Easter Sunday: Risen, Redeemed, Restored.

Good Friday, darkness reigns. Easter Eve, and there is but silence. A seemingly never-ending silence. Mourning. Weeping. Frustration. Confusion. More Darkness. And ever more silence.

But with the morning comes joy. Confusion, despair and weeping all become joy as the truth dawns. He is not here, He is risen. And so, the world is flipped upside down. Everything has changed.

Today changes everything. Death becomes life. Dark eclipsed by light. Mourning turns to dancing. Ashes into joy. Heaven victorious over hell. Captivity into freedom.

Without today, you see, everything is rendered meaningless. Without today, all who proclaim Jesus Christ as Lord and Saviour are fools. For there is no point in Jesus taking the world's sins upon Himself on the Friday if death eventually wins anyway. But that is the true beauty of today. Death has not won. For three days, we have waited in darkness. For three days, we have sat in mourning, in silence, and in agony, and we have waited.

You see, it is only when we understand the darkness of the Friday that we realise the utter jubilation of the Sunday. The contrast between the two is close to incomprehensible. It is through the Sunday that the Friday becomes Good. It is through the Sunday that the Friday makes sense. Because if it were not for the resurrection, there would be no hope. But Christ is risen. Death could not hold the author of life Himself. And therefore we have hope. One which goes further than all the world can throw at us, one which not even hell can eclipse any more. For Jesus lives.

And as He rose triumphant from the grave, He brings with Him redemption. The debt of sin, the wages of which are death and eternal separation from God Himself, has been repaid. In full. The slate has been wiped clean. Death is trampled underfoot. Darkness is eclipsed in the light of His glorious resurrection.

As Jesus collapses into death on the Friday, as He descends into utter God-forsakenness, He takes our sins with Him. Death swallows Him as He bears our sins, the very ones which have ripped Him apart, which tore Him from God and led Him to be forsaken by His own Father, His own self. But as He rises, He rises free. The debt is paid, and that which chained us no longer holds us down.

Through His death and glorious resurrection, we are restored to where we were created to be - in relationship with God. The barrier of sin which had prevented us from even coming close to the holiest of beings, to God, has been broken, smashed, obliterated, with the blood of Jesus Christ, with His death and resurrection. Atoned for. Paid in full. Accomplished. Beaten. The love of God triumphant over the power of sin, death and hell.

And so, out of the deepest darkness comes the brightest light. Still bearing the scars of the Friday, Jesus Christ rises and walks out of the tomb. He walks out of death and straight into life, inviting us to follow Him, out of the darkness and into His marvellous light.

'My chains fell off, my heart was free, I rose, went forth, and followed thee' Charles Wesley