"Praise the Lord oh my soul and all that is within me. Hallelujah! Jesus is alive!!"
What do you think about as we near Easter Sunday? I love the build up to Easter and love the idea of having a vigil into Sunday morning and in one voice all over the world shouting "He is risen, He is risen indeed."
The best preach of the cross I've ever heard was at an Alpha weekend many years ago when my friend Billy spoke just prior to us having communion together. We nearly needed a mop to dry up all the tears as people were so visibly moved. I dread the possibility that the reality of the cross and God's self-giving sacrifice of love is preached so badly across the nation that those hearing miss the very essence of the gospel. God is the focus of the cross as God engages very specifically with His creation! At the cross, God in Christ is reconciling the world to himself, yet so often I hear poor misrepresentations of the awesomeness that is 'the perfect atoning sacrifice'. I don't want to hear 'the cross is about us and how God deals with us as wretched sinners by venting his anger at Christ instead of us so he could look at us'. That just obliterates the Trinity and the beautiful thing that is happening. God's love is poured out in the very blood of Christ the Son as he suffers and dies with cries of 'it is finished' - and the Father turns his face away sharing in the suffering and death of the Son - the skies go dark and the temple curtain is powerfully ripped from top to bottom, a picture of God's very heart being ripped open as God deals with that which separates us from God - sin!
As Volf says, Christ wasn't reconciling an angry God to a sinful world OR reconciling a sinful world to a loving God. The problem of sin was only one that God could resolve, so through the cross a way is made open for us to know God and know the fullness of his love, forgiveness, grace and mercy as God reconciles the world to himself. In that dramatic and powerful act God triumphs and sin, death and hell no longer have power over us. How can we not fall to our knees and cry out to God as the Spirit convicts our hearts? How great and awesome is our God!! God loves you unconditionally and has given you the free gift of faith - will you accept it?
Pray for those preaching this week and praise God with all your might. Here's a song you might want to sing as you join the rejoicing believers all over the world:
I love Your love, I love Your love, I love Your love, I love Your love
Sometimes when I feel Your love
as I walk along the busy street,
I whisper Your name under my breath.
And sometimes when I feel Your touch
in the quiet place of my room,
I sing Your name in adoration.
And there are times when I feel like I'm burning,
With Your love so strong and so true.
And in my heart I feel such a yearning:
I will call the world,
to know You love them too.
I love Your love, gonna shout it out aloud.
I love Your love, wanna tell the world about it.
I love Your love, 'cause I found it to be true,
and I live to love You too.
by Paul Oakley