Easter Gives Us Courage!
By Pastor Ben Workentine, Discipleship Pastor at St. Mark Ministries
The math behind a down payment is pretty simple.
That car, house, engagement ring, or piece of art – you’re not quite ready to pay the full price upfront. So you slide a portion of the money across the table to make a down payment. That down payment, that percentage, is a guarantee. It’s a promise that the rest is on its way.
Meanwhile, you get to take that thing home, whatever it is that you’re purchasing, as if you had bought the whole thing.
The math of Easter is just as simple because Easter is also a down payment… which is really easy to lose sight of.
Amongst all the celebrations – the new clothes and Easter baskets, Easter egg hunts, brunches, and family gatherings – it’s way easier to distract ourselves with busyness and activity than to actually think about what’s at the core of this celebration.
The truth is, most days I’d rather be distracted than face what’s actually going on inside.
Things like fear; a low-grade fear that I don’t seem to be able to shake.
The problem is that Easter does not allow room to run from fear. It doesn’t allow us to numb it either. Easter forces us to confront it. Easter demands that we answer essential questions: “What is all this pageantry? What is all this celebration about anyway? What makes Easter so special?”
Let’s find out.
What’s So Special About Easter?
If you want to know what’s so special about Easter, there’s no better chapter to turn to in the Bible than 1 Corinthians 15 (NIV). An entire chapter (and it’s a long one) laying out the implications of the bodily resurrection of Jesus Christ.
The first thing you need to know about this chapter is the author. A man by the name of Paul had spent most of his life, into his early adulthood, hating Jesus, wanting to rid the world of Jesus and anything that reminded anybody of Jesus.
But there came a turning point when he began to follow Jesus and became one of the world’s greatest evangelists. What stood in the middle? What was that hinge moment? It was the resurrection, Easter.
Let’s start at 1 Corinthians 15:20 (NIV): “But Christ has indeed been raised from the dead, the first fruits of those who have fallen asleep.”
Easter = A Promise
I love this time of year at my house. I know it’s kind of gloomy, cold, rainy, and windy all weekend, but if you look out the front windows in my house, you’ll see a small strawberry patch.
Despite the cold weather outside, I am watching the strawberry patch spring back to life after being dormant all winter. It won’t be long before I see little white blossoms setting on those strawberry plants. Then, not long after that, berries will set. You can bet by early June, my three boys are combing through that strawberry patch looking for the first ripe strawberry.
The rule in our house is “finders keepers” when it comes to strawberries. That first ripe strawberry? That’s the first fruit. It’s a promise that more is coming, and it sets all our mouths to watering at the buckets of ripe strawberries we’re about to enjoy.
That’s what Easter is. The first fruits – not of a berry patch, but of sins forgiven, of true life given, of a payment made. Easter is a promise!
If you didn’t quite catch the allusion to that promise in the first verse, the next two verses are going to make that clear. Take a look at 1 Corinthians 15: 21-22 (NIV): “For since death came through a man, the resurrection of the dead comes also through a man. For as in Adam all die, so in Christ all will be made alive.”
Here’s the thing about guarantees: They are only as important as the need is big. In other words, the more you need, the more important that guarantee is.
So you tell me: What did we need?
I think we needed nothing less than someone, somewhere, somehow to break the stranglehold death has on every human being. That’s a pretty big need.
The math of death is pretty simple.
The Bible traces it all the way back to the dawn of humanity, to the first human beings, Adam, who, in his finite wisdom, decided it best to go his own way, to break away from God, break away from His plan, His goodness, His mercy, to break away from everything that is God and chart his own path.
That breaking is what the Bible calls sin. It wasn’t just Adam. It’s been every human being since Adam. We have all broken away from God, going our own direction, setting our own course. We have sinned.
And sin, unfortunately, has a 100% mortality rate. Everyone who has ever sinned has died. In fact, Romans 6:23 (NIV) is a moment of honesty before God: “The wages of sin is death.”
