Happy Easter, Mississippi!
Today is the day the world celebrates the foundation on which rests our salvation through God’s grace – the resurrection of Jesus. It is the day that gave humanity the means to step from death into life, out of our sins and away from man’s feeble attempts to earn God’s favor.
Easter is the central tenet upon which our salvation rests.
As the Apostle Paul wrote in I Corinthians 15, “If Christ has not been raised, your faith is futile; you are still in your sins.”
All of human history that came before that Easter morning engaged in essentially a futile attempt to keep the law or set of rules in hopes of staying in right relationship with God. No matter how hard you tried, how many sacrifices you made, or how diligent you were in following the 600-plus laws, there remained a disconnect between man and God.
Still today, despite that Easter morning, many attempt to live by such rules aimed at being right with God in practice, setting aside God’s grace, as if saying a certain set of words, abiding by a specific dress code or attending various functions will add to what Jesus did that resurrection day.
Yet, it was on that Easter morning, when the stone was rolled away and Jesus walked out of that borrowed tomb, that grace entered the world and we who receive it are no longer under the law or separated from God in any way. Through Him, we are connected and accepted into His family, freely and without reservation, as that is the very definition of grace. In fact, Jesus said that that was the goal – to give mankind life more abundantly.
“I am come that they might have life, and that they might have it more abundantly,” Jesus is quoted in John 10.
Easter is a reminder that through Jesus’ resurrection grace entered the world, giving us a means by which we can have God’s salvation that provides a new, full life that is lived in freedom, minus the rules and laws man can never fully perfect. Jesus is that perfection; He is the fulfillment of all that we are not.
On this Easter, may we remember Jesus was risen so grace could take its rightful place in this world, and through Him we are sons and daughters of the Almighty just as we come, just as we are, and just as He made us. Through the resurrection, God made His grace obtainable for all – we merely have to believe and place our faith in Him.
“For God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever believes in Him should not perish, but have everlasting life” – John 3:16. There no qualifiers or “ands” or “buts.” God’s grace is enough to save and sustain you.
May we all find peace and joy in the resurrection this Easter, and may we share the grace God provided through Jesus to every one of our fellow Mississippians.
He is risen!
