Bishop David’s Easter Message

Today we live in the midst of a world of selfish independence. As a human race we chose to reject God, rejecting Jesus the gift of God. We have chosen to live a life of independence.

Every day we listen to bad news. We are at war with ourselves, our beliefs and a world system which bullies any who will not bow to its directives. We elect leaders who we later reject. We explore other worlds but are in danger of destroying the Earth. Why are we in such a state? This Easter season in my search of Why I am asking Why the Cross? To answer such a question caused my mind to reflect.

First Why ask why? The simple answer is that “why” questions are useful and provide a reason.

In Isaiah 1:18 God invites us to come reason together. We are so used to doing things our way; thinking our own thoughts but God invites us to consider His way his thoughts.

Why is it important to ask why? Asking why can help us explore complex issues, solve problems and gain valuable insights and understanding.

Romans 7: 15-20 tell us why we do what we do not want to do:

¹⁵ For I do not understand my own actions. For I do not do what I want, but I do the very thing I hate. ¹⁶ Now if I do what I do not want, I agree with the law, that it is good. ¹⁷ So now it is no longer I who do it, but sin that dwells within me. ¹⁸ For I know that nothing good dwells in me, that is, in my flesh. For I have the desire to do what is right, but not the ability to carry it out. ¹⁹ For I do not do the good I want, but the evil I do not want is what I keep on doing. ²⁰ Now if I do what I do not want, it is no longer I who do it, but sin that dwells within me.

Romans 7:15-20

Most people experience an inner war.

Romans 7 continues ²³ but I see in my members another law waging war against the law of my mind and making me captive to the law of sin that dwells in my members. ²⁴ Wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from this body of death? ²⁵ Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord! So then, I myself serve the law of God with my mind, but with my flesh I serve the law of sin.  

So, after asking why I have this inner battle which leaves me feeling wretched and asking who will deliver me and being told Jesus, I now need to ask why Jesus? Knowledge of Jesus is not enough. I need power to live free from the power of sin… so again; why the cross?

I asked Google: What is the power of asking why? It says, “When we start asking why, we’re able to determine if we are on the right track before we make a decision.”. Yes, the cross provides an opportunity to change directions. I can decide to continue doing things my way which includes the inner battle, or I can choose to consider a change in direction.

I asked again, What is the value of asking why? It says “Asking probing questions, such as “Why?” early on could help change the direction of a project, allows us to think of a new component, or even bring in more resources.”

In Matthew 11 after Jesus scolded the people for rejecting the prophets and Him by continuing to go their own way Jesus said   ²⁸ Come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. ²⁹ Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. ³⁰ For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.  

We need to ask if we wish to receive the rest, guidance and help that Jesus is offering to give us. Jesus also offers us the assistance of the Holy Spirit and the assistance of others who like ourselves have experienced the inner battles created by sin yet rather than try to defeat sin they have accepted Jesus’ offer to follow Him, learn from Him and cast our sin burdens upon Him. Jesus is offering the power of life. So again why?

What is the power of asking why? When we start asking why, we’re able to determine if we are on the right track or we’re able to push the boundaries further and explore more deeply before we make decisions. God invites us to follow Him, but God never forces us to leave our life of independent living. If we wish to live on our own, following our self, God will not interfere. God always allows us to choose. The bible is filled with stories of people who choose to live separated from God. Often though God sends messengers to invite people to change direction. God calls the self-directed life, death. God through many messengers like Moses and Joshua asks, choose this day who you will serve: life or death, the gods of this world or the God of creation. The bible has the stories of covenants, contracts and the last will and testament of Jesus Christ.

Why should I consider the Bible? We all know that after life in the womb we entered a temporal existence of  0-120 years. Next we enter eternity to an existence with God called life or an existence without God called death. Some refer to the B.I.B.L.E. as Basic Instructions Before Leaving Earth. Very early in the bible blood is shed to cover sin; first the sin of Adam and Eve. Later animals are killed as a sacrifice to remind people that without the shedding of blood there is no forgiveness of sin. The bible is a record of God’s promise to send a deliverer. They knew the deliverer would be a descendant of King David but no one knew that God Himself would be The Deliverer. In Jeremiah 23:5-6 we read ⁵ “Behold, the days are coming, declares the Lord, when I will raise up for David a righteous Branch, and he shall reign as king and deal wisely, and shall execute justice and righteousness in the land. ⁶ In his days Judah will be saved, and Israel will dwell securely. And this is the name by which he will be called: ‘The Lord is our righteousness.’

