This Easter’s Fresh Perspective

Today is the 52nd time I have celebrated Easter in my lifetime, and probably the 40th time I have approached the holiday with spiritual earnest beyond enjoying an Easter basket, new dress and sunrise service.

I have a habit of asking God for fresh perspectives about routine matters like New Year’s, Christmas, birthdays and Easter. After all, His mercies are new every morning, He is unsearchable, and He is eternal.

Nothing about Jesus ever needs to be routine. 

Thankfully, God has always been faithful to provide a continual supply of fresh lenses. Some of my Christmas examples include being captivated by angels one year, or awestruck by Mary’s faith, and amazed that shepherds were the first to hear the news. Some of my Easter examples have included being amazed at Christ’s love for Peter, studying the historical evidence of the resurrection, and being grateful that Christ first appeared to women.

He has always faithful to give me a fresh lens.

This year the lens was provided through a podcast posted April 2 on Beth Moore’s Living Proof blog, “It is Finished.” If you are not able to attend church today, then perhaps this can be your Easter sermon. If not, then allow me to share one of the many, multi-layered insights Beth presented that has become the lens through which I am enjoying Easter this year. (If you haven’t eaten breakfast yet, I must warn you the lens involves the dripping of lamb’s blood/Lamb’s blood.)

Read Exodus 12:21-23.

Then Moses summoned all the elders of Israel and said to them, “Go at once and select the animals for your families and slaughter the Passover lamb. Take a bunch of hyssop, dip it into the blood in the basin and put some of the blood on the top and sides of the doorframe. Not one of you shall go out the door of his house until morning. When the Lord goes through the land to strike the Egyptians, he will see the blood on the top and sides of the doorframe and will pass over the doorway, and he will not permit the destroyer to enter your houses and strike you down. (emphasis mine)

Beth described what it must have been like for a person to dip a hyssop branch into the basin of lamb’s blood and paint it on the sides of their doorframe and across the top.

The lamb’s blood would have been dripping down.

Imagine people then stepping behind those falling drops of blood and finding safety from destruction behind the blood of the lamb.

Now skip to John 19:28-30. Jesus is hanging on the cross. Unlike images crafted for jewelry and home decor, Jesus was beaten beyond recognition.

The Lamb’s blood would have been dripping down. 

Later, knowing that all was now completed, and so that the Scripture would be fulfilled, Jesus said, “I am thirsty.” A jar of wine vinegar was there, so they soaked a sponge in it, put the sponge on a stalk of the hyssop plant, and lifted it to Jesus’ lips. When he had received the drink, Jesus said, “It is finished.” With that, he bowed his head and gave up his spirit. (emphasis mine)

On that day, while dark angels gathered in the skies above and Satan thought he had connived a plan to rid the world of a Savior,

a way was made for every human being in history to find safety from eternal destruction behind the dripping blood of the Lamb of God.

I am most certainly going to enjoy the beauty of celebrating the risen Lord today, as I hope you do too.

But this year…

This year, I will be imagining myself worshiping from a doorframe

freshly painted with the blood of the Lamb, and

dripping from a paintbrush of hyssop

to cleanse all who wish to enter into eternal safety.

Have you made the decision to allow Christ’s blood to drip on you?

Have you allowed Him to let His death on the cross pay for your sins too?

Or do you still want to pay your own bill?

Today would be a perfect day to let His payment count instead.

Hallelujah.

Happy Easter, my friends.

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