Saturday, April 11, 2009

The long dark hours before Resurrection Morning

This time about 2,000 years ago, the battered, bloody body of a man called Jesus of Nazareth was resting in a borrowed tomb. His terribly beaten and crucified dead body was lain there just before dark as the Jewish Sabbath and the highest holy day celebration of Passover began.

It seemed in those dark hours as He lay in the tomb that Satan and the forces of evil had won. But God had a plan all along. This man from Nazareth is "the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world." His terrible suffering and death was in God's plan all along to redeem a sinful world.

This is the One who when first seen by John the Baptist, he cried out "Behold! The Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world!"

And just as in the Jewish Passover tradition, a lamb was slain, His blood was shed and the sins of the people were covered by His blood as the Death Angel passed over. Today we call it Easter.

Listen to Rich Mullin's great song, Our God Is An Awesome God, and say thanks to the Awesome God who laid His own life down and rose again on the third day to redeem my sins and yours.

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