Ideas for Easter - message

Easter is a fantastic opportunity to put some word element into the Christian activities we do, particularly as it relates to guest services and Easter Sunday services.

Everyone knows that a high point of the Christian calendar is the death and resurrection of Jesus. Therefore they might expect to hear something about this if they come to a service.

1. Hope – the value of every person.

Looking at 2 Corinthians 5:14, Paul says Christ died for all, indicating
that every human has value, whether black, white, rich or poor. The Easter message is a radical declaration of how God sees every person and, yes, we experience this personally in terms of our own faith. It also underpins our worldview in the context of mission and life.

2. Hope in pain

Easter gives all who have suffered pain a sense that we are not on our own and, despite our emotions and feelings, God does understand. The Easter story gives us a glimpse of God’s broken heart, the physical suffering of Jesus demonstrating that he understands what it is to feel physical and emotional
pain. The resurrection is a promise of presence; we are not on our own.

3. Hope at Easter

God’s relational promise. The Easter story is the culmination of God’s restoration of humans to the possibility and potential of friendship with God. It can be argued that God’s redemptive plan is all about the restoration of friendship and relationship, so we could look at some word content around this theme and how we can develop a relationship with the living Christ. So we can describe the possibility of friendship, but also the problem: why is that friendship not automatic? It is our selfishness–living for ourselves–that separates us from God’s love and friendship. Easter is the story of how that is dealt with.

4. Hope – the power to change.

2 Corinthians 5:15 points out to us that a huge problem in our society today
is that we live for ourselves. The challenge of the Christian message–the wonder of Easter–is that Christ died so that we no longer live for ourselves, we live for something bigger. We also recognise that selfishness is destroying our world, whether at government level or on a personal level. We can lose hope: how can
selfishness out there… how can selfishness in my own life… be dealt with? The Easter story gives us an answer. Christ died that we might no longer live for ourselves. He gives us a new focus as we live for him and his principles. As we take on that new focus, it will help us to not be as selfish; not to live for ourselves as, perhaps, we have done and, in this way, we will all make the world a better place.

Philippians 3:10-11 also provides an opportunity for us to focus on the power of the resurrection and the reality of embracing that in the context of relationship: to know him and the power of his resurrection, recognising that within the pain that we engage with in life both gives us the power to do it.

Christ died that we might no longer live for ourselves.
Read or download the Preaching the Word full pdf document