2020: Easter in a different kind of world

It’s Good Friday, and I pray you’ve had a blessed one. If you are a follower of Christ, you probably spent part of the day remembering what happened to our Savior all those years ago. You may have been angry when Judas betrayed Jesus or when the crowd chose Barabbas to be set free instead of Him. Maybe you cringed when you read about the thorns, whips, and nails. Your heart may have ached to read about the suffering on the cross, and tears may have fallen when you remembered that the wrath of God poured out on Christ was for your sake. You may have grieved today as you read about how the world grieved, too, and then again when Christ was laid in the tomb.

It’s a somber section of Scripture to dwell in, for sure, but it prepares us for what is coming on Sunday. I pray we don’t forget both parts of Christ’s story.

Easter Sunday will be different this year since the world is in a different kind of place, but I encourage you to celebrate nonetheless. The lack of normalcy does not depreciate the fact that our Savior is alive. Let’s hold fast to our hope in Him.

Keeping it short and sweet today, friends, let’s close with a passage about the love of God that sent Jesus to our broken world.

“Beloved, let us love one another, for love is from God, and whoever loves has been born of God and knows God. Anyone who does not love does not know God, because God is love. In this the love of God was made manifest among us, that God sent his only Son into the world, so that we might live through him. In this is love, not that we have loved God but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins. Beloved, if God so loved us, we also ought to love one another. No one has ever seen God; if we love one another, God abides in us and his love is perfected in us.

By this we know that we that we abide in him and he in us, because he has given us of his Spirit. And we have seen and testify that the Father has sent his Son to be the Savior of the world. Whoever confesses that Jesus is the Son of God, God abides in him, and he in God.” (1 John 4:7-15)

Be blessed this weekend as you celebrate our risen Savior and forever King.