Hello everyone! I can't believe that it's already April! It seems like time goes by so fast... but this also reminds me that time is precious and that I shouldn't be wasting it doing things that won't count on the timescale of eternity! =] What April also brings...is Easter. It seems like so long ago when I would go into my backyard with my little brothers and try to find all of the easter egg that my dad hid in the trees and....cactus.... (actually just kidding he wouldn't actually hide it in the cactus) but as a young girl I often put the emphasis of Easter on something else. It became a Hallmark holiday for me--a day that I could perhaps find a dollar in a yellow plastic egg nestled in a tree branch.</p> <p>It's so easy for all of us to forget that this day, over two thousand years ago, was the day that changed the world. It was this day that the Christ who loved us so much died to take our place as a sacrifice for all of the sins that WE (not Him, WE) committed. It doesn't seem fair. Put into a "real-life" experience, it would be: One day I was driving, and being a very careless driver and always getting into accidents, hit someone on the street and seriously injured him. Then all of a sudden as the police are about to take me away to jail, a guy comes around by the name of Jesus and says "Hey Mr. Policeman, take me instead. I will stay in jail for the rest of my life if you will let Kathy go." What kind of self-sacrificing person will do that?? Well... our messiah would. And he did... over two thousand years ago. But what's marvelous about HIS story and not my attempt at recreating it in today's terms is that not only did he DIE for us as an innocent man (think death penalty here...), he is a God who rose from the dead after three days. It's amazing. Everytime I put it into perspective like this I feel ashamed of belittling the meaning and the true price of what he paid for us.</p> <p>This is a time not for us to think about little pink and yellow marshmallow Peeps, or easter eggs containing chocolate or the occasional dollar... but for us to really feel the weight of what the purpose of Him coming down to Earth was. In Bible Study at my church, we learn that Jesus was not only 100% man, but also 100% God. If I was a God, I would definitely not care about the little people below me, who not only run around like ants, but bite me. However, our God is a God who would love us little ants to a point that he would send his own Son... his only begotten Son... to be ridiculed, beaten, and spat at by us. And it doesn't end there... all that He wants of us is to believe in Him and to love Him, and we get eternal life. What kind of love is this?! The purest and deepest that you will be able to find.
"For God so loved the world that He gave His one and only Son, that whoever believes in Him shall not perish but have eternal life" -John 3:16
Kathy