Easter is Coming V: the Role of Jesus ...

Wednesday, April 4, 2012. Easter is a central celebration of Christianity. We celebrate the death of Jesus at Good Friday. And we celebrate his resurrection on Easter Sunday, on the third day. What is that special role of Jesus about?

The Role of Jesus …

In the Gospel of John (the evangelist) John the Baptist speaks about Jesus: “Look, here is God’s lamb who will be offered as a sacrifice to take away evil from the people in the world.” He points to the central role of Jesus for faith.

Where is the main role of Jesus? Jesus role is universal anyway. We celebrate his birth, since God comes to us. We celebrate his life, since God wanted to be with us. We celebrate his death, since God gave his only son to die for us. We celebrate his resurrection, since he defeated death forever. And we celebrate his spirit, since this is the way he is with us in the present world.

In the Christian community there are many arguments given, why Jesus “had to die” such that God could generate forgiveness. Some people argue that God needed blood to forgive. But I am not convinced about this. From a search over many years to fully understand this death, I came to the point where I realized that God made a decision to accept this death and only this death as an adequate death for the sin of the world, for all guilt, hatred, ignorance and pain. God did not need it (it is more us who need it), but he studied the whole situation of mankind and then decided that this would be adequate. The wisest thing I ever heard is the death of Jesus as the centre-stone of faith and life, as the basis of complete forgiveness and complete peace!

Look at the cross …

The cross is not an easy sign. A death is not something we would rejoice about. Initially, even his closest disciples did not understand the death of Jesus. Today, some of us are tempted to take it lightly. The more dogmatic among us try to convince the others that all is absolutely clear and that their dogma is all you need. And they might say many things which are correct.

But I believe that we need to dig much deeper. When you want to understand the death of Jesus, why God made this decision to give his loved one into a painful fate, we need to understand the devastating role of sin. We need to see our desperate situation as mankind, when we look at the target to come to full peace. Here, this death is like the dot at the end of a sentence. This sentence is over. Point. Guilt is paid. Life is finished. Death is there. Pain is over. Nothing is left.

Death terminates. Death destroys plans. Death brings a special kind of peace, the peace of nothing. In the death of Jesus everything which was before, is gone. This is the role of his life and death which we celebrate at Easter. We celebrate the end of ignorance, the end of pain, the end of hatred. We celebrate the end of hostility. We celebrate the end. (Roland Potthast) ... more texts