It’s easy to take the whole Easter thing and say, “Yeah I get it” – so we put it in a nice, convenient little box on the shelf marked “Easter”. But Easter isn’t like that – it never was.

Can you believe it, Easter is rolling around yet again, and it’s so easy for us to take the whole Easter thing and say yeah, yeah, yeah, I get it. So we put it in a nice convenient little box on the shelf marked “Easter” and we just walk by it and we ignore it. But you know Easter isn’t like that, Easter was never meant to be like that, just skate through and we have a long weekend and we forget about it, yet Easter is the most decisive thing that God’s ever done.

Jesus His Son, sent to die for us on a cross and rise again, that’s what it's all about, you and I in God’s sight are “to die for” He wants us so much, He wants an eternal relationship so much that He would allow His Son to die on a cross for us. How sad is it if we just skate on through and we don’t give it a second thought?

Easter is the time when God sent His Son to die for us, to solve a problem and we’re going to look at that problem, it has a name, it’s called “sin”. A lot of people don’t like that term, a lot of people think it’s old fashioned, God doesn’t and we’re going to look at that problem next week. But the thing that just, I don’t know, oozes out of Easter for me is how much God loves us and we’ve been seeing that through a Psalm this week on the program, Psalm 139, that we’ve been taking a look at. It’s a psalm that speaks so much about, well, about God’s heat, God’s motivation behind Easter, He’s incredible love. Just have a listen:

Father God I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made, your works are wonderful, I know that full well, my frame wasn’t hidden from you when I was made in that secret place, when I was woven together in the depths of the earth. Your eyes saw my unformed substance; all the days ordained for me were written in your book before one of them came to pass. How precious to me are your thoughts oh God, how vast is the sum of them, were I to count them they would outnumber the grains of sand. When I wake I’m still with you.

The person writing this psalm, we don’t fully know who it was, is just so awestruck, so blown away by how much God loves him, how much God loves you and me. We can praise Him because we are wondrously made, because He was there, He saw our unformed substance in our mother’s womb.

I’ll never be able to understand how He feels about me and how He feels about you. God’s love is so huge, it’s so vast, it’s so incomprehensible, one day you and I will stand before God, one day we’ll see Him for who He is, one day we’ll look on His face. And the Bible says that we will know everything but I just can’t imagine that because He loves us so much and you know when He created you and me individually, wondrously, perfectly, handcrafted … us … yeah, you and me, intricately woven together in our mother’s wombs, that was the most amazing act of grace.

Because He knew we’d reject Him, He always knew that and He always knew that to bring us back to Him, to save us from ourselves and what we deserve He would have to send His Son Jesus to die on that cross for you and me. You and I, our rebellion, our sin was never a surprise to Him, He always knew, and yet still he created us, still He planned every day of our lives even before any of those days existed at all. No wonder the Psalmist writes:

How weighty are your thoughts to me Oh God, how vast is the sum of them, I try and count them but they’re more than the sand on the beach.

I come to the end and I’m still with you because behind Easter is the most amazing act of grace. Not just that Jesus came to suffer and die to pay for our failure but that God always knew that He would have to do that and He created us anyway.

Can I encourage you never, ever, to put Easter in some convenient measured little box, never, ever to consign Easter to some head knowledge thing but like the psalmist be blown away by God’s love, be gob smacked, be in awe and wonder at the fact that He created us anyway and He was there when we were being formed.

He handcrafted our DNA, every breath you take, every step, every hilltop, every valley, every twist and turn, every thing that we have to suffer and bear, live it in the awe and wonder at who God is and how much He loves us. Life takes on a completely new vibrancy and colour, it doesn’t matter how much we have to suffer and how much we weep and how many tears we cry, we know that God had a plan for you and me, not just who we are but for the lives that we’re going to live, that He’s given us.

And for you to walk in the wonder and the awe of the completely unattainable knowledge of His for you in Jesus Christ we’ll look at more at how that love plays itself out through the Easter story over the next couple of weeks. But you know unless we’re completely lost in the wonder of His plan and His love Easter becomes just another long weekend. You and I we are “to die for” in God’s sight. That is what Easter is all about. God’s word is so awesome and I pray that you’re blessed as you hear God’s word and challenged by the sheer magnitude of God’s love.

I often think that when it comes to the things of God, you know the head is to the heart what our mouth is to our stomach. when we eat we put food in our mouths right, and we chew for a while … but if you want to satisfy our hunger we have to swallow it. Then it goes deep inside somewhere hidden and all those inner parts that God created, they suck the goodness out of the food. And that’s what feeds us, that’s what gives us strength, that’s where the food becomes a part of us.

And you know it’s the same with God’s word, sure we take it in through our heads, but if we just leave it there well that’s like chewing food but never swallowing it. As we spend time in God’s word here in Psalm 139 over this coming week, line by line, just pondering and praying and asking God, “Lord what are you saying to me?” That’s when it drops into our hearts, that’s when God takes His word and nourishes us and sustains us and grows us, that’s how we get fed.

Please, please do not leave it there, do something for me, this week grab a Bible open it up at Psalm 139, spend some time in there with God, just quietly on your own. And the Holy Spirit will feed your soul deep, deep inside, in a way that’ll surprise you and startle you.

He’ll bring His word to life in you and you know something? When we know in our hearts the unknowable love of God in Jesus Christ, it changes us. It changes our lives and that’s His plan, that’s what He wants for us heading into Easter. God paid an enormous price for us to know His love, that is what Easter is all about.