What A Difference A Year Can Make

Today as I drove home from my exercise class I couldn't help but think about what a difference a year can make. The wind is quieter today, but the temperatures are still frigid. It seems like we had March weather in January and are now having January weather in March. I stopped at the end of my driveway and snapped a photo of the same place I took a picture exactly one year ago.

Last year, during the Easter season we basked in the beauty and warmth that an early spring brings. The daffodils were in full bloom and the tulips on their way. It was such a vivid picture of death coming to life and almost made the reality of Christ's death and resurrection more evident, and perhaps, more worshipful in my foolish heart. Why would the sun's warmth and the beautiful palette of color splashing everywhere painting an amazing picture of brightness seem to make the resurrection more real?

Wind the clock ahead a year. It is once again the Easter season. Instead of the warmer southwestern breezes that mark the beginning of spring, we are experiencing subzero Alberta Clippers. There is not a trace of life bursting forth from the death of winter. But, the reality of the resurrection is nonetheless evident. Christ rose from the dead whether or not we see the visual picture of death bursting forth to life in the things that God made around us. Christ's death and resurrection served an entirely different purpose. His suffering had to happen so that those who are being saved could be freed from the old self's bondage to sin and be given new life found in the Christ’s crucifixion and resurrection. John Piper says it so well: 

"The resurrection of Jesus is God's gift and proof that his death was completely successful in blotting out the sins of his people and removing the wrath of God.[1]

True worship and reveling in the wonder of Christ’s death and resurrection is not about what is happening in my external world that matters, but rather what is going on internally in my heart.
Today as the cold winds blow and patches of snow are still present I wonder and marvel at the beauty and horror that met at the cross. Sorrow and love flowed from a bloody crown of thorns yet burst forth in the brilliant light of the resurrection whether or not it is warm and beautiful or cold and cruel feeling. Speechless, I think to myself, “He would do that for me?”

Christ also suffered once for sins, the righteous for the unrighteous, that he might bring us to God, 
(1 Peter 3:18).

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[1] Piper, John, The Passion of Christ (Wheaton, IL: Crossway Books), 100.