In just a few Sundays, April 20, the Christian world will celebrate Easter Sunday, the Sunday that we set aside to remember the resurrection of Jesus from the dead. No other religion celebrates this Sunday because no other religion believes that Jesus was indeed the very Son of God, sent to earth to die for our sins, and not just ours, but for the sins of the whole world. Paul wrote in 1 Timothy 2:4, “Our Savior wants everyone to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth.” Peter, the Lord’s righthand disciple while He was still on earth, wrote in 1 Peter 3:18, “For Christ also suffered once for sins, the just for the unjust, that He might bring us to God, being put to death in the flesh, but made alive by the Spirit.” And in Romans 5:8, we read, “But God demonstrated His own love towards us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.” And twice do we read, once by the Lord Himself, and once again by Paul, that “whosoever believes and whosoever calls upon the name of the Lord, will be saved”. Not, “might be”, not, “may be”, but “will be saved.”
John, in the third chapter of his gospel, tells us that a religious man by the name of Nicodemus, came to Jesus one night and said to Him, “Rabbi (meaning “teacher”), we know that You have come from God, for no one could perform the signs that you do unless God were with him.” Jesus knew right away that what Nicodemus needed was not a religious discussion nor a debate, but a new life, and so He said to Nicodemus, “I assure you, Unless someone is born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God.” This was the very thing that Nicodemus was really looking for, but, being of human descent, he asked the only question he could ask to try to get at an understanding, “How can anyone be born again, especially when he is old? Can he enter a second time into his mother’s womb?” Then Jesus zeroed in on Nicodemus’s question, and He said unto him, “I assure you that unless someone is born of the water and of the Spirit, he cannot enter into the kingdom of God.”
We know that a baby is encased in the mother’s womb in water, and when the water breaks, it’s time for the baby to be born. That is physical birth. But physical birth is not what Jesus was talking about. He was talking about Spiritual birth. As Baptists, we believe that when a person is baptized in water, it is a symbolic picture of what has already happened in a person’s spirit, in his innermost being. When Jesus told Nicodemus, “For God so loved the world that He sent His One and Only Son, so that whosoever believes in Him will not perish, but have eternal life,” He was telling him how to get to heaven. And then Jesus said this, “For God did not send His Son into the world that He might condemn the world, but that the world might be saved through Him.” Are you getting the picture? Let me illustrate with two stories.
The first story is about a tourist who had gone to Switzerland. Uncertain of his way, asked a small boy if he knew where the town of Kandersteg was? The little boy responded, “I don’t know sir, but I do know that there is a road to it!” The second story is about a little girl who lived alone with her mother in the country, and whenever her mother sent her to a small grocery store for some food, the little girl had to pass through a cemetery. But the little girl never seemed to have any sense of fear, even when she returned through the cemetery at dusk. Someone asked her, “Aren’t you afraid to go through the cemetery?” “Oh, no,” she replied, “I’m not afraid, for my home is just beyond.” There are many things that I cannot tell you, because they are beyond my understanding. But there is one thing that I’m sure of, and that is the road that leads to heaven, and that road is through Jesus Christ. That’s the story of Easter. Jesus Christ came to earth to die for your sins and mine on the cross of Calvary, and just three days later He arose from the grave so He could show us the way to His Father’s Kingdom. Do you know the way home?
