It still feel like Christmas was just yesterday and just when you thought all the celebrations were over, here comes your Christian friends getting ready to celebrate Easter. Now what’s this new festival? Does this also have lots of cake, good food and great music? If that’s the case, then we don’t mind. This might be the thought that runs through at least a few people’s minds.
Easter is right around the corner and the world is getting ready to celebrate it. Easter is simply a festival commemorating the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead. The usual vibe around Christian festivals is, there is a lot of celebration around Christmas, which celebrates the birth of Jesus, and not so much around Easter which celebrates the resurrection. But, Easter calls for more celebration because everybody has a birthday, but not everybody beat death! Jesus Christ was crucified and buried in the tomb, and on the Third Day, he rose again, declaring to the world that death does not have any hold on the King of Kings. And as we get ready to celebrate this glorious event in history, let’s take a step back and take a walk through the process which led to the resurrection. There was a couple of days before the resurrection, where he hung on the cross for hours, bearing the sins of the world on his shoulders. Dying for the enemy, broken down for the rejected ones, crushed for humanity, pierced for the unlovable, dying for us! When on the cross, the saviour uttered 7 times, as the world prepares itself for the celebration of the Resurrection, let’s look closely into the words uttered from the saviours mouth when he was upon the cross dying for humanity.
‘Father, Forgive them, for they know not what they do’
The first words that Jesus uttered on the cross was one of the most difficult things to say in that circumstance. This is one of the most tragic scene in human history. The scene of an innocent man dying on the cross. Not dying for crimes he committed, but for the sins of those who rejected him. Calvary is called the “the place of the skull”. Jesus walked up that trail that will lead to His death. Calvary is a place where blessing meets curse. Curse for Jesus but a blessing for mankind. It is at Calvary where the best of God embraced the worst of man. Jesus of Nazareth is looking down from the cross just after he was crucified between two criminals. He sees the soldiers who have mocked, scourged, and tortured him, and who have just nailed him to the cross. He probably remembers those who have sentenced him, and yet he uttered the words, ‘Forgive them’. Not everybody can do that, it takes the greatest intensity of love to do that. Because of the words Jesus spoke, we see the awful depths of human sin being washed away by the tremendous heights of God’s love.
At that Cross, he bought us forgiveness. In the sight of those who tortured him, those who ridiculed him, those pierced him, he cried out ‘Father, forgive them!’ If that is not true love, then our lives doesn’t make sense. There is different types of love in the world, and he showed us the greatest one there is! As the world gets ready for the celebrations, let’s think of this great love which made Christ forgive his persecutors.
I am forgiven because down came Calvary’s Cavalry!