Why Do We Celebrate Easter?

Sin is best understood when stripped down to its basic definition: to miss the mark. When we

learn that the penalty for sin is death, we are more able to take on the weight it carries. Let’s clarify a common misconception: God did not do this because he is angry with us or wants us dead.  When we miss the mark, we search for things that this world cannot provide.  Easter is often celebrated as a light-hearted holiday with a heavy-rooted origin—calling attention to that origin is something we should never forget to do. 

A Jacked-Up World

The most common belief around the globe is that nobody’s perfect. But that's a dangerous mindset—as Pastor Matt so lovingly put it, “When we meet people who don’t think they are jacked up, we start to truly understand just how jacked up that person may be. On the flip side of that, if we ever meet somebody who doesn’t seem all that jacked up, we start to get nervous and wonder how jacked up they must be to be able to hide it.”

There is an argument to be had there that the universal understanding of how jacked up we are is simply just evidence of the inherited nature of sin.

The Penalty for Sin

God in his goodness thought to fix this, and then two thousand years ago, he sent his son, Jesus. This carpenter who was born of a virgin carried the following traits:

• There was no sinful generational seed in him

• He was perfectly gracious, truthful, perfect in love, justice, knowledge, power, and speech

And this was all for the purpose of defeating sin—the kind of death that kills. 2 Corinthians 5:21 says “For God made Christ, who never sinned, to be the offering for our sin so that we could be made right with God through Christ.”  In other words, since the penalty for sin is death, the only way for death to be defeated is if there was one who had no sin and paid for that sin. 

Death Has Been Defeated, The King Is Alive

Although dying for our own sins is deserved, it cannot be done, nor will it provide the same kind of freedom Jesus’ crucifixion did. If one has no sin and dies for sin, that is the ultimate payment.

Jesus voluntarily died the death in our place, for our sin. Therefore, the penalty for sin had no power over him. When sin and death have no power over you, you rise. That is why we celebrate Easter—Jesus was able to defeat sin and death and in turn, rise.