Jesus is Alive!!

It's easy to just hear things and not give them much thought, isn't it?
For us "church people," it's so easy to tune something out, thinking "I already know this."

"Christ died for our sins according to the scriptures; And that he was buried, and that he rose again the third day according to the scriptures"

I've known that verse since I was little. But I'm guilty of only really thinking about the reality of it around holidays, or after a particularly convicting sermon.

It's hard to comprehend. Such a simple little verse, but absolutely impossible to fully understand.

He took ALL the sin, evil, sorrow, pain, and guilt of a fallen world; past, present, and future. All of it, into himself. That doesn't even make sense. People talk about how Jesus was tortured and crucified, and how they can't imagine what it must have been like, but I recently realized that wasn't the worst of it. The physical pain was probably bearable in comparison to the dead weight of thousands of years of guilt and pain inflicted on his perfect soul, shutting Him off from His Father. I mean, I hate it when I do something mean, and feel sick and guilty until I make it right. He took so much more than that. And so many can't even understand how it is that we really deserved to die.

But, the point of this holiday is to focus on his resurrection. I just wanted to expound a little on the "incomprehensible" part.

He rose again! He died, was embalmed, the stone was rolled over the door, and 3 days later, the stone was rolled away, his coverings were folded, and the tomb was empty. In the words of Julia from my preschool class: "His friends thoughted that some people had stolened Jesus's body, but they really hadn't. Mary was crying, and a man asked her "Mary, why are you crying?" and she turned around and saw that it was Jesus. He had rose up from the dead!"

Now THAT is pretty neat. He was dead, then he came back to life. And he's STILL alive.
The preacher this morning was saying that Jesus didn't die for us so that we could have a better life. He didn't. He didn't die for us to be close to us. He died for us so that we could have a completely NEW life, and so that his Spirit could live IN us. That is so amazing. And it doesn't even make sense. Not to a human perspective.

The fact that we serve a living God, the Son who was the ultimate sacrifice, the Spirit who dwells within us to give us power to live blamelessly and righteously, and the Father who loves us with a love we could never understand any more than the rest of the whole story, should so fully consume us that we should be as overwhelmed by it every day just as much as we are on Easter Sunday.

I really just wanted to post a short little reminder, but I have this way of turning things into sermons, without even making much sense. :D

The whole point is, Jesus is ALIVE! Let's live like it.

Happy Easter. :)