An Easter Story

What if you were walking along the river one day and you saw a man drowning in the river? You run up to the bank of the river and call out to him. He answers back insisting that he is not drowning and tells you to go away. Watching him for a second, its readily apparent that the man's words do not reflect the severity of the situation. If someone doesn't jump in an save him immediately he will, without a doubt, drown. So you jump in the river, grab him, and start pulling him toward the river bank. All the while he curses at you and tells you he doesn't need your help. When you reach the shore, he rips himself out of your arms. Screaming at you he says, "I told you that I didn't need your help!!!" And then he storms off.

Time goes on and the man you save goes back to his life. He enjoys a good life with people and things that he loves dearly but the event at the river continues to haunt him. For any number of reasons, he can't admit to himself that he was in trouble and needed to be saved. He convinces himself that he owes you no gratitude since, after all, he didn't ask you to do what you did. But still the event remains fresh in his mind day after day, year after year.

But as time goes by, he starts to take a new perspective on that day at the river. Maybe his situation had been a little more dire than he had been willing to admit at the time. He starts to think that your actions were more appropriately based on the facts of the situation than his words at the time. He looks around at his life, everything that's beautiful and everything that he loves. He realizes that every day he's lived from that fateful day to this is, essentially, a gift because he wouldn't have had it if you hadn't saved him. This realization falls over him slowly, first understanding, then denial, then acceptance.

Finally, he's ready to admit that he did need your help. That he has you to thank for the life he can enjoy now because he wouldn't have had his life otherwise. That every good thing he has is in some way tied to the fact that you saved him years earlier. He begins the work to find you and thank you. It's difficult at first but, with some work, he tracks you down and has the chance to finally show his appreciation for what you did at the river. Any such appreciation comes with it some regret for how he treated you at the time, and so he apologizes as well.

This Easter we focus on Christ's sacrifice with a tone of appreciation and apology. The Apostle John says it this way that, "While we were yet sinners, Christ died for us." Drowning in our own sin, Christ saw it fit to save us even as we cursed him for it every step of the way. Praise be to God that he paid more attention to our situation than he did our words. Would we, today, turn around and thank him for what he did and praise him for how awesome he is.

Happy Easter everyone. Praise Jesus for first enduring, and then conquering, death itself. For that we praise him.