Holy week is past and the death and resurrection of Jesus was celebrated by Christians as the supreme love giving of God through Christ Jesus. This greatest of all Christian celebrations, however, raises some questions.
His torture and death on Good Friday raise the perennial question of why a loving God allows and at times even demands sacrifice in the world. It can be argued that it is only as we experience pain that we can appreciate grace and the wholeness of life revealed in wellness. It may seem that the holiness of God is severe and yet as we consider what the suffering of Jesus bought (forgiveness of sin for all humanity for all eternity) it almost seems too little. Can the death of one man make up for the sin and wickedness of all humanity? That is true until we consider who Jesus is. He is God almighty in human form. He is the maker of the universe and the author of love and all human emotion. He is the one who gave everything to save the world. John expresses it this way in John 3:16: For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only son that whoever believes in him should not perish but have everlasting life. For God did not send his son into the world to condemn the world but that the world would be saved through him.
We may question God’s ways and in faith at last humbly concede that it is simply a matter (as the Psalmist says) that God’s ways are as high above our way of understanding as the heavens are far above the earth.
Sometimes even sorrow is the only way we come face to face with realities we have refused to face.
It is the awesomeness of God that we sometimes cannot understand and sometimes do understand that enables us to be fully alive. The Psalmist humbly acknowledges this is what sets us free to enjoy God. It is the sovereignty of God that demonstrates his awesomeness and gives us the victory in life.
Clap your hands, all you nations; shout to God with cries of joy. For the LORD Most High is awesome, the great King over all the Earth. He subdued nations under us, peoples under our feet.
(Psalms 47;1-3)
Easter brings all this together and it is the resurrection of Jesus that proves just how awesome our God is and how available to us is his everlasting life.