Easter, Resurrection Day…

Hope your guy’s Easter was grand!  At my home church in the Midwest we used to call it Resurrection Day, to remember exactly Who and what this celebration was about.

That was kind of the gist of our sermon at Angelus Temple.  On a day when EVERYONE checks in, and just about everyone checks out…mentally…Pastor Matthew managed to make the message relevant to seat warmers and pew owners, alike.

Have you ever thought about the power of an icon?  That whole, “Picture says a thousand words,” deal?  Symbols that have become synonymous with organizations such as McDonalds, Nike, the Olympics, Microsoft Windows have impressed themselves into our consciousness. They have an impact when we look at them…they mean something.

But, the cross has lost its impact…probably because we forget what it meant; that it’s actually a tool for a humiliating, extended and certain death. 

 

Most people don’t wear a guillotine or mini-hanging noose around their neck.  Or get tatooed with a symbol for the Chinese water torture.  That’d be wierd.  And, people would think either you were really insane, or “OMG, like, tooootally cool. Love your chains, too.”

Point being, that the icon that symbolizes Christian life is a tool for death.  Like the very exposed kind of deliberate death.  Like the kind of death we get to put to those sins we like so much, if we can gain the courage to nail them there; and let the only One capable of conquering death set us free.