Reflection to the Word on Easter Sunday of 2025
'YOU SHALL NEVER DIE' IS A COMMANDMENT
GOSPEL OF MARK
16:5 As they entered the tomb, they saw a young man, dressed in a white robe, sitting on the right side; and they were alarmed. 16:6 But he said to them, "Do not be alarmed; you are looking for Jesus of Nazareth, who was crucified. He has been raised; he is not here. Look, there is the place they laid him. 16:7 But go, tell his disciples and Peter that he is going ahead of you to Galilee; there you will see him, just as he told you."
Easter is an ancient festivity. It must have been existed even before the age of Moses by whom the Pesach or Passover was ordered as a commandment to be kept forever as a remembrance that Israel left the slavery of Egypt behind, because God delivered them.
The feast was reestablished and restructured to become the festive frame around the symbol of the lamb of God, as the blood of the lamb on the door posts was the sign of mercy between God and the people.
As it is written in the book of Exodus: “Then Moses called all the elders of Israel, and said to them, "Select lambs for yourselves according to your families, and kill the Passover lamb. Take a bunch of hyssop and dip it in the blood which is in the basin, and touch the lintel and the two doorposts with the blood which is in the basin; and none of you shall go out of the door of his house until the morning. For the LORD will pass through to slay the Egyptians; and when he sees the blood on the lintel and on the two doorposts, the LORD will pass over the door, and will not allow the destroyer to enter your houses to slay you. ”
The Old Testament story culminated in the Exodus, the partition of the Red Sea, the devastation of the Pharaoh’s Army, the falling of the Manna from the Sky, the Rock opened and gave water, the defeat of the tribal enemies at the wilderness of Rephidim, and many more marvelous events, and then the receiving of the Ten Commandments on the Mount Sinai.
It all happened as the precursor of the New Testament events as the salvation history kept unfolding during millennia and long centuries. It is also just amazing how many things occurred within only a week from Palm Sunday, crowned but not even ending on Easter Sunday.
First of all, there was the Palm Sunday when Jesus entered Jerusalem as a King, called the son of David, which was a traditional title of God’s Messiah.
On the same day he cleansed the temple, flogged the money-changers and expelled the merchants from the church-yard as it can be found in the Gospel of Matthew:
“ Jesus entered the temple courts and drove out all who were buying and selling there. He overturned the tables of the money changers and the benches of those selling doves. ‘It is written,’ he said to them, ‘My house will be called a house of prayer,’ but you are making it ‘a den of robbers.’ "
Then, in the upper room they all gathered for the last supper on the Maundy Thursday, when the Lord instituted the Holy Supper. Later at night on the Mount of Olives he was betrayed by Judas, as well as he was captured by the soldiers who took him to the house of the high priest.
What a night !
It lasted till the rooster cried, making Peter remember his boasting and his Master’s rebuking. Then came the Good Friday, as it culminated in Jesus’ sufferings on the Cross, in his death and then the burial into the cave grave owned by Joseph of Arimathea, near the Golgotha.
Finally the dawn of Sunday brought the light and the victory of the resurrection as it is written in the Gospel of Matthew:
“Suddenly Jesus met them. “Then Jesus said to them, ‘Do not be afraid. Go and tell my brothers that they should to go into Galilee; there they will see me.”
Mankind have dreamed about immortality and invincibility since ages, we tried to deify our ancestors, our heroes and our mighty emperors, thinking that they or they legacy might save us. However, ancestors vanished, heroes died, empires disappeared, sufferings, sickness, war and death stayed on Earth generation after generation.
Nonetheless, in the Gospel of John, Jesus says himself, not against the popular Easter customs on any continents, but from true divine love that: “ I am the resurrection and the life. He who believes in me will still live, even if he dies. Whoever lives and believes in me will never die. ”
That is why, 'You Shall Never Die', should be a commandment, as immortality is bound to keep the commandments in following Jesus on the Narrow PATH.
Thus, it must be conclusive to all, as an outcome of the known human history, according to the Gospels, we have to acknowledge that we can not save ourselves, we need a Savior to save us from ourselves, from our sins and from the curse of this world, which is very visible if we take a glimpse at the course humanity has taken for long millennia, and we can see, that instead of gradually becoming better the world is sinking, and when we gain a little in civilization and technology, we fell always back into hatred and global bloodshed.
No man can save the world from our sins but the Christ, but he paid a the unbelievable price of giving his immaculately innocent himself up in order to save the repenting sinners.
In the Christian message this is how the Christ like a lamb sacrificed himself for all humanity to win the ultimate battle against evil and death.
As it is written in the book of Prophet Isaiah in his famous chapter 53: “ As a lamb that is led to the slaughter, and as a sheep that before its shearers is silent, so he didn’t open his mouth. (…) My righteous servant will justify many by the knowledge of himself; and he will bear their iniquities. ”
The life is resurrected in Jesus Christ gaining full victory over death for the always greater glory of God to whom may praise and gratitude be given for ever by the Holy Spirit, as we need resurrection so much desperately. AMEN
