why. Just do it. Another group said that they aren’t celebrating right at all, so we will decide on the way to do it.
So that is how Easter celebration is done. One group says that we will celebrate but for a Messiah yet to come, we don’t accept the one God sent. The other group says that phooey on what God says to celebrate, we will do it our way in our time because we don't want anyhing to do with people who don't recognize the Messiah or their ways. Another group says whoopee, a celebration. We don’t really care what for, let’s party. There are many reasons people have to celebrate Easter.
But through it all, Happy Easter, whatever you decide about it, it is a celebration of Christ freeing us.