What, exactly, is the Easter message?

Has the LORD God spoken to human beings? If so what is the message? Every year Good Friday brings us all face-to-face again with Jesus Christ – his death on the cross at Calvary just outside Jerusalem in AD 30. And his rising again.

But what, exactly, is the Easter message? Around BC 710 the LORD God spoke through a prophet (one who speaks on behalf of God) to God’s people, the Jews, in Jerusalem – see bold above. God’s message (given in Hebrew) was duly written down, copied, distributed, preserved in the national archives of Israel, and translated into Greek – all well before Jesus was born.

The LORD God wanted all humans to know (1) his greatness in creation. Who has measured the waters in the hollow of his hand and marked off the heavens with a span, enclosed the dust of the earth in a measure and weighed the mountains in scales and the hills in a balance? 

(2) His greatness in wisdom. Who has measured the Spirit of the LORD, or what man shows him his counsel? Whom did he consult, and who made him understand? 

(3) His greatness in justice. Who taught him the path of justice, and taught him knowledge, and showed him the way of understanding? 

 

(4) His greatness in authority. Look and see, the nations are like a drop from a bucket, and are accounted as the dust on the scales; look and see, he takes up the coastlands like fine dust… All the nations are as nothing before him, they are accounted by him as less than nothing and emptiness. 

(5) His greatness alongside what we rely on. To whom then will you liken God, or what likeness compare with him? An idol! A craftsman casts it, and a goldsmith overlays it with gold and casts for it silver chains. He … chooses wood that will not rot; he seeks out a skillful craftsman to set up an idol that will not move. 

(6) His greatness in autonomy. Do you not know? Do you not hear? Has it not been told you from the beginning? Have you not understood from the foundations of the earth? It is he who sits above the circle of the earth, and its inhabitants are like grasshoppers; who stretches out the heavens like a curtain and spreads them like a tent to dwell in; who brings princes to nothing and makes the rulers of the earth as emptiness…  

(7) His greatness in knowledge and understanding. To whom then will you compare me, that I should be like him? says the Holy One. Lift up your eyes on high and see: who created these? He who brings out their host by number, calling them all by name… Why do you say … “My way is hidden from the LORD, and my right is disregarded by my God”? Have you not known? Have you not heard? The LORD is the everlasting God, the Creator of the ends of the earth. He does not faint or grow weary; his understanding is unsearchable. 

 

And the most remarkable message from the LORD God in BC 710 is the same as his Easter message by Jesus. It is his greatness (8) in his lovingkindness. He gives power to the faint, and to him who has no might he increases strength. Even youths shall faint and be weary, and young men shall fall exhausted; but they who wait for the LORD shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings like eagles; they shall run and not be weary; they shall walk and not faint.

Yes, the LORD God’s Easter message to humans is simply “Look and see your God!” … He will tend his flock like a shepherd; he will gather the lambs in his arms; he will carry them close to his heart … Is that what you see when you look at Jesus on the cross?