It’s Easter Monday and I feel a little sad because I can’t find a church service to go to on the day Jesus rose up out of the grave! Because if Jesus Christ died on good Friday, and was in the grave for three days, then he was resurrected and returned to heaven on a Monday. 

Okay, so I’m being a bit picky. After all the events took place in Jerusalem, a ten-hour time difference from us here on the west coast but still… Have we commercialized Easter that much?

Here’s another thing. Are we supposed to be happy on Easter because He Has Risen? But we haven’t gone anywhere… We’re still living in this ugly violent world…

Are we supposed to be happy because he saved us? He ‘paid the penalty for our sins’ and ransomed us? Here’s a good question: Who did he pay? What did he save us from?

Hey, I was raised a good Christian years ago. I’m still one, but this is a question I had to answer for myself way back when I was writing my first book by lamplight, while I and my husband homesteaded in the backwoods of BC. Especially after I read this verse:

We know that we are children of God, and that the whole world is under the control of the evil one. (1 John 5:19)

That shocking passage in the New Testament states that this evil, invisible entity is actually controlling our world right now:

Doesn’t it make sense that our God of love is not at fault for the mess the world is in right now? The diabolic ruler of our planet is apparently a sort of Darth Vader persona in the spirit realm, warring for the control of humanity. The clarity of that one verse alone sure explained a lot.

What if a dark, diabolical essence does have invisible control of our world? What if he holds us captive through some kind of influence and manipulation of our minds and we don’t even realize it? Think of it. Every culture hungers for freedom; every religion searches for enlightenment. Yet so many of us are destroying our planet and ourselves. Are we actually in bondage on a physical earth? Is that why we need to be ransomed?

If we consider our world may indeed be oppressed by an invisible, external “control of the evil one,” then it makes sense: a hero would be necessary to save us from the influence of that oppressor. In other words, Jesus Christ’s real purpose was to ransom the inhabitants of earth by paying with his life so we could be rescued from the dark ruling adversary that enslaves us. When humanity crucified this ambassador sent by God just like a common criminal, the demonic spirit world led by Satan thought they had won the war by killing the only begotten Son of God.

This story, however, has a fantastic conclusion. By becoming one of us, Jesus confronted the destructive forces oppressing the human species and established a way to rescue us. Satan had to corrupt Christ by the very rules and perimeters set up for human existence because Jesus was part human. The first conditional law in creating humans was that “sin”––actions not acceptable to the Great Ones––resulted in death. It was designed that way to release us from a life of misery, which is inherent in sin. God established his word on this by speaking it, and it was ironclad: 

“For the wages of sin is death; but the gift of God is eternal life” (Romans 6:23).

Since Jesus’ lineage was “half human”, this rule did in fact apply to him. That is why he knew it was crucial for him to be blameless, without any sin himself, so the penalty of sin could not be assigned to him. Then the sacrifice of his life would be of such value, it would act as a ransom payment for our sins.

Since Jesus was without sin (Hebrews 4:15), and he had never rebelled against God’s standards, he did not deserve the penalty of death! 

In other words, he couldn’t stay dead because he hadn’t sinned. He hadn’t chosen what was right and wrong for himself but followed what God desired him to do. Jesus Christ was the only human being to actually earn eternal life by the rules of the game, and then he turned around and gave the benefit to us.

…The other half of Jesus’s lineage, the part that was a celestial member of the Great Ones, already held immortality, so that part of him couldn’t die. In the celestial world, his sacrifice of his own death—his undeserved death—was of such value it could pay the price of the death penalty for all those in allegiance to God. Through this ransom, you and I have access to the gift of eternal life!

(Excerpt from The Celestial Proposal: Our Invitation to Join the God Kind, Ch.5 “Our Celestial Superhero, pgs. 86-88.)

That is the why we celebrate Easter. Not the bunny rabbits, not the easter eggs, nor the fun Sunday Easter dinner. But because God loved us so much and Jesus loved humanity so much, he struggled hard all his 33 years to resist sin so he could sacrifice himself and beat the adversary at his own game.

Jesus Christ showed us how to live in this ugly world and live powerfully, abundantly, in alignment with him, sending back his Holy Spirit from somewhere out in the heavens to guide us until “his kingdom comes on earth as it is in heaven.”

Our God is big enough.

♥ So tell me, was your Easter “happy” or meaningful???

Hugs to all of you,

Jane Catherine

Preview the book and read 5-star Amazon reviews here:

The Celestial Proposal: Our Invitation to Join the God Kind

#Easter #GodSaves #Resurrection #Christ’sDeath #KingdomOfGod

Excerpts and links to this material may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Jane Catherine Rozek and TheCelestialProposal.com website.