The season of Easter for the year 2025 is now behind us. As an event, Easter is the biggest celebration in Christendom. It is one season that combines the story of the arrest, trial, crucifixion, death, and eventual resurrection of Jesus Christ, the begotten Son of God. He was not created like the first Adam; instead, he was made! And that is what marks the difference between the two men. The first Adam lost it all to the enemy, became sinful, and so merely a living soul. The 2nd Adam conquered sin and so became a quickening spirit. This was because he lived a completely sinless life as the sinless child of the holy woman called Mary, the wife of Joseph, the carpenter of their time.
Good Friday, the day the entire world marked last week Friday, 18th April, markd the end of the earthly ministry of Jesus Christ here on the divide between heaven and earth. His arrest, trial, and crucifixion were all a lead to the mystery his life taught and still teaches mankind. If the Jews, especially their leaders, knew or had known, they may not have crucified and killed him. But they did kill him in spite of everything. This is because mysteries are not something one can easily understand nor interpret so easily.
We don’t need to be theologians to admit that the coming of the season of Easter more than 2000 years ago was an interplay of spiritual forces between the good and the deadly. All the same, his death was only a fulfilment of the will of God and not that of man. Jesus died to fulfil a righteousness that was to lead him into the territory of Satan, humanity’s chief enemy, so as to collect back man’s glory that he lost via the carelessness of the first man, Adam—the one and only husband of Eve, humanity’s Grandmother- General.
It is a strong Christian belief that Jesus Christ, after being put to death, descended into Hades to wrestle back for man the power of glory which sin had caused him to loose. Thus, Easter is the celebration of that glory, the glory Jesus took away from the enemy and has since given it back to man. Yes, men who are ready to be his true followers while here on earth. We can say that is the very moment that brought and has since ensured for man the reconciliation process between a good Father in Heaven, and his lost children here on earth.
The belief of all Christians is that Man has been set free for ever by the death and resurrection of “the Son of God,” who is also called “the Son of Man.” If the Lord Jesus has set man free, why should we continue to remain in chains even more than two thousand years since he left us? Well, redemption through salvation has ushered the Christian into the domain of grace through which he can do all things. Through his resurrection, we have become fulfilled in life and can have our way in and through him to reach any height. This is the faith that true, or better still, genuinely born-again, Christians have in the ressurective and also the redemptive power of Jesus Christ as the Saviour of mankind.
The book of Galatians in Chapter 3:13–14 sums this up when it says, “Christ has redeemed us from the curse of the law, being made a curse for us.” It goes on to tell us that we might receive the promise of the Spirit through faith. In this same verse, we come to understand that “the blessing of Abraham might come on the Gentiles through Jesus Christ.”Every where outside Israel is Gentile land supposedly.
To take this further, the faith of our fathers makes us know that in Christ, we are highly positioned and must hold on to that opportunity. We must therefore, be vigilant, sober, committed, and focused at all times.
Therefore, Easter is the period to re-examine ourselves as believers who have a strong faith in the word of God. It enables us to be strong in the spirit more than in the flesh, so that we could become victorious till the end.
We cannot talk about Jesus the Christ and the redemptive realities his life, death, and resurrection have brought man without a peep into the life of this rural boy who came and, after three and a half years of ministration, became the most talked about in life and especially after his death and resurrection.
At the time of his birth in about the year 5 BC, Palestine where he came from was a rather troublesome Roman province, worn down by poverty, internal strife, cruelty, high taxes, and so on. Israel, that part of Palestine where Jesus came from, was ruled by a Jewish king called Herod, who was basically a puppet of the Emperor in Rome.
As at that time of his birth, Greek and Roman cultures were drawing younger people away from the great faith of their fathers. Although a devout people,Jews expected the promised Jewish Messiah to come as foretold in the writings of earlier prophets such as Isaiah, Micah, Joel, among others. The people were hardly prepared for a Messiah in the mould of what Jesus came out to present. The Jewish nation had expected a king-sized giant and warrior who, in their view, would assist them to throw off an oppressive Roman rule. They certainly were not expecting an itinerant preacher like Jesus the Christ, who was at home with all the sects: Pharisees, Sadducees, and even Samaritans. He was also at home with both the rich and the poor, and did not discriminate whatsoever.
Saint Luke, the gospel writer, tells us the expected Messiah was born in Bethlehem and was raised in the poor countryside of Nazareth, known for its backwardness and coarse living. Before him, John the Baptist had taught the doctrine of repentance for the forgiveness of sins. As Jesus’ forerunner, he had prepared the way for his coming. Consequently, Jesus came out as the Messiah who understood hunger, thirst, and sorrow. As a preacher, he taught the truth that all men are sinners, as each had broken the laws of God. The Father in Heaven forgives only the repentant sinners, he had taught the crowds that came to him.
The empty tomb, which the resurrection of Jesus Christ relate to,after his resurrection has great meaning, just as the Lord’s appearances in physical form to his disciples after his death and burial. It is on this resurrection that Christianity as a belief, philosophy, and practice builds its hope, its courage, its joy, and faith. The risen Christ, as Saint Paul tells us in his epistle, is the foundation stone of Christianity. Oh, what a great benefit.
On the whole, the period of Easter shows us that God is no longer a faraway mystery. It has instead revealed the nature and character of God to mankind through Jesus the Christ, who is Saviour and Lord and the Redeemer. As God, Christ was able to get over sin and death. As man, mankind can share his victory over death and Satan and remain sinless like him. In the stories contained in the four gospel writings of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, each shows Jesus as a man of all times. Because he died and rose, the lesson is that we can also rise after death and stand redeemed from sin and remain as children of God. This is a bigger benefit, we can say.
We end by stating that God the Father gave us Jesus Christ as Son. The Son himself left us the Holy Spirit after he had left this earth. These are part of the blessings that accompany the salvation he brought us.. In Christ, we are rightly positioned. Let us hold on to that great advantage.
Our country Nigeria needs to be vigilant, sober, committed, and focused in the effort to get to Him and with Him. If our best has continued to be in the past as a nation, then the time is now for us to push the administration of this country not into the hands of theologians and clerics, but into the hands of a set of people who believe in God and the redemptive realities that come with such a belief. He who believes in God has an authority as a believer. He/she hears from God and would not tell lies nor corrupt the land. After 64 years of trials and errors, the time has come for Nigeria to chart a new and better way forward. This is the God factor. We must go for this God factor so as to be able to heal the land. It takes some effort. We have got to believe that and start now. So Help Us God.
Smolette Adetoyese Shittu-Alamu, Osogbo
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