"It's The Sound of the Dawn Breaking"

The title from the song, "Hope" by Kristine DeMarco (sorry, best video I could find).

Many people have written many things about Easter. There are classic phrases, like “He is risen, He is risen indeed” that we will throw around. There are songs that we’ll hear every year, like “Were You There?”. 

I don’t think there is anything wrong with these things as a general rule, I don’t like that they make me numb. I grew up hearing the story, seeing the somber look that pastors get when they read those chapters of the gospels. Seeing the fabric draped crosses, hearing over and over about the suffering, and the joy (again, not wrong on it's own, actually pretty good, unless you become numb, as I have and seen many others) This year, we've added the memes on facebook of stylized image of Jesus, and the cross, with phrases and verses. 

I see the memes and I roll my eyes.* 

How can we take it down to a meme? It’s the same format used to make fun of Justin Bieber and populate the Ryan Gosling, “Hey Girl” movement. 

Every moment I live in a battle. I battle my self. I battle the god of the age. I do my best to rally my failed flesh and do my best to return punches. I do my best to pick up the sword and attack the day. 

Still I fail. 

Still I lie in a broken heap, hiding. 

Still I stand frozen while the blood runs down my face. 

I know that I can not win. I know that no matter how hard I fight, no matter how much good I do, I will still fail. I will still have darkness inside me that needs to be shoved into light. 

God created a perfect earth. He created humans so they could be close to Him. But Satan came in with a lie, and in one decision on the part of humans, a decision repeated every second of every day, Satan gleefully helped us create a chasm between ourselves and God, one of sin and darkness. The separation between God and us left us helpless and hopeless to ever get back to Him on our own. God can not remain God and let something as dirty as us know Him. His line is singular and immovable. There is no small sin He lets slide. There is nothing we can do, to bridge that separation.

Easter is regarded as the time when we remember Christ coming to save the world. It is a weekend where people show up in church for the first time all year and sing sentimental hymns and stand  looking properly somber on Friday and properly joyful on Sunday. But Easter is not just a weekend event. Easter is not contained. It can’t be. Christ didn’t just die on a weekend in April and leave us to "remember" the anniversary once a year. Every day that I get up with hope, I am celebrating Easter, because 2,000 years ago my separation ended, my inevitable death was destroyed and the god of the age lost all power.

Every day, every moment, I have options, I have hope, because Christ defeated death and offered me adoption into His family. When I fail, He doesn’t kick me out. When I lie in a broken heap, He picks me up. When I stand frozen, He wipes the blood out of my eyes and spurs me forward. He does this because not only has He faced all the darkness I face, He beat the crap out of it and then destroyed it.

People who hold on to their darkness run from Him in fear. When I live in His grace and adoption, my darkness is brought to light. When Christ's light shines, I believe Satan screams in frustration that he has lost so epically. 

Every day when I get up to fight, I am thankful. I am thankful not just that I am on the team that wins, I am thankful that I get to fight, to feel personally defeated and see Jesus win anyway. If Jesus' victory had also taken everything hard, like feelings of failure and loss, I don’t think I would be able to fully know the victory. 

Salvation. The moment when you realize you face the dark legion all alone. As they descend and encircle you, all you see is the clash of steel, all you hear are anguished cries, and your heart is racing so hard you can’t catch a breath. You suffer their blades carving out pieces of your self, and feel dizzy from their blows. Your own blood, is being coughed from your lungs and runs down your face. You know “I’m dead” and then decide to cry out for Life.

The moment when you feel the strength of the Spirit overtake your weary body and you catch your first glimpse of clear blue sky. As your old weary self dies, and Christ’s blood washes down making you new, the demons of your past fall away screaming at the Light overtaking you, and you  begin to see the view. You see the great grandeur of victory. You stand, free and new, in a sea of personal death.

Those demons will creep back. You will feel overwhelmed again, you are probably not done coughing up blood, but now, you are not alone. Now you face the legion alongside not only a sea of redeemed faces, but filled and surrounded by the One who defeated death itself. You have the hope that no matter how destroyed your body gets, your soul is invincible, because you’ve given it to One who destroys death. 

Think about that. Destroys death. 

The battle is actually a gift. We are now fighting from the top of a mountain. If I had been sitting in peace on the mountain the whole time, it wouldn’t be nearly as beautiful, because even in the fray, we have hope. Because we are fighting a war that is won. 

So how in the heck do you stick something as astounding as that on a meme?*

*I mean no disrespect towards the people who post memes. They are some dear friends of mine, many of whom I know have a deeper relationship with Jesus than a meme signifies to me. God is big enough to speak through these memes, whether I like it or not.