Have you ever been so thirsty, that your desire for water trumps all else?  I’m talking tongue feeling like a dry sponge, completely dizzying, exhausting thirst.  Water is needed to sustain life and when we don’t receive it, our bodies will inevitably shutdown.  The symptoms start out slow but then become very serious and life threatening quickly.

Easter for some is about bunnies bouncing around with colored eggs and baskets of candy.  For many others around the world, including myself, it is about the day my sin was paid for.  The day my thirst was able to be quenched permanently.  It’s the day that a way was made where I could once again be with my Creator.

Created in the image of God, our bodies are not just composed of cells and tissue.  A glass of water can quench your physical thirst and moisten your palette, but nothing can touch the thirsts of our hearts.  Nothing except for the power of Jesus Christ.  Imagine the scene…

His body is dangling from the wooden slabs and blood is flowing from His mangled body.  The thick, needle like thorns pushing through His scalp are causing Him less pain than the mocking of His very identity and authority the crown represents.  Crying out to His Father, Jesus asks Him “My God, My God, why have you forsaken me?”  At this very moment, God forsook His Son and the pouring out of His the wrath began.  An unsettling darkness begins to settle over Golgotha as the crowds continue to shout and riot, uttering their bitter contempt and hatred for this “blasphemer”.  “Come down and save yourself!” they yell at Jesus, laughing and jeering at what they believe to be inability and weakness.  Then the massive, wall like veil of the temple is torn in half from top to bottom.  The ground starts to rumble beneath the crowd’s feet and the enormous rocks on that hill split completely open.  Tombs begin to crack and crumble as the deceased inhabitants who had trusted God even before Jesus had come, rise out.  Jesus lets out one last agonizing cry and declares “It is finished” while slowly bowing His head, rendering His Spirit.  Overwhelmed with all he has just seen, a centurion standing right in front of Jesus claims in horror that “Surely this man was the Son of God!”  As the crowd dissipates, a loud group of thumping sounds can be heard as many pound their chests.  A soldier approaches Jesus to see if He is still breathing and when he sees He isn’t, the soldier thrusts his spear deep into Jesus’s side and quickly rips it out.  Blood and water pour out of His violently maimed body as Jesus is taken off the cross and given to Joseph for burial.

At this very moment, we all were given the opportunity to be reunited with our Creator and to be reconciled to the very purpose for which we were created.  To be with Him, and reflect his glory.  The story didn’t end there though…

The next day, the priests and Pharisees then gathered with Pilate. “While he was alive, the deceiver said he would rise in three days.  In order to keep his disciples from going and taking his body out of the tomb to make it look like he actually did rise from the dead, we should seal the tomb and guard it.”  They got their wish and guards stood outside of Jesus’s tomb the day after the Sabbath.  They didn’t stand for long though, as another earthquake shook the ground beneath them violently early in the morning.  Trying to keep balance, they looked up and saw a blinding silhouette descending, an angel of the Lord.  Out of sheer terror, they fell to the ground trembling and passed out.  The entrance to the tomb was rolled away and out walked Jesus.  Many did a double-take when they saw the man they deemed a deceiver and powerless walking around, alive.  “Peace be with you!” He proclaimed to His disciples.  In jubilant excitement, His disciples listened intently when Jesus made clear to them that He was going to be back.  In the meantime, they would wait for the Lord.  They would follow Him.

When we are extremely thirsty and searching for water, when we find some do we just take a little sip?  No, we down that thing!  Similarly, Christ’s grace to us on that cross was abundance upon abundance.  Our souls, severely parched by our sin crave something that lasts, not a temporary fix.  The floodgates open and wash our hearts completely, and they don’t stop.  The same power that rose Jesus from the dead is still busy at work today.  The effects of dehydration can be fatal, but the price of sin is always lethal.  It separates us from our Holy Father who created us to be His glory in the first place.  We cannot live eternally with Him, without the perfect sacrifice for our sins.  We are broken and will be forever, without our God.  Thankfully, there was a payment made that day.  A payment that when accepted into our hearts, saves our souls and reunites us with the real, true and living God.  It gives us a real relationship with our Father, not something we just conjure up in our minds.  It changes lives and brings as Jesus said, peace.  It gives us a heavenly perspective and hope.

My prayer for all this Easter is that we would stand in awe of our creator, overflowing with gratitude.  To be drawn to Jesus this year like never before, simply for who He is.  That we would become more aware of the sin the leaks into our hearts so subtly, and bank on Jesus to change us.  I pray also that those who haven’t yet decided to receive His payment, would experience the Lord and be made aware of His redemptive purposes for them through His love.  I pray when our hearts thirst for the temporary, we would be quenched by remembering Jesus on the cross and chase the Everlasting.  I pray that we would treat every day like its Easter Sunday.