Do you want the bad news first or the good news?
Happy Easter weekend to you wonderful readers. Or Passion Week or Holy Week or Passover or Resurrection Sunday if you prefer. Regardless of what we call it…this calendar week is undoubtedly the pinnacle of Christian observance and worship.
I want to strongly urge all of us to not waste this weekend. Don’t miss it. Don’t pursue lesser things and miss the important things. Don’t be so busy you don’t give yourself time to deeply think.
And I’m asking you to think about the bad news before you even consider the good news.
No one likes bad news. But unless you fully appreciate how god-awful the bad news is, you won’t fully rejoice in how spectacular the good news is.
The bad news is death.
Passing on, six feet under, pushing up daisies, kicking the bucket, going home, biting the dust.
There’s a reason we use lighthearted or comical euphemisms. We don’t want to look this bad news squarely in the face and deal with it. It’s unpleasant and depressing. And scary.
Yet the ratio remains 1:1. 100%. No margin for statistical error. No exceptions. Every single person you love is actively dying right now. Including yourself. The end is coming. Your end is coming. Ashes to ashes, dust to dust. The insatiable grave is open and waiting to swallow you up. You might be able to squeeze out another 60 years on this planet…but then it’s curtains. Lights out. Sayonara.
That’s bad news. Very bad news. And death doesn’t typically come softly. It wrenches us apart through pain and trauma, sickness and violence, fear and agony. And the loss and grief it leaves behind are unbearable. Have you buried someone you truly love? That ache. Those tears. That hopeless feeling that you’ll never be okay again, never be able to even breathe again. That is the pit of darkness. Hell on earth.
And even these few years we get to live on this planet. Lovely and happy as they sometimes are, we know we’re really broken and ugly deep down. We betray our friends. We damage our kids. We disregard the poor. We hate the one we vowed to love. We despise our neighbors. And that’s not even counting the things we fantasize about doing but don’t actually do like just slipping that treasure into my purse and no one would ever know. We indulge ourselves and make excuses for ourselves and promote ourselves and comfort ourselves as if we are feeding an insatiable monster who can’t get enough. Our sin is bad news. Very bad news. Hell on earth.
There. Right there. How you’re feeling right now if you’ve read this far. That’s where we emotionally ought to camp this weekend. Feel the bad news and feel it hard. Don’t hide from it. It’s the honest truth. It’s a real life dungeon we are all chained inside with no means of escape.
We can’t charm our way out, sell our way out, obey our way out, parent our way out. We can’t fight our way out or corporate-ladder our way out. We can’t keto our way out or exercise our way out or plastic surgery our way out. We can’t curate our image to get out or hide our feelings to get out. We can’t politics our way out or travel our way out. We can’t Netflix and distract and ignore our way out. There’s no way out. We can’t get out.
Knowing that, we’re ready to finally read the gospel accounts of Christ’s last week on this planet. He didn’t hide from the bad news. He set his face like stone, braced himself like a man, and marched straight into it. He faced off with the devil, with sin, and with the grave itself. And he won.
He won. He won the keys to death and the grave. He has the keys to that dungeon that holds us. And hallelujah, He sets us captives free.
That is why we celebrate this weekend. So that the warm sun on Easter morning can fill you with peace no matter what bad news we hear. So that the flowers you plant on your precious loved one’s resting place can remind you that this goodbye isn’t final. So that if you receive a terminal diagnosis you do not, truly do not, despair. We grieve, oh we grieve so deeply. But we have hope beyond this life. A new and living hope. We have good news that overthrows all bad news. Through the resurrection of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, to whom be all glory and honor and praise and dominion forever and ever.
“Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! According to his great mercy, he has caused us to be born again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, to an inheritance that is imperishable, undefiled, and unfading, kept in heaven for you, who by God’s power are being guarded through faith for a salvation ready to be revealed in the last time. In this you rejoice, though now for a little while, if necessary, you have been grieved by various trials, so that the tested genuineness of your faith—more precious than gold that perishes though it is tested by fire—may be found to result in praise and glory and honor at the revelation of Jesus Christ. Though you have not seen him, you love him. Though you do not now see him, you believe in him and rejoice with joy that is inexpressible and filled with glory, obtaining the outcome of your faith, the salvation of your souls.”
I Peter 1: 3-9
With living hope,
