Remember a time where you experienced heightened joy and happiness. I’m talking about a memory where you spent hours talking, laughing, enjoying the company of loved ones and the experiences you had with them. How do you feel now as you think on this moment? Now remember a time where you experienced the depth of sadness and despair. A time where you felt there was no possibly reason to rejoice and no hope for the future, the proverbial light at the end of the tunnel. How did you feel now as you think on this moment?
Memories invoke the heights and the depths of the range of emotions that make the situations and circumstances you remember a part of who you are and how you became that person. The idea of remembering is the foundation for the season of Lent, Passion Week, Good Friday, and Easter – and this is not a new idea, especially for God. During this time, we remember the sacrifice of Jesus, as the perfect and spotless Lamb of God, who died to reconcile man to God and to proclaim freedom for the broken. We remember with contrite hearts the pain and suffering He had to endure for our sake. But we also remember the glory of the resurrection, that though death seemed to have had a moment of victory, Christ in His power resurrected from death to life, giving us hope and freedom from sin. He was victorious over death and gave us that victory. We have hope because there was resurrection! Thousands of years later, we remember this time, but the beauty of remembering did not begin post resurrection. It began with God long ago.
When the Israelites were in captivity in Egypt, we are told in scriptures that God heard the groans of His people and He “remembered His covenant with Abraham, with Isaac, and with Jacob” (Exodus 2:24). This memory, which was never a distant memory but one that He kept near and dear to His heart, was the first step to the great “exodus”, or the deliverance of His people, and the establishment of relationship between God and a group of people. God remembered His promise to Abraham that his people would be a great nation and a blessing to all peoples. God establishes the Law through Moses, laws specifically tailored to keep righteousness or relationship between God and the Israelites. History shows that the laws were broken time and time again and consequently a broken relationship between God and man. The future of the relationship seems pretty hopeless, other than a few glimmers of prophetic words, but enter Jesus into the story.
Why did Jesus have to come? The simple answer is to atone our sins. But that points the subject of the story to humans, and we know in scripture the subject is the glory of God (which we get to be a part of!). Jesus came because God remembered. God remembered His promise to Abraham that His people would be a great nation and for that to happen, because of the sin of man, an ultimate price had to be paid. For God so loved the world (blessing to the nations, promise of Abraham!) He gave His Son.
As God remembered His people in the book of Exodus, He had the world in mind. He remembered His promise, saw the sin of man, and for Him to keep this promise Jesus had to come. This season we remember with heavy hearts the sacrifice of Jesus. But mourning turns to joy! We remember and celebrate today, Easter Sunday, that we have life! We have joy! We have victory because Jesus is risen!
I pray that today, and everyday of our lives, the joy of Easter would resonate in our lives and we would never be the same.
From Pastor Keeyoung’s Heart
April 5, 2015
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