subject: What your church gets wrong about Easter: Part Two [print this page] What your church gets wrong about Easter: Part Two
When Jesus was twelve he was taken by his parents to Jerusalem. They unknowingly lost him in the crowd and the gospel account records, "Thinking he was in their company, they traveled on for a day. Then they began looking for him among their relatives and friends" (Luke 2:44).
Warren Litzman insightfully shares that many people still react the same way today. Not sure where Jesus is they continue on with their daily routine without realizing they left him far behind.
Others, if they become aware they have lost him, go back and look in the familiar places assuming he must be there among "relatives and friends". So they go to "church" on Easter to find him, or they practice a little religion imagining that is where he will be found. Yet he is neither of these.
In the gospel of Luke we find it takes Jesus' parents several more days to find him, and when they do he is in the heart of Jerusalem in the temple. As we will see, not much has changed.
The celebration of Easter is in truth a culmination of Passover. Indeed, Jesus was slain on Passover at the same time the lambs were being sacrificed by the High Priest in Jerusalem.
While all the pomp and ceremony surrounding the Jewish holiday was taking place, three crosses were being erected over the Place of the Skull (Matthew 27). Just a few hours earlier he was in the upper room telling his followers, "I have eagerly desired to eat this Passover with you before I suffer" (Luke 22).
Indeed, his life was a fulfillment of all the major feasts of the patriarchs. John the Baptist recognized this when he proclaimed three years earlier during Yom Kippur upon seeing Jesus, "Look, the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world!" (John 1:29).
Notice the singular use of the word sin. He didn't come to take away our sins', he took sin itself away, destroying its power and hold over people. As Paul would put it, "Through Christ Jesus the law of the Spirit of life set me free from the law of sin and death" (Romans 8:2).
So where do we find Jesus today? Passover is intimately connected to Pentecost in which the Spirit of God was "poured out on all flesh" (Acts 2).
Paul speaks of a mystery "that has been kept hidden for ages and generations, but is now disclosed" (Colossians 1:26).
Any discussion of Easter that does not clearly tell us where Christ is misses a major piece of the puzzle. It is not enough to know he is no longer in the tomb.
To find him you need only look in the temple once again because "God has chosen to make known among the Gentiles the glorious riches of this mystery, which is Christ in you, the hope of glory" (Colossians 1:27).
Later he would simply proclaim, "Do you not realize that Christ Jesus is in you?" (2 Corinthians 13:5).
In part one we saw that his death and resurrection were ours as well. Now we have seen that Jesus is not in the tomb but in people. In part three we will see that sin really is done away with regardless of what your preacher tells you. Don't believe it? See you in part three!
