Earlier this week I had a little fun with the secular side to what many people call Easter, but to the Jews this is the Passover celebration, and to those who follow the New Testament of the Bible, this is the celebration of the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ.
Born of Jewish lineage (traceable to Israel’s second king, David, and earlier), Christ was celebrating Passover with His twelve apostles at the beginning of the events that this weekend celebrates. He had spent the past few years fulfilling Old Testament prophecy as the Messiah which many rejected in Israel. That night after the Passover supper, Christ was betrayed by one of His apostles, Judas Iscariot, into the hands of Roman soldiers and was ultimately slain on a wooden cross. As the Bible states in the books Matthew, Mark, Luke and John, Jesus was buried, and then raised Himself back to life three days later. The purpose of these actions was that, following the Jewish tradition of killing an animal as a sacrifice for sin, Christ’s death was an act of the ultimate sacrifice to take upon Himself the sins of mankind past, present and future – something that could only truly be taken on by the Creator himself. Death wouldn’t have been enough. His resurrection proved His authority as God. That, in a nutshell, is what Easter is all about to true Christians.
A few years back I drew over 500 coloring book style pictures for a Sunday school curriculum called Generations of Grace. In 2009 I shared with you here on the blog many drawings from the Resurrection series of events, with a much more detailed biblical account of the meaning of Easter. If you would like to see those, feel free to CLICK HERE.
Today’s drawing is a part of that series not shared before. These are some stand alone figures from Christ’s death that Sunday school teachers could use with the kids to color and cut out to create their own Mt. Calvary (Golgotha) scene. These figures are a companion drawing to the bigger coloring page that you can see HERE.
So why is Good Friday good? Because it represents Christ giving up His life for me. Sunday represents His power over death which shows his authority to die for me in the first place! It is humbling thought.
I know that not everyone will enjoy today’s post, but I didn’t make up the events of which I speak. While I may not be the most eloquent at explaining them, they are the foundation of my faith and can all be found in the Bible both in Old Testament prophecy and New Testament fulfillment. They are events for which I am literally eternally grateful.
From time to time, folks write for permission to use my Bible coloring sheet pictures, but please note that their use is currently limited to the Generations of Grace Bible curriculum for