The God of Easter

Brief Description

There are so many things in our world that demand our adoration, devotion, and worship. In fact, John Calvin once commented, “The human heart is a factory of idols.” In a sense, we have no shortage of gods, even if we don’t immediately recognize them as such. In the midst of all of the confusion and noise of modern society and its cravings and its idols, we can find it hard to hear the voice of the one God who is worthy of our worship. We run the risk of forgetting which god is our God and being seduced by just another idol.

Our God is not a God of domination and control, but a God who gives freedom to humans in God’s image—even if that means we choose to reject God over and over again. Our God does not demand unquestioning obedience, but rather values those who wrestle with our understanding of God and with hard questions.

Our God created all that was, is, and will be because it pleased God to do so. God is the one who created humans in the divine image and lavished love and grace upon us and filled us with the very breath of God. When we turned from God in sin, God did not abandon us, but instead set in motion the grand story that resulted in the redemption even of sinners and rebels through the overwhelming and undeniable power of love. At the cross, this love was made apparent when God chose to die for us.

But three days later, God’s truest and deepest identity was written across the universe irrevocably: our God is the God of Easter—the God who commands that even death and sin be made to submit to love. We should never forget that holy and blessed moment in which death was swallowed up in victory. Ours is the God of Easter, and we are a people who abide in the victory accomplished that day.