Did I ever tell you about the time in my life when my deeds had caught up with me? Suddenly there they were at my door. I was arrested, put into jail and before you know it the trial had begun. It did not take very long because the evidence was so convincing. The prosecutor seemed to know my every deed and action. It was embarrassing and humiliating; I was guilty. It did not take long for the sentence to come down. In light of my offensive and deliberate crimes against the Kingdom I was sentenced to death. I would die in the electric chair without the chance of appeal.
That is when my story gets very interesting. It seems I was not doomed after all to suffer these terrible consequences to my crimes. Suddenly a friend entered my situation and appealed for my life; though it is how He did it that caught me off guard. He did not argue my guilt, but He offered to take my place on the electric chair. He was willing to die for me…. wait, wait, wait… you see where I am going with this. You say I am just creating an analogy between my life and the story of Jesus death on the cross for us. You are right. But, it is not just an analogy. It is an image of truth, the raw truth of what each and every person on earth was doomed to suffer because of our gross and flagrant sin against the perfect justice of God.
Romans 5:6-8 You see, at just the right time, when we were still powerless, Christ died for the ungodly. 7 Very rarely will anyone die for a righteous person, though for a good person someone might possibly dare to die. 8 But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.
In the beauty and joy of this Easter Season it does us good to remember that the reason we celebrate new life is that Jesus died a horrible, criminal’s death in our place, the death we deserved to die. He then went to hell, and because He had never sinned, took the authority of sin and death over every human being away from our prosecutor, our enemy, the devil. He then was raised from the dead in bodily form and reassumed His place at the right hand of His Father to reign in glory forever. Each of us has a true friend who has intervened on our behalf to successfully deliver us from certain death into amazing life. That is the true joy of Easter. Thank you Jesus!