As we celebrate the Easter Season dressed in our finery, for just a moment, maybe we should forget the rabbits and the Easter eggs and bonnets and reflect what Easter is all about. While we celebrate the birth of Jesus Christ, a much more important memory is when he died, because he died to erase the sin that is born into each of us.
It’s hard to dwell on, not only his death, but the way he was tortured before he gave up his ghost. As an innocent man he was sent to the cross and even as he suffered, he promised everlasting life to one of the thieves who was staked next to him. The thief said in Luke 23, “Jesus, remember me when you come into your kingdom.” And Jesus said, “Verily I say unto thee, today shalt thou be with me in paradise.”
The thief recognized his guilt and by asking Jesus to remember him he showed his belief in Jesus — and as his last act of earthly ministry, Jesus promised him life everlasting in paradise. What kind of love does our Jesus have for us to give up, willingly, a kingdom in heaven to become the pure sacrificial lamb to give us the same paradise that he promised thief? It is an incomprehensible love, meaning a love so deep that our human understanding just can’t grasp. And he loves us despite our sin. Pastor Tolan Morgan explained Jesus’ love for us in his Palm Sunday sermon, “You make me sick, but I love you.”
Pastor Morgan took us to Revelations 3:14 where Jesus was talking to the church at Laodicea. Jesus called the church “wretched, pitiful, poor, blind and naked.” Jesus also said, “I know your deeds, that you are neither cold nor hot. I wish you were either one or the other! So, because you are lukewarm — neither hot nor cold — I am about to spit you out of my mouth.” Pastor Morgan said the church at Laodicea made Jesus “vomit.”
Many of us, even though we profess to be followers of Christ, just as the Laodiceans, we make Jesus want to spit. Still, with all our faults, Jesus said in Rev. 3:20, “Here I am! I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears my voice and opens the door, I will come in and eat with that person, and they with me.” Yes, even though our wretchedness makes our Lord sick, he loves us anyway.
The reason it is incomprehensible love to us — is because we fall in and out of love in a hot minute. There are days when, even with our spouses, that we doubt our decision to marry. While we waver, God is steady. There is nothing we can do to change his incomprehensible love for us — even though we make him sick.
Jesus told the church in Sardis, “I know your deeds; you have a reputation of being alive, but you are dead. Wake up…. But if you do not wake up, I will come like a thief, and you will not know at what time I will come to you.” But the door was open for that church, too. “Yet you have a few people in Sardis who have not soiled their clothes, Jesus said. “They will walk with me, dressed in white, for they are worthy.” And Jesus made them a promise, “The one who is victorious will, like them, be dressed in white. I will never blot out the name of that person from the book of life but will acknowledge that name before my father and his angels.”
This Easter season, let’s try, as much as we can, to comprehend the incomprehensible love our Jesus has for us, and do what he encouraged the Laodiceans to do, “Be earnest and repent.”
Written by: Charles Richardson