Complete Joy at Easter

I had a unique experience this Tuesday, April 7 that gave rise to an experience during this Easter season unique in my life. I have three young boys (ages 5, 3 and 16 months), the youngest of which was diagnosed with a cyst in his throat that required surgery. In the days leading up to, and on the day of, the procedure I documented the feelings and emotions my wife and I experienced and saw some pretty startling truths. These truths have almost entirely been lost in a market driven and secularized culture, but in my opinion sum up what Easter is all about.

Once we found out a surgical procedure was recommended, and would be the best course of action, the feeling that my wife and I both had was the same: I don’t want my son to go through this. He is only 16 months and won’t know much of what is going on, but he will be taken away, put to sleep, examined and operated on in a room by himself and have to go through some discomfort in the days following his hospital visit. I love my son, I know he won’t like it, so I don’t want him to have to go through it. I was jolted when I thought about God the Father and His plan for Jesus. Genesis 3:15 says, “And I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your offspring and hers; he will crush your head, and you will strike his heel.” In John 12:27-28, Jesus speaking of his death says, “Now my heart is troubled, and what shall I say? Father, save me from this hour? No, it was for this very reason I came to this hour. Father, glorify your name!” There was a two-week time frame between my son’s diagnosis and the operation and I didn’t want him to have to bear it. God’s plan for His Son was the cross of Calvary.

Another key point brought to my mind was the love of a father. God sent Jesus to the cross to suffer because he loves us. John 3:16-17 says, “For God so loved the world that He gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life. For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world but to save the world through him.” This is a kind of love that is beyond my comprehension. Fortunate for me that God is not bound by the limits of my intellect.

My son had no idea what he was in for when he woke up on that fateful Tuesday morning. He woke and went to a new place with lots of lights and funny equipment, saw a bunch of new people, drank some liquid that made him very sleepy, and woke up groggy and disoriented with a tube coming out of his hand. Jesus, however, was not in the dark or under any illusions of what He was going to do. Luke 9:51 says, “As the time approached for him to be taken up to heaven, Jesus resolutely set out for Jerusalem.” Jesus knew of God’s plan and went to suffer, willingly, again out of love. Jesus himself spoke as recorded in John 15:9-15, “As the Father has loved me, so have I loved you. Now remain in my love. If you obey my commands, you will remain in my love, just as I have obeyed by Father’s commands and remain in his love. I have told you this so that my joy may be in you and that your joy may be complete. My command is this: Love each other as I have loved you. Greater love has no one than this, that he lay his life down for his friends. You are my friends if you do what I command. I no longer call you servants, because a servant does not know his master’s business. Instead, I have called you friends, for everything that I learned from my Father I have made known to you.”

Finally, all through this process my wife, my son and I were surrounded by support. We had good friends offer to watch our other two boys during the time at the hospital. Phone calls, emails and words of encouragement were constant from the time of the diagnosis. Family and friends came to the hospital, and smiling faces were waiting on our little boy to come out after his discharge. Jesus died on the cross alone, all the throngs of followers during his times of teaching, healing, feeding the hungry were all gone. His disciples scattered, and only a few remained at the end. God himself had to turn His back in a withdrawal of support as the sin of the world was laid on the shoulders of His perfect son. A person going through the process of scourging and crucifixion was unbearable. Feeling that pain with the addition of the sins of all people, for all time, and experiencing it all alone is quite simply beyond comprehension.

One similarity did come to mind in the end. My son came through the procedure with no complications. He was walking around playing, eating, drinking and napping like nothing had happened within three hours of the surgery. Likewise, the Easter message is good news. “On the first day of the week, very early in the morning, the women took the spices they had prepared and went to the tomb. They found the stone rolled away from the tomb, but when they entered, they did not find the body of the Lord Jesus…but the men said to them, ‘Why do you look for the living among the dead? He is not here; he has risen! Remember how he told you, while he was still with you in Galilee: The Son of Man must be delivered into the hands of sinful men, be crucified and on the third day be raised again.” (Luke 24:1-3,5-7).