What Does The Resurrection Really Mean?

First, I’d like to say Happy Easter! HE HAS RISEN!

As Christians, we are all familiar with the resurrection of Christ. But do we really understand the resurrection? Do we ever wonder why it had to happen? Do we know that our faith could NOT exist if Easter Sunday never happened? I’m not belittling your knowledge, but I think it’s important to dig deeper into this topic to truly understand the cause and effects of the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ.

For most of my life, I just knew that “Jesus died and rose for us to save us from sins”. But I never even questioned that statement to investigate further. Before my conversion, I kind of just believed it. But since I didn’t see the full picture, the passion of Christ didn’t fill me with the joy that it does today.

Let’s start at the beginning of Genesis. God originally wanted creation to exist without evil, but humans messed up His plan. God’s first people, Adam and Eve, had been tempted by the devil in the Garden of Eden. They ate the fruit that was forbidden by God and created original sin. From that moment on, all humans to come were going to have original sin. This meant that we were at odds with God the Father. So, the first consequence of this is our tendency to sin. The second consequence is that the gates of Heaven are closed to humanity. Humans do not deserve to enter God’s Kingdom because we are at odds with Him and are full of sin.

So, with that said, how could we possibly be saved? What is the solution to open the gates of heaven for humanity? Where can we find our motivation and hope of a better life to come? The answer is quite simple. The only person that could make reparation with God for this act, IS GOD. But, God needed to become man to do this. When Jesus came down and died for us, he took the blame for our sins. He was innocent. He was God himself who humbled himself and became man. The act of Jesus’ crucifixion made us One with God again. Without it, the gates would still be closed and we would not be on good terms with the Father. The Jews still believe we are at odds with Him because they do not believe Jesus is the awaited Messiah. They are still waiting. The reason they don’t believe Jesus was the Messiah was because they expected the Son of Man to be a political God. We know, from the life of Jesus, that He was not. He was a God of mercy and called us all to conversion. Jesus died for our sins and now they can be forgiven! Hence, confession of sins is now a thing. We can finally be forgiven for all the bad we do.

So if His death represents the reparation of our sins, then why did the resurrection have to happen? Well, simply because He is God. Evil does not have the last word. If Satan was defeated, Jesus would have never risen from the dead. He still suffered like any human being would have. The only difference was that He rose on the third day. This symbolizes that Jesus won the battle against evil! We are all to take consideration of this in our own lives. Since evil does not have the last word, this means our sins do not define us. God’s mercy is bigger than any sin we can ever commit. The devil will not defeat us if we turn to Jesus and repent. We can all rise with Jesus one day, even though we suffer just as He did. There is hope. Don’t let your crosses get the best of you. You got this.