Easter is the day (though it’s true every seven days, and for that matter all 365 days) that we remember that God accepted the sacrifice of His Son for all our sin. Jesus died for our anger, lust, adultery, unfaithfulness, and retaliation (think the categories Jesus referenced in the Sermon on the Mount). He died for our grumbling and our envy. He died for our pride, our worries, our self-preciousness. He died for our willful failure to remember and rejoice in what is true.
We have hewn out broken cisterns of bitterness thinking that drinking the bitter cup might at least numb the pain, but of course it makes us more sick. Jesus drank the bitter cup so that we do not need to be sour. We have tried to hide in the darkness of lies and deceit thinking that we could escape trouble, but of course it increases the burden of guilt. Jesus exposed the real nature of lies and bore the wrath of deceivers. We have withheld forgiveness thinking that it would make us feel like we had the upper hand, only to find ourselves locked up in grudges. Jesus died that our grudges might be buried, that we might be forgiven and free from resistance to forgive others.
In Him we have been raised to walk in newness of life. We do not love the darkness, but we come to the light that it might be seen that any patience, humility, faithfulness, joy, love, courage, self-denial, and goodness in us are fruits of Christ’s work, fruits of union with Christ, fruit of Christ’s Spirit in us. Let us walk in the light as He is in the light for sake of fellowship with one another, and remember that the blood Jesus God’s Son cleanses us from all sin (1 John 1:7).