God's delight

There are two books to which I’ll give imaginary covers and titles. The first has a black cover with the title ‘The Lawbreakers’. The second, called ‘God’s Delight’, has a white cover.

Opening the volume called The ‘Lawbreakers’ we see that it is full of people’s names; the one at the head of the first page is a man named Adam. All of the other names, of which there are very many, are Adam’s relations and yes, each one of them is a lawbreaker.

In the second volume, ‘God’s Delight’, we see that at the head of the first page is a man named Jesus Christ. He does not appear in the first volume because he’s the perfect law-keeper. Now we need to pause at this point…

Easter is the time when many remember the crucifixion of Jesus, followed by his resurrection from the dead. He was put to death by the law-breaking people because they wished to be rid of him. His perfect humanity and his unswerving commitment to do the will of God was too much of a challenge for many people, showing up as it did, their own shortcomings. They crucified him so that his light might no longer disturb their darkness.

Back to that first book with the black cover, each of our names has been written in it because we all have broken God’s laws. God deems that to be a capital offence; we are on death row. Now here’s the good News of Easter: when Jesus was executed upon the cross, he was taking to himself that death sentence on behalf of lawbreakers. Which lawbreakers in particular?

Jesus assures us that they are all the people who acknowledge that they have broken God’s good laws and had chosen to live in a way that kept God at a distance. Having U-turned, they are now looking to Jesus to forgive and bring them close in to God; they are trusting the fact that Jesus did die in order to put us right with God.  

Looking again at the second book - ‘God’s Delight’ - we see their names are now there with Jesus. The resurrected Jesus invites you to be one of them too. Why not be God’s delight?