24th April 2011. Simferopol.

Ukraine
Our Easter is Jesus Christ!

Easter is the brightest holiday in Christianity.

The Easter events took place about fourteen centuries B.C., when God brought Israel out of the
Egyptian bondage. The God punished the Egyptians for their sins and cruelty. At that specified night God
sent a destroying angel to kill all the firstborn from people to cattle in the land of Egypt. It was the
heaviest punishment of God. God told the Israelites to take a perfect lamb from their flocks and kill
it and then to put the blood on the doorframes of their houses, so that it would be a sign for the destroying
angel to pass over (pass without touching) their houses that night. Everybody who was protected by
this blood was not injured.
That is why this holiday is called - Passover, which is translated from Hebrew literally pass without
touching.
Since then the Israelites has celebrated the biggest event of their history the major Jewish spring
festival which commemorates the liberation of the Israelites from Egyptian bondage.
Over the centuries there was another noted event - Jesus Christ, the Son of God, was executed by
crucifixion on Calvary Hill. The Passover made a prophecy of sacrifice for another Lamb, whose blood
would free humanity from its self-destructive bondage from the powers of sin and death, because we could
not be out of this bondage ourselves.
God sent his Son to earth as a human so that He could be the Passover lamb for us. He died for our sins,
so that His blood could cover our sins. That is what Jesus declared -
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.(John 3:16 NIV)
The prophet Isaiah testified about this God’s Lamb:
Who has believed our message and to whom has the arm of the LORD been revealed? He grew up
before him like a tender shoot, and like a root out of dry ground. He had no beauty or majesty to attract us
to him, nothing in his appearance that we should desire him. He was despised and rejected by men, a man
of sorrows, and familiar with suffering. Like one from whom men hide their faces he was despised, and we
esteemed him not. Surely he took up our infirmities and carried our sorrows, yet we considered him
stricken by God, smitten by him, and afflicted. But he was pierced for our transgressions, he was crushed
for our iniquities; the punishment that brought us peace was upon him, and by his wounds we are healed.
We all, like sheep, have gone astray, each of us has turned to his own way; and the LORD has laid on him
the iniquity of us all. He was oppressed and afflicted, yet he did not open his mouth; he was led like a lamb
to the slaughter, and as a sheep before her shearers is silent, so he did not open his mouth. By oppression
and judgment he was taken away. And who can speak of his descendants? For he was cut off from the land
of the living; for the transgression of my people he was stricken. (Isaiah 53:1-8 NIV)
What stunning news! What unbelievable love of God to us! Clean and innocent, soft and
uncomplaining Divine Lamb Jesus, who made a sacrifice for us!
Do they have the chance to justify without acceptance God’s love? How do they have to deliver from
their sins, to defend themselves from a commination that to save themselves from the coming Last
Judgement?
Most people are inherently unable to resolve such issues for their salvation, because God Himself did it
for us in His son Jesus Christ!
We know that if we follow Jesus and believe in Him, then we have our sins covered by His blood, and we
won't have to suffer and die for those sins ourselves. Since He defeated death, by rising again we know that
we will also have a new body that can't die, and that won't ever get sick one day.
For you know that it was not with perishable things such as silver or gold that you were redeemed
from the empty way of life handed down to you from your forefathers, but with the precious blood of
Christ, a lamb without blemish or defect. (1Peter 1:18-19NIV)
Salvation is found in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given to men by which we must
be saved (Acts 4:12NIV) This statement is the only one among all world religions, teachings and
philosophy that shows people the way to salvation!
Easter is the most important and oldest festival of the humatnity. It is the Feast of Feasts!
Jesus came back to life after three days. He defeated death.
True Easter is Christ sacrificed for us!
The Pasch day Feast is the festival of life’s victory over death, light over darkness, good over evil,
festival of the revival, a new beginning and hope!
Oleh Fomushkin, Bachelor of Theological Studies