When was someone born who would be called the LORD? Whenever “lord” is written all caps as LORD it means the LORD GOD ALMIGHTY. 

So, who is this person? We go to Hebrews 1  Long ago, at many times and in many ways, God spoke to our fathers by the prophets, ² but in these last days he has spoken to us by his Son, whom he appointed the heir of all things, through whom also he created the world. ³ He is the radiance of the glory of God and the exact imprint of his nature, and he upholds the universe by the word of his power. After making purification for sins, he sat down at the right hand of the Majesty on high, ⁴ having become as much superior to angels as the name he has inherited is more excellent than theirs. ⁵ For to which of the angels did God ever say, “You are my Son, today I have begotten you”? Or again, “I will be to him a father, and he shall be to me a son”? ⁶ And again, when he brings the firstborn into the world, he says, “Let all God’s angels worship him.”⁷ Of the angels he says, “He makes his angels winds, and his ministers a flame of fire.”⁸ But of the Son he says, “Your throne, O God, is forever and ever, the scepter of uprightness is the scepter of your kingdom. ⁹ You have loved righteousness and hated wickedness; therefore God, your God, has anointed you with the oil of gladness beyond your companions.” ¹⁰ And, “You, Lord, laid the foundation of the earth in the beginning, and the heavens are the work of your hands;

Why Jesus? In John’s Gospel and in Colossians we are told that everything was created by Jesus.

Why Jesus? God created by speaking, and the creative words of God is The WORD OF GOD who is JESUS.

So why did Jesus Come?  The answer is in Isaiah 53 Who has believed what he has heard from us? And to whom has the arm of the Lord been revealed? ² For he grew up before him like a young plant, and like a root out of dry ground; he had no form or majesty that we should look at him, and no beauty that we should desire him ³ He was despised and rejected by men,  a man of sorrow and acquainted with grief; and as one from whom men hide their faces he was despised, and we esteemed him not. ⁴ Surely He has borne our griefs and carried our sorrows; yet we esteemed Him stricken, smitten by God, and afflicted. ⁵ But He was pierced for our transgressions; He was crushed for our iniquities; upon Him was the chastisement that brought us peace, and with His wounds we are healed. ⁶ All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned—everyone—to his own way; and the Lord has laid on Him the iniquity of us all. ⁷ He was oppressed, and he was afflicted, yet He opened not his mouth; like a lamb that is led to the slaughter, and like a sheep that before its shearers is silent, so He opened not his mouth.

Who is Jesus? Jesus is the lamb of God who is God. The LORD GOD ALMIGHTY was the final blood sacrifice.

Why Jesus? Jesus is the author of the covenant between God and Humankind. Jesus is the only person who wrote a will, died and rose to be the executor over His own will, a will that includes you and me. Read Hebrews Chapters 8-10 and Today if you hear His voice harden not your hearts as other did when they heard God ask, “…choose this day who you will serve the gods of this land…” and your own self-willed ideas or the God of Creation who created you on purpose for a purpose, to live in peace and harmony with him.

What of my sin and my sins? By sin I mean my sin nature to be independent to God and sins are my transgressions. Colossians 2:13-15 ¹³ And you, who were dead in your trespasses and the uncircumcision of your flesh, God made alive together with Him, having forgiven us all our trespasses ¹⁴  by  cancelling the record of debt that stood against us with its legal demands. This he set aside, nailing it to the cross. ¹⁴ He disarmed the rulers and authorities and put them to open shame, by triumphing over them in Him.

Why the Cross? The cross of Jesus and his blood shed on it was so that you and I may be delivered from the law of sin and death wretched man that I am? 

