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Easter

When I was a teenager, I had a friend who was kind of hyperactive; so we're driving one night, when he decided to roll down his window and yell at the top of his lungs. The only thing was, he didn't know there was a car next to us. Inside it was a young guy with some friends. Either the young guy thought my friend was actually yelling at him, or he wanted to impress his friends. At the next stop sign, he pulled in front of my car to stop us, got out, and began punching my friend in the face. You'd think I would have put the car in reverse, rolled up the window, or something, but I didn't. I was shocked by what was happening. After hitting him a few times, he finally gets in his car and speeds off, with my friend bleeding and swollen. After all of this, though, my friend said something I still remember: he said "God loves you."

When I think about the purpose of the resurrection, I think about my friend; and how he turned something so horrible into an act of forgiveness. To me, that's the meaning of the resurrection. It's a resurrection not only of Jesus, but of us, too. Christ's resurrection not only restored us to right relationship with God, but gave us the only avenue to right relationship with each other. It’s about a God who took something so horrible– our darkness– and turned it into this amazing act of forgiveness.
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