"Freedom From Fear"

Easter is a time when we celebrate new life. Spring flowers are all around us. On a farm there are baby chicks and animals of all kinds. Here in the tri-valley the department stores are decorated with Easter bunnies, plastic grass, eggs and pastel odds and ends. A lot of these Easter decorations are left over symbols of a pagan past predating Christianity. Every year there is a less and less of Christ in America's public celebration of Easter and more and more misdirection. Jesus' place in Easter is not so much being challenged as it is ignored. It is a lot easier for the powers that truly oppose Jesus to misdirect and ignore than it is to challenge the truth. He has revealed straight out. It lets a lot of people make up their minds about these things without ever confronting the truth.

The truth Easter represents is important to everybody, not just Christians. Our cultures's focus on spring and new life is not so far from the true reality of God's intent of the first Easter. The popular celebration focuses on the new growth that takes place after a long winter. For us as Christians though the focus is not on spring, which naturally arrives after winter, but on a new life that arises from the grave. Death has always been the enemy that humbles even the greatest human empire. Nothing we have ever built has been able to protect us from the inevitability of our own death. This reality casts a shadow over our whole life. Fear prevents us from taking risks and to live life we all need to take riskes. To understand this truth we need to realize that failure is just another disguise for death. The more we go back in human history the more our lives depend on the success of our ventures. A failed crop could mean starvation. Even the failure to light a fire in a difficult situation to early humanity could mean freezing. This kind of raw necessity has created our competitive spirit and the neeed to succeed. But is also has created a tremendous fear of failure with in us, so much fear that we often abandon our dreams instead of taking the risks needed to make thema reality.

Jesus' death and resurrection changes everything. When we grasp that, we realize that the true opposite of faith is not doubt but fear, the fear that keeps us from being the people God created us to be. For the individual, Jesus' resurrection means that "to be absent from the body, is to be present with the Lord." (2 Corinthians 5:8)

Our death, like Jesus death is only the gateway to a new life. This does not negate the value of this life though. The richness of our relationships, the love for our children, or friends and spouses, all of these more than make this a life of infinite value. As Christians we are caught between this life and the next. Both are of value. Jesus himself demonstrated this in the way he cared for the people around him and grieved when one was lost. Yet he also had the courage and the faith that allowed him to give his life for us so that we too might escape the grip of the fear that controls us. To be truly Christ-like is to be able to conquer our fear and live our lives guided by the love of God and our neighbor. Christ's victory over death gives us true freedom to live. Jesus resurrection has enabled God to pour out the Holy Spirit in fulfillment of prophecy. By God's grace through the miracle of Easter we are freed from fear and enabled to live our lives led by the spirit of God and as Paul assures us in Romans, all who are led by the Spirit of God are children of God. For you did not receive a spirit of slavery to fall back into fear; but you have received a spirit of adoption. When we cry "Abba! Father!" It is that very Spirit bearing witness with our spirit that we are children of God. (Romans 8:14-16)

Grasp the miracle. Seek God and Find the freedom God intended for you. Christ is raised and everything has changed.

Pastor Jim Bliss
Easter 2005


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