Romans 7  ²⁴ Wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from this body of death? ²⁵ Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord! So then, I myself serve the law of God with my mind, but with my flesh I serve the law of sin. Continuing in Romans 8: 1-8¹There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. ² For the law of the Spirit of life has set you free in Christ Jesus from the law of sin and death. ³ For God has done what the law, weakened by the flesh, could not do. By sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh and for sin,^[c] he condemned sin in the flesh, ⁴ in order that the righteous requirement of the law might be fulfilled in us, who walk not according to the flesh but according to the Spirit. ⁵ For those who live according to the flesh set their minds on the things of the flesh, but those who live according to the Spirit set their minds on the things of the Spirit. ⁶ For to set the mind on the flesh is death, but to set the mind on the Spirit is life and peace. ⁷ For the mind that is set on the flesh is hostile to God, for it does not submit to God’s law; indeed, it cannot. ⁸ Those, who are in the flesh, cannot please God.

So how do I appropriate the new life?  It is by Faith. Romans 4 directs us to look to Abraham, the father of Faith and that we are to trust God’s promise to save and forgive us just as Abraham trusted God promise to provide a son. Abraham believed that God could raise Isaac from death, but God had never ever required human sacrifice but chose to become human so that He Himself could and would become the final blood sacrifice for us. Romans 4 says ¹³ For the promise to Abraham and his offspring that he would be heir of the world did not come through the law but through the righteousness of faith.

You and I who have broken the commandments of God are offered new life though faith in Jesus. Romans 4:15 says  For the law brings wrath, but where there is no law there is no transgression but God took our lawless deeds nailed them to the cross of Jesus and asks us, by faith to trust that we have been forgiven… let’s read on:

¹⁶ That is why it depends on faith, in order that the promise may rest on grace and be guaranteed to all his offspring—not only to the adherent of the law but also to the one who shares the faith of Abraham, who is the father of us all, ¹⁷ as it is written, “I have made you the father of many nations”—in the presence of the God in whom he believed, who gives life to the dead and calls into existence the things that do not exist. ¹⁸ In hope he believed against hope, that he should become the father of many nations, as he had been told, “So shall your offspring be.” ¹⁹ He did not weaken in faith when he considered his own body, which was as good as dead (since he was about a hundred years old), or when he considered the barrenness of Sarah’s womb. ²⁰ No unbelief made him waver concerning the promise of God, but he grew strong in his faith as he gave glory to God, ²¹ fully convinced that God was able to do what he had promised. ²² That is why his faith was “counted to him as righteousness.” ²³ But the words “it was counted to him” were not written for his sake alone, ²⁴ but for ours also. It will be counted to us who believe in him who raised from the dead Jesus our Lord, ²⁵ who was delivered up for our trespasses and raised for our justification.  ¹ Therefore, since we have been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ. ² Through Him we have also obtained access by faith into this grace in which we stand, and we rejoice in hope of the glory of God. ³ Not only that, but we rejoice in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, ⁴ and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, ⁵ and hope does not put us to shame, because God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us. ⁶ For while we were still weak, at the right time Christ died for the ungodly. ⁷ For one will scarcely die for a righteous person—though perhaps for a good person one would dare even to die— ⁸ but God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. ⁹ Since, therefore, we have now been justified by his blood, much more shall we be saved by him from the wrath of God. ¹⁰ For if while we were enemies we were reconciled to God by the death of his Son, much more, now that we are reconciled, shall we be saved by his life. ¹¹ More than that, we also rejoice in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have now received reconciliation.

Romans 4:16 – 5:11

There is so much more to discover about the Cross of Jesus and His provision through the cross… this is why I need to be a continuous student of Jesus Christ, a member of the Church the Holy Support Group and keep on learning being renewed in mind and as Romans 12 exhorts by the mercies of God, to present my body as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is my spiritual worship. ² Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect. ³ For by the grace given to me I say to everyone among you not to think of himself more highly than he ought to think, but to think with sober judgment, each according to the measure of faith that God has assigned.

I do not think highly of myself and know soon I will step down as the Bishop of The Arctic. Even though on December 31, 2024 I will retire as your bishop, by God’s Grace I will continue to walk on the Road to Emmaus asking Jesus to open scripture to me as He did to those two disciples. I hope to continue proclaiming that Jesus is risen. I have hope in the Cross of Jesus Christ and from experience know that opposition to the cross will continue and few will choose life. But the offer remains and as for me and my house we look to Jesus, His Cross, His Blood, His Promise and by His Commission we will look to no other. I hope you too will accept Jesus’ invitation, commission and share the story with whoever has ears to hear.  

Happy Easter from my family and me to all of you.

<>< Bishop David W Parsons