Easter is nearly upon us, and behind the Cadbury eggs and jelly beans is a story sweeter to our souls than anything an excited child might find in their Easter basket this Sunday morning. Easter is a story about healing and resurrection and victory over death. Easter is bigger than bunnies and egg coloring; it’s about the Christ—the long awaited Messiah who would fight evil, take on the sins of the world, and make all things that were wrong right again.
Our culture still has a category for evil. The recent mass shooting at Covenant Christian Academy in Nashville, is a ghastly reminder. But popular culture has lost other categories important for us to truly understand Easter. Lost are concepts of sin and depravity, archaic words relegated to another age. This is why much of the Nashville conversation revolves around speculation that the shooting was an outcry against the rejection felt by the trans-identified person who perpetrated the attacks. If there’s sinful depravity, it is failure to affirm the life choice of a gender dysphoric persons.
Categories for atonement, judgment, and forgiveness are also lost. The modern tendency is to blame institutional injustice, instead of taking personal ownership for one’s actions. If that’s the case, then what individual sin could possibly have been committed? If one hasn’t sinned, there’s no need for forgiveness. Hence, no need for a savior. Yet this implicit cultural theology leaves a hollowness greater than the giant chocolate easter bunny found in the cheap candy section. So where’s your hope?
The good news of Easter is that Jesus Christ came to heal our broken and empty souls. He promises to carry the burdens of those who are “weary and heavy laden,” and will give rest to their souls (Matt 11:28). He “binds up the brokenhearted” (Psalm 147:3). And “proclaims freedom to the captives and sets at liberty those who are oppressed” (Luke 4:18).
Jesus isn’t afraid to get into a mess to accomplish our good. When he reached out to Samaritans, it angered his tribe who saw Samaritans as less than worthy of God’s grace. When he ate with sinners and tax collectors (considered traitors to their people), the Pharisees questioned his religious commitment. When he talked with the sexually discarded woman at the well, his disciples were perplexed. Yet Jesus cared enough about people to step across cultural battle lines to do war with evil and rescue the hurting.
Regardless of our sin, regardless of our struggle, regardless of our broken and misplaced identities, whatever they might be, Jesus came to seek and save those who are lost (Luke 19:10). The offer to those who’ve surrendered to Christ is an offer of happiness, and flourishing, and wholeness. It is the reordering of the soul that brings inner peace and joy that no worldly good or personal striving can ever bring.
Yet to achieve our greatest good required Jesus to carry the sins of the world on his shoulders. My sin. Your sin. To be made right again necessitates acknowledging that something is wrong in the first place. We are sinners at heart. In order for us to be freed from the power of sin and death, we needed someone to intercede for us and pay sin’s heavy debt. Jesus had to suffer for our sins (Romans 6:23, 1 Timothy 2:6).
But how can Jesus relate to our suffering today? Answer: he suffered. In fact, he faced institutional corruption by both religious leaders, lawyers, and government officials. How can he relate to our humiliation? Answer: he was humiliated beyond imagination. How can he relate to our loneliness? Answer: he was abandoned by his closest friends and left to hang on the cross between two hardened criminals. But the story doesn’t end there.
After bearing the world’s greatest act of evil, Jesus triumphed through it, putting an end to sin’s stronghold and securing victory over the grave when he was resurrected on the third day. It was out of his great love for us that he did this. And what better news could be celebrated this Easter Sunday?
Richard Nelson is executive director of the Commonwealth Policy Center and host of the Commonwealth Matters Podcast on Spotify.