“But God proves his own love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.” (CSB – Read the chapter)

As we prepare for the great celebration of Easter, there are a lot of different things to which we give our attention. We’ve already covered a couple of them in the last couple of days. Jesus’ death really was necessary because sin really is that big of a problem. We talk through various apologetic defenses of the crucifixion and the resurrection. We talk about the implications of the resurrection. That one alone provides enough material to keep us going for quite a long time. Just when you think you’ve run out of material, more shows up. The ramifications of Jesus’ walking out of His tomb on Sunday morning are vast beyond reckoning. But in the midst of all of these important conversations, there’s one that often gets missed. I want to see if we can thread a needle this morning and talk for just a second about something we don’t often consider: None of this had to happen.

The absolutely unnecessary nature of Jesus’ death and resurrection is not something we think about very often. This is mostly because we concentrate our attention on its absolutely necessary nature. And if you think that is a complete and total contradiction of terms, rest assured that it’s not.

On the one hand, yes, Jesus’ death and resurrection were absolutely necessary. They were necessary in the sense that we could not have had a right relationship with God without them. The animal sacrifices that God in His graciousness allowed Israel to make to serve as a covering for their sins such that they could be in any kind of a relationship with Him at all were just not cutting it. As the writer of Hebrews noted, a system that involved offering an unending stream of sacrifices wasn’t a workable long-term system. I mean, sure, it had served its purpose for more than 1,000 years at that point in human history, but it wasn’t something that was even designed to go on forever. Besides, as the author of Hebrews also noted, the blood of bulls and goats can’t really cover for human sinfulness. God accepted it as a gesture of mercy, but real forgiveness remained impossible because real justice was not being served.

Without a human life given back to God, human sin was never going to be properly atoned for meaning we were never going to really be able to be in the relationship with Him He made us to have. If God’s goal was to have a relationship with us, Jesus’ death and resurrection were the only way. They were necessary.

But God didn’t have to have that as a goal. There was nothing mandating God do such a thing. He had created us, sure, but we were the ones who chose to sin. We were the ones who chose to rebel against His authority. We were the ones who chose to use a standard for moral behavior other than His perfect character resulting in the proliferation of all kinds of evil. We were the ones who took His creation mandate to steward His world wisely and well and turned our backs on it. We were the ones who left Him and embraced a path of death. We were the problem. We still are.

And the thing is, none of that materially affected God. He’s good. He’s God. He doesn’t need us. He doesn’t depend on us. We can’t offer Him anything He doesn’t already have because everything is His. He made it. When we left Him and went off on our own, He did not have to come after us. There was no external force pushing Him in that direction. He could have simply written us off and created new creatures who bore His image and could exist in a relationship with Him. Or, He could have skipped out on that part and just left us in our sin to waste away until the finality of death claimed us. Jesus’ death and resurrection were absolutely unnecessary.

But God followed through on those plans anyway. Why? Paul says it right here. He loved us. He loved us so much that He was willing to put Himself through hell so that we wouldn’t have to face it and could instead have once again the relationship with Him we were designed for in the beginning. The great, modern hymn, In Christ Alone, declares that it was our sin that held Jesus to the cross. And that’s entirely true. But it was His love for us that drove Him there in the first place.

Here’s the truth of Easter that you dare not miss: God loves you. He loves you so much that He was willing to die for you. He was willing to lay down His life so that you can be freed from the sin that drags you down and leaves your life and absolute mess. Now, if you will only put your trust in Him, you can enjoy the life that is truly life; the life that does not end when this life is over. If that’s not a decision you have made before, I pray you’ll consider it so that this Easter can be for you a true celebration of life – Jesus’ and yours.