On Sunday, we celebrated the greatest bombshell that ever hit humanity, one that shook up the world and brought the greatest victory that this world has ever seen — and it has not been the same since.
Countless millions of lives have been changed as a result of what took place that morning nearly 2,000 years ago. This is the only time that the SUN and the SON rose on the same day. When the SUN shined on the tomb that morning, the SON was not there.
This is the first time that the creator and the created met on this side of the grave. This had to be a celebration because, even today, the SUN praises its creator on Resurrection Sunday morning. A victory party at the grave for Christian believers, but a nightmare for the devil himself.
From Palm Sunday, then all week up until Friday, was our savior’s last week of his earthly ministry. He had finished his assignment to secure man’s redemption. And on that Friday, the SUN had set and the SON had dropped his head and died. The devil had done his worst.
That morning’s victory ought to be celebrated by Christians … in fact, Christians all over the world ought to still be excited about the events of that morning and it should not have anything to do with whether we were in church or not.
Sure, we would have rather been there dressed out, looking good and feeling fine; we wanted to assemble ourselves together and do what the disciples didn’t do on that morning at the tomb, that is to praise and worship our king of kings and the victory that he won that morning.
Christians ought to celebrate.
The world celebrate the world’s events — people in Ireland are excited about St Patrick’s Day and they show it by dressing in green and with a big parade celebrating Leprechauns, the four- leaf clover at that event; people in New Orleans celebrate the Mardi Gras with a lot of fanfare all over the city with music playing as they march the streets; college students on Spring Break go all out at the beach celebrating; people all over the world celebrate the Fourth of July with fireworks, singing the Star Spangled Banner.
But we know that Leprechauns don’t exist; Mardi Gras are just what they are and all it leads to is immorality and hangovers; Spring Break can lead to craziness and everything that is not good. But nothing has ever happened to humanity like what happened that morning; it was “Resurrection Sunday!”
But apart from the Easter Bunny and the beautiful clothes, let me show you why we ought to celebrate.
In the book of Genesis, after Eve yielded to the temptation of the serpent in Genesis 3:15 by eating the forbidden fruit, God having cursed the serpent and told him, “I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your seed and her seed; it shall bruise your head, and you shall bruise his heel.”
Ever since then, Satan has tried to destroy the seed of the woman which would eventually lead to what took place on Calvary nearly 2,000 years ago. From the attempt to kill Moses at birth by the king of Egypt (Exo. 1:15,16), all the way up to the attempt to kill Jesus at birth by King Herod (Matt. 2:16), Satan tried to kill the seed of the woman that would one day bruise his head!
After he was arrested, the physical trauma was inflicted upon him. A soldier struck Jesus across the face for his response to Caiphus. “Do you answer the high priest this way? (John 18:22)” The palace guards then blindfolded Him and mockingly taunted Him to identify them as they each passed by, they spat upon him and struck him in the face with their fists, breaking bones in his face, knocking his teeth loose, mouth bloodied (Matt. 26:67); they literally plucked his beard from his face, his face swollen.
In the early morning, battered and bruised, dehydrated and exhausted from a sleepless night, he is brought before the crowd. Pilate orders him to be scourged … and look at how they did it; the prisoner was stripped of his clothing and his hands tied to a post above his head. The Roman legionnaire takes a short whip consisting of several leather thongs with two small balls of lead, small pieces of bone and metal attached near the ends of each one. The heavy whip in the hand of a legionnaire, energized by the devil, is brought down on Jesus’ back with full force again and again, ripping the skin and exposing a bloody mass of tissue and bone. Extreme blood loss occurred.
Community, look at our Savior, bloodied and battered. And though the Bible doesn’t say how many blows was given to Jesus, the Jewish law required 39 floggings. After the flogging, the victim was forced to carry his own crossbar that could weigh 100 pounds. The record shows that Jesus carried his crossbar the distance of over two football fields. Weak and tormented, Jesus needed assistance.
And then, he was crucified.
The devil’s nightmare began that morning 2,000 years ago, because EARLY that Sunday morning, He rose. He got up bodily from the grave. That was “the devil’s worst nightmare!” But it was the Christian’s victory!” Because he lives, we can face tomorrow.
The devil is defeated, but Jesus is exalted. That’s “the devil’s nightmare.”
The Rev. George Ellis is pastor for Union Grove Missionary Baptist Church.
