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Sunday, April 8, 2012

Crossing the bridge

Today is Easter Sunday.  Today we celebrate the true meaning of Christ's work for us on the cross...that He not only died for us, but that He was raised to life again for us.

Like many Christians around the nation and around the world, I spent a few hours this morning in a community of faith, worshipping my Savior and giving thanks and praise to Him.  It was also, for me, an opportunity to reflect on what Easter means to me as a Christian, and I'd like to share that with you.
As a small child, I remember being so caught up in the physical pain of Christ's death that it seemed to consume my entire view of Easter.  I could not imagine anything more horrifically painful and I would literally shy away from pictorial representations of the crucifixion.

Since becoming a mother, I have started to view it in an entirely different light.  I look, from the view of the Father, at what it means that He gave His only son up for us - that He separated Himself physically, spiritually, from Christ, that He felt the full weight of both the physical and spiritual destruction of His son, given freely for us.  That He chose to nail Himself to the cross with our sins, to descend into Hell for us, so that we may be spared, and was then raised again to life and ascended to Heaven.  

His gift to us is not "only" eternal life and salvation, it is a gift of access to Him now, in this life.  That we are no longer separated from Him, in this life or the next.  That right now, today, we have access to Him and his boundless love and grace, because of the bridge built by Christ.

I think this morning's preacher summed it up perfectly when he said: "God was so unable to bear the thought of eternity without you, He was so desperate to keep you, to draw you close to Him, that He laid down His life for you."

That's pretty wow.  Or, as a thirteen year old congregant said when asked what Easter meant to her: "It means that He loves me more than anyone else does, or ever will, or ever can.  He loves me so much He chose to die for me."

Right on sister.  How amazing is it to be so loved that He paid the ultimate price to save you and keep you in the arms of His love?!

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