So we can work the equation, trace the chain back through its links: Death and sin, shame and fear. A chain that tightens around us, every one of us, little by little, day after day. That tightening, that death, is terrifying. To cease to be – for the lights to shut off and not turn back on, to shut down the computer and never have it boot up.
At least if you believe what most people believe, it’s terrifying. I know that fear deep in my bones. Maybe you do, too.
I remember one of the heaviest times when that weight landed on me. It was at my grandmother’s funeral. Her funeral was six months after my grandfather’s funeral, my mom’s parents.
But grandma’s funeral felt like more than grandma’s funeral. It felt like the death of something more, of a buffer between my mom and her siblings and death. As if now that death had claimed my grandparents, it was coming for her.
If death was coming for her, then it was coming for me. I was on its list, too.
And so are you. Death is coming for all of us.
That’s terrifying, but it’s also motivating. Death makes a great sales pitch: “Buy this makeup brand and look five years younger. Start this workout routine and feel ten years younger. Follow this financial plan and watch your money outlive you.”
Death puts us on this hamster wheel where we feel like we’re moving, but death is tracking us down the whole way. We’re not getting away. It’s coming for us.
What if there were a different way, a better way, a way off that hamster wheel? That sparks life, and because of life, it actually makes room for courage.
That’s what Easter lays on the table for each of us!
Easter = Hope
See, if death is unavoidable, then fear is natural. But if death is not the end, that changes everything. The story of Easter is that death is not the end. It’s not the punctuation at the end of the sentence. There’s still more to happen. 1 Corinthians 15:22 (NIV) puts it this way: “So in Christ all will be made alive.”
Is it really that simple? Is the math really that simple? Sin equals death, Jesus equals life?
We’re going to find out. Read 1 Corinthians 15:23 (NIV): “But each in turn: Christ the first fruits; then, when he comes, those who belong to him.”
Easter commemorates an empty tomb. But let’s back-up through the past week:
- Thursday we celebrated Maundy Thursday, the day when Jesus gathered with his disciples around a dinner table for the last time and began what we now call the Lord’s Supper or Communion. That night, he was betrayed into the hands of his enemies, betrayed by one of his closest friends.
- Friday, we remember the day Jesus died on that cross, crucified, executed on a Roman torture device. Then we saw him buried, laid in a tomb – a fresh-cut tomb, no other corpses, no other bodies in there yet – but he was laid there, dead as dead could be. With his followers, with his friends, we walked away, never expecting to see Jesus alive again.
- We grieved on Saturday.
But then Sunday morning, something happened. The same disciples who watched where he was buried knew exactly where he had been. They went back to that tomb, and they couldn’t find his body.
It’s not as though it was hard to find. Jesus’ tomb was marked. It was named. It was known. In fact, his enemies were so certain, wanted to make so certain that nothing was going to happen to that grave, that no robbers were going to break in in the dead of night, that they posted a guard outside that tomb to make sure that what happened didn’t happen!
His enemies had every reason, all motivation in the world, to expose any kind of cover-up, any fraud. And for all that motivation, not once did they provide evidence. Not once did they offer a corpse to prove that Jesus had never risen from the dead.
So if Jesus did rise, if that tomb is empty, then you really have a promise. Jesus proved that death is not the end. That there’s so much more on the other side of the grave. All this celebration is not just a story. It’s a down payment, a guarantee that the rest is coming for all who put their faith in Him.
That’s what it means when it talks about this promise being for those who belong to Him.
Those who’ve written His name on the front of their jersey. The ones who have been washed in the waters of baptism. Who have new life sparked by the words in this book.
Why Don’t We Have to Fear Death?
Maybe you’re not quite sure that describes you. You’re not sure where you stand on this “Jesus question” in the first place.
That’s okay. You don’t have to have it all figured out. The grace of Jesus is patient with works in progress.
But know this: Jesus is ready for you to belong. When that moment comes, what’s His becomes yours. He rose. You will rise too. This is the guarantee of Easter. The rest is coming.
