Easter Experts: The Lamb

Is the Easter you preach the one Jesus revealed?

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Welcome back to The Holy Go!

We’re in the middle of our Easter series that is equipping us to understand, defend and share the Good News in a more effective way!

Last weeks activation was to practice your response to questions around violence attributed to God by referring back to Jesus as the perfect picture of who God is. How did you go?

Today may ruffle your feathers as we take a look at what The Cross meant to Jesus. We evangelicals have copped some “heresy” labels for the way we have told the Easter story. However, engaging this critique will lead us to a more a beautiful Easter story.

Equip

I’m a Heretic?

As an evangelical I was shocked to discover the Orthodox Church thought I held heretical views.

“But my theology comes from the Bible! How could I possibly believe anything heretical?”

I thought I believed what all Christians believed:

• God can’t stand to be around sin

• We’re sinners and deserve God’s wrath

• Jesus took the punishment for our sin

• If we repent and believe we receive forgiveness

Then an Indian pastor friend challenged me. He said the gospel we described sounded more like pagan sacrifice than the Christianity he knew.

He told me that growing up, his mother would sometimes become possessed. The spirits would demand sacrifices of alcohol or she would kill herself. The family complied… until they met Jesus.

For my friend Ankit, and many Christians shaped by the early Church, the idea that God requires a sacrifice to stop bad things happening sounds pagan. Even N. T. Wright has calls this view so!¹

Therefore if we want to understand Easter better, and share a message truly worth proclaiming, it’s time to have a re-think.

God Looks Like Jesus

The main critique I hear from the Orthodox world is that evangelicals drift from a truly Trinitarian view of God.²

We end up separating the Trinity, making Jesus seem less holy, and less “God,” than the Father.

For example, we often say:
“God can’t be around sin. If He comes near it, He must destroy it.”

So Jesus must step in as our substitute.

But if Jesus is fully God, then the Gospels show something different:
God can be around sinners. Jesus does it constantly.

And instead of destroying sinners, He destroys the sin.

As I like to put it: Jesus loves the hell out of us.

Another example is the cross. Evangelicals often say that “sin separates us from God” therefore when Jesus took our sin, the Father turned His back on Him. After all, Jesus cried out the opening line of Psalm 22: “My God, why have you forsaken me?”

But the early Church kept reading the Psalm.

After prophetically describing the crucifixion scene, it ends with this declaration:

“He has not hidden His face from him.”³

Jesus remained united with the Father even in death, just as He had said: “I and the Father are one.”⁴

The Apostle Paul put it this way:

“God was in Christ reconciling the world to himself.”⁵

The early Church fought hard to hold onto that vision.

Whenever we miss the mark, it’s usually because we’ve formed a picture of God that doesn’t look like Jesus.

So if we want to understand Easter more clearly, we need to return to our roots:

God looks like Jesus.

Or as the early Church insisted: Jesus is fully God and fully man.

Jesus Shaped Lamb

Russian theologian Georges Florovsky summarised the difference well:

“The Western doctrine of redemption became increasingly framed in juridical categories, while the Greek Fathers spoke of healing, renewal, and participation in divine life.”

So how did Jesus actually describe what He was doing?

First, He spoke of sin as sickness.
In John 3 He compares His death to the bronze serpent lifted up by Moses. The Israelites were dying from snake venom, but those who looked at the sign were healed.⁶

Second, Jesus connected His death to the Passover Lamb.
In Passover the lamb wasn’t a sin offering or a substitute. Its blood marked who belonged to God and secured their freedom from slavery.

Third, Jesus emphasised sharing His life now.
Eternal life wasn’t just life after death, it was knowing God,⁷ life overflowing from within.⁸

Seen through Jesus’ lens, Easter tells a powerful story:

Jesus has dealt with our sin.

He healed it.
He defeated it.
He freed us from it.

In His words:

“It is finished.”

Now He invites us to share in His resurrection life even before we die.

And that is an Easter Story worth sharing.

Activate

This weeks activation is to share the Easter story as explained by Jesus with someone.

Pick out one of these conversation starter questions, and see if you can get it into a conversation. Don’t force anything, just ask questions and see where it leads!

• What do you think the Easter story is about?

• What do you think “Jesus died for you” means?

• Why do you think the symbol of Christianity is The Cross?

• If God wanted to show us what He’s really like, how do you think He would do it?

I pray these questions will open some great disciple making conversations!

Let’s Go!

1. “We have paganized our soteriology, substituting the idea of ‘God killing Jesus to satisfy his wrath’ for the genuinely biblical notions.” The Day The Revolution Begun.

2. “We cannot think of the Son placating the wrath of the Father. Father, Son and Holy Spirit work together in the single work of redemption.” Kallistos Ware

3. Psalm 22:24

4. John 10:30

5. 2 Corinthians 5:19

6. “On hearing this, Jesus said to them, “It is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick. I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners.” (Mark 2:17, Matthew 9:12, and Luke 5:31, Luke 5:31-32, Matthew 9:12)

Isaiah also speaks about this, “But He was wounded for our transgressions, He was bruised for our iniquities; The chastisement for our peace was upon Him, And by His stripes we are healed… for the transgression of my people was he stricken.” (Isaiah 53:5+8) The word translated as stricken literally means plagued. Jesus takes on our sin sickness and heals it.

7. John 17:3

8. John 7:38