Easter Foretold

By thissmallgroup, April 13, 2020

We’re entering yet another week of stay-at-home orders, social distancing, and intense hand washing. While things have been very out of the ordinary for the past few weeks, I think it truly hit just how abnormal things are this past weekend.

As you know, yesterday was Easter, a day that is typically full of church services and Easter eggs hunts and pastel dresses and brunches. But around the nation, Easter services were either held online or held as drive-in services. People were not getting together for giant egg hunts or brunches. We’ve all had to adjust from our typical Easter routines. This can be really disheartening, making us think that if such a big thing as Easter can be changed, what else can be changed?

Even with all the adjustments we’ve all had to make for the current situation, we need to remember that even though certain aspects of Easter had to change, Easter still happened. Easter was still a day to spend in remembrance of the incredible gift God has given us, to remember how Christ came to earth, died a horrible death on the cross, and then rose again. No matter what, Easter still happens every year and Christ’s death and resurrection were going to happen no matter what, for it was foretold. Delving into all the different prophecies would make this post the length of a book, so I’ll focus on highlighting just some of the prophecies in the Old Testament.

-Isaiah 53:3-5 speaks of the Crucifixion. It speaks of Jesus being despised and rejected by men, as he was by the crowds who called for Him to be crucified. Verse four notes that He bore our griefs and “…carried our sorrows”. Verse five is probably one of the more well-known prophecies, saying that “…He was wounded for our transgressions, He was bruised for our iniquities; The chastisement for our peace was upon Him, And by His stripes we are healed”. On the cross, Christ carried the weight of all our sins. He died so that we could be healed.

-Hosea 13:14 speaks of Christ overcoming the grave, for it says that He “will ransom them from the power of the grave; [He] will redeem them from death”. Without Christ’s sacrifice, we were all condemned to death. Through His overcoming the grave and ransoming us, we no longer have to fear death because He redeemed us.

-Zechariah 9:9 speaks of Jerusalem’s king coming to her “lowly and riding on a donkey”, as Jesus did on Palm Sunday before his death.

-Zechariah 11:13 notes the price that Judas was paid for betraying Christ. The Lord, speaking to Zechariah, tells him to throw to the potter “that princely price they set on me” which the verse goes on to say is “thirty pieces of silver”.

It’s so incredible to think that hundreds of years before, prophets were telling of Christ’s death and resurrection. God knew what would pass, how humanity would sin, but He had a plan for our redemption because He loved us so much and spoke of that plan throughout history.

I know that Easter this year was really strange and it may feel like Easter was cancelled because many of us could not celebrate Easter the way we intended. But Easter was foretold and Easter will happen every year, no matter the circumstances. So I hope that you were all able to spend some time this Easter in celebration, even if it was a different kind of celebration, of the incredible gift God gave through His death and resurrection.

-Allie