I'm sure every pastor has struggled at Easter and Christmas to try to find something new to say at these annual celebrations, wondering if he could get away with preaching on something else: peace, family life, temptation, prayer. Yet I doubt if many have ever followed through and actually tried preaching on something else.
Why do we keep returning to the same themes year after year? It is not just habit. The reason is that there are certain foundational Christian doctrines, central biblical themes, which are the basis for everything else. Christmas and Easter are at the heart of these central themes, and we neglect them at our peril. We dare not become so absorbed in the fine details of the Christian life that we overlook the foundation.
Consider, then, three great themes of the Christian faith.
Creation. Occasionally we get involved in debates with evolutionists about the origins of the material universe, but, other than that, I'm not sure that a lot of us spend much time thinking about creation. Yet it matters vitally that we have been created by God--and that we have been created for God. The fact that the universe has been created by God gives us a profound respect and responsibility for the world around us. Moreover, the fact that we have been created gives us an identity, value, meaning and purpose. Going even farther, the fact that other people have been created by the same loving God leads us to value them; this is the basis for love and respect in all human relationships.
This truth of creation has been simplified into catchy slogans, such as "God don't make no junk." Yet that is how it is with the great truths. They are simple but very far-reaching. They change everything. How the world needs to hear this truth! Meaninglessness, despair, purposelessness, hopelessness--these are the characteristics of our modern society. How people need to hear that they are created by a loving God, that they have value, meaning and a purpose.
The fall. Recently I was reading an article published by the Mennonite/Brethren Council for Lesbian and Gay Concerns (a lobby group which is trying to convince Mennonite churches to accept homosexuality). The author was criticizing the church for failing to recognize that God had created homosexuals with a "diverse sexuality". He insisted that God had created them to be homosexuals and loved them "just as they are". This writer had grasped the concept of creation-- but he had failed to take into account another foundational Christian understanding: the fall.
We are created, but we are also fallen. We were created good, but our nature has become corrupted by our decisions to sin. We are subject to immoral desires, anger, hatred, fear and corruption.
How many times have you heard someone excuse his or her faults by saying, "Don't mind me. That's just the way I am"? Some of us just happen to be homosexuals, child molestors, gossips, murderers, thieves, complainers and liars--but that doesn't excuse it. The answer is that we shouldn't be that way.
How many times have you heard atheistic scientists praise the "balance of nature" as if it represented the most ideal of worlds? The reality is that nature is fallen too. A nature that stays in balance through the cruel devouring of some animals by other animals is not ideal. Such cruelty and fear represents a fallen world that is badly out of balance.
Redemption. Many people--surprisingly even many non-Christians--understand the fall. They know that they have messed up their own lives and hurt many others in the process. They know by experience that they are unable to control their evil desires, their anger, their hatred and their petty cruelties. Yet that is all they know. They may have been created, but that is overshadowed by the reality of the fall. They know they are abject failures, and they despair. They try to correct the situation by blotting out the source of the problem: themselves--either quickly by suicide or slowly by drugs and alcohol.
Yet the foundational Christian beliefs do not end with the fall. Thank God they do not. More astounding than God's creative power, more awesome than God's perfect holiness and justice, is the reality of God's redemptive love. God made a perfect creation, we ruined it horribly, but somehow, for reasons we cannot understand, God still loves us and redeems us. And He doesn't just redeem us; He redeems us at the cost of His only Son.
That also is something the world desperately needs to know. We have messed up our lives and the lives of those around us, but God has redeemed us. He saves us from our evil desires, our immoral motives, our cruel actions, our sinful pasts. In Christ, He restores us to meaning and purpose and loving relationships with Himself and our fellow human beings. He will ultimately recreate the heavens and earth so that they are perfect once again, a place where the lion will lie down with the lamb. He will ultimately perfectly restore us as well, making us resemble Him again. It seems to me that that truth is worth celebrating again and again. And that is a good reason to publish an Easter issue.