Easter is just a few short days away and celebrations are underway. Girls are picking out their Easter dresses and children everywhere are getting excited for Easter egg hunts. Pictures are taken with the Easter bunny and chocolate is filling every household. So much celebrating is going on.

But wait, this isn’t what we should be celebrating this week. I am not saying that Easter eggs are bad in and of themselves. Sure hunt for some eggs because it’s Spring and it’s fun. But don’t get that confused with the Christian holiday on Sunday that is about Christ and His Resurrection.

Christ’s death and Resurrection is (or should be) a time of Celebration!

To fully understand why Easter is a time of Celebration we must go a little journey. Throughout this journey I will look at the beautiful promises of the coming Messiah in the Old Testament and the culmination of those promises in the New Testament. Then finally we will look at His death and Resurrection and the future promise of our own Resurrection into eternal new life with Him.

The Old Testament is full of beautiful promises and prophecies of where the Messiah would be born, how he would die, and more.

It is a joy and an encouragement to read these prophecies and then to see them fulfilled in the New Testament.

Fulfillment of the Promises About the Messiah

Countless times the Old Testament tells that the coming Messiah would be born in the lineage of Kind David. The Gospels fulfill this promise.

The book of the genealogy of Jesus Christ, the son of David, the son of Abraham…and Jesse the father of David the King…and Jacob the father of Joseph the husband of Mary, of whom Jesus was born, who is called Christ. ~ Matthew 1: 1-16

Christ’s genealogy can also be found in Luke 3:23-38.  What Christ’s genealogy shows is that from the the first man, Adam through Abraham and then through David, the Messiah came. God planned this all from the beginning.

He orchestrated hundreds of years of human history all play out through Christ. Read through the Old Testament and then read Christ’s genealogy. Recognize any names? Stories such as Ruth and become even more profound when you realize they are in Christ’s lineage!

Psalm 22 reveals that Christ would be pierced through his hands and feet and that his clothes would be divided while he hung on the cross. Of course we see that these indeed came true down to the very phrase Christ utters on the cross, “My God, My God, why have you forsaken me”?

Christ also reveals to us in Luke’s Gospel that all that was written about Himself in the Old Testament would be fulfilled. And then the disciples finally understood all that had been written was being fulfilled before their very eyes.

Then he said to them, “These are my words that I spoke to you while I was still with you,that everything written about me in the Law of Moses and the Prophets and the Psalms must be fulfilled.” Then he opened their minds to understand the Scriptures, and said to them, “Thus it is written, that the Christ should suffer and on the third day rise from the dead, and that repentance and forgiveness of sins should be proclaimed in his name to all nations, beginning from Jerusalem. You are witnesses of these things.  ~ Luke 24: 44- 48

After the Disciples eyes were opened, Jesus told them what was going to happen to himself in just a few short days. Jesus was showing that what has been written has already been partially fulfilled and he was going to finish fulfilling it.

Through the lens of the New Testament we can clearly see the Old Testament passages concerning Christ that came true. We gain glimpses into Christ’s life, death, and resurrection through the Old Testament.

When I realize that over 700 years before Christ was born, God predicted where he would be born, what lineage he would be born, and how we would die and rise again my awe and worship is so much deeper.

Christ’s death and resurrection was not a spur of the moment decision, it was thoughtfully planned out from before Adam! God planned that Christ’s lineage would span from Adam through Abaraham and through David.

Tomorrow we will look at Christ’s death and his Resurrection on our journey to discovering why Easter is a Celebration. But to really understand the joy and wonder of the cross we must first understand the history from the Old and New Testaments on Christ’s LONG journey to the cross.

 

• Read more from this series:
  Introduction
  Promises of the Coming Messiah: A Journey Through the Old Testament
  Fulfillment of the Messiah: A Journey Through The New Testament
  Why Easter is a Time of Celebration: The Resurrection
  Why Easter is a Time of Celebration: Future Promises