And what does that look like? Let’s keep reading 1 Corinthians 15:24-25 (NIV): “Then the end will come when he hands over the kingdom to God the Father after he has destroyed all dominion, authority, and power. For he must reign until he has put all his enemies under his feet.”
The picture here is of a kingdom. This kingdom is different. This kingdom seeks the good of the king and of the citizens, the people. This kingdom destroys all evil forces that oppose it. This kingdom establishes everything necessary for people to flourish, for the citizens to flourish in the deepest, truest sense.
In this kingdom, the things we fear do not win because our risen King has already won.
That’s the down payment of Easter! That’s what it means when it says Jesus is putting all enemies under his feet, even death.
Can you imagine a world without death? Of course you can’t, because death is everywhere. We see it at every turn. So we’ve got to find some way to picture what it looks like to live with death destroyed.
Here might be one way: One of the most common fears for Americans is arachnophobia, the fear of spiders. I thought about bringing a large plastic spider today, but I was afraid that if you do have arachnophobia, that would be a fast way to clear the room.
But if you are afraid of spiders, where’s the best place for a spider to be? It’s not in the dark corner of the basement, is it? Because you might have to go to that corner someday and find that spider. The best place for a spider to be is not even safely outside. As important as they are to the food chain, that’s not the right place either. The best place for a spider to be is crushed under your shoe.
That’s what Jesus has done to death. He is crushing it, destroying it, making sure that it cannot do its worst.
Death does not win. Jesus puts it under His feet. Death and every one of those enemies. In other words, that chain we noticed earlier – that death and sin and shame and fear – He’s paid the price to break that chain so that you could be free.
We’ll know that He’s done with His work of breaking that chain when this section ends: “The last enemy to be destroyed is death.” (1 Corinthians 15:26 (NIV))
How would life be different for you if death were not a factor?
The deadliest force in the entire world defanged of its weapons of terror. You can pause the movie. You know the one that you’re living in. The one where every cutscene has you jumping. The one where death lurks around every corner. You can pause it and realize that death does not have the final say.
You can breathe easy. Let your heart rate slow, your breathing return to normal, because finally you can think without the cloud of fear hanging over you. The worst thing that could possibly happen to you – death – is done away with. It’s vanquished. It’s gone!
Easter Gives Us Courage
Death obviously leads to fear. But if death is gone, courage is the natural response.
What does that look like?
Easter is not a one-and-done kind of celebration. It’s not like you can move on and have Easter not touch the rest of your life. Easter doesn’t work that way. Not if you really celebrate Easter. Not if you belong to Christ.
Easter can’t help but change your Monday, your Tuesday, your Wednesday. It can’t help but impact your lunchroom, your classroom, your office, the gym where you work out, the neighborhood you live in. It cannot help but change everything because you can now live with courage.
What does that look like when you talk to a friend? To speak courageously? To talk to your boss or your professor or your in-laws? What does it look like for that courage of Easter to spread out into every domain of life?
Easter changes everything! How could it not?
Not only is this the most amazing event in history, but it is the most impactful moment of your life, bar none. That is the push of Easter. Easter pulls us in with this freedom from fear, but then it pushes us back out because you still know people who are living in fear. You know people who are hiding in shame. You know people who are still on that hamster wheel, thinking they’re running away from death, all the while there is freedom to be theirs.
What are you going to do about that? Are you going to pray that someone else would read the spiritual, eternal Emancipation Proclamation to them? Or are you going to be the answer to that prayer?
The math of Easter is simple. We all lived in fear because death was coming for all of us. Then Jesus walked out of His tomb. He conquered death. Death doesn’t win. Fear doesn’t win. Jesus does.
Period. End of sentence. Full stop. Jesus wins. It isn’t even close!
That’s what Easter is: Your down payment.
All the while, you are free to live with the courage of a life given an eternal address – but not just an eternal address in a home in heaven someday, because Easter isn’t just an event that happened a long time ago in the past. It is freedom to live right here, right now, a life without fear because a down payment has been made. It’s in your name.
Christ is risen. He is risen indeed. Alleluia!