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Sunday, April 5, 2015

Easter Bargain

According to a CNN's website,  the average American will spend over $140 on Easter.  The US alone will spend an excess of $16 billion. There have been some pretty "egg -travagent" Easter gifts ( I know it is corny but I'm just using the made up word CNN did) . A chocolate egg sold for over ten thousand dollars. Trust me, milk chocolate can melt in your mouth for way less. This weekend retailers are discounting merchandise to get you in the door. Easter, like Christmas , has become way too commercialized. Know what else  Easter has become? Despite what America's spending this Easter, we've made it too inexpensive. 

Grace has always been free but we've managed to cheapen it by how we view the cross. There are plenty of commentaries on Jesus's death you can check on the net. Knowing details of His suffering is important but different than connecting yourself to the cause of it.  We simply cannot afford to discount the price Jesus paid for our sins. There wasn't a buy one get one free sale on souls 2000 years ago. Jesus paid the full price for you and me.
The cross proved man had not only brought death into the world, it invented and prefected cruelty to satisfy his lust for power and entertainment.  Still, the  horror of Jesus's death goes beyond the crucifixion. Imagine having every negative emotion you've ever experience happening  to you all at once. Multiply that by 14 billion. Every painful breath, He must have faced the temptation of proving who He was. Worst, He endured this to save those who had brought this injustice on. His first taste of shame and guilt was married to abandonment.  This is emotional agony Jesus must have felt as the Father turned away.

We view the agony Christ suffered as a collective sacrifice for mankind instead of an individual sacrifice for each of us. We tend to forget the cost to save just one person would have been the same to save all. We don't want to see our connection to the cross. We are individually guilty as if we nailed Jesus to the cross ourselves. I'm convinced when Jesus said, " forgive them Father, for they know not what they do " He wasn't just talking about the Romans but all of us.

 Our only salvation is found in the fact that Hope was birthed on the cross. Through Jesus 's pain  "God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us." (Romans 5:8 ) God died to connect with us. We are that important to Him. What a cure for low self esteem.  Easter doesn't end in death but starts a new beginning in life. Christ arose! What a bargain for us to trade death for life. But the only place you can get this deal is at the foot of the cross. Have you been there yet?

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

You made tears roll with the revelation I knew but needed to be reminded. We say we love because He first loved us: BUT, who/whom of us can honestly say we could even claim a love so deep & intense as Jesus proved to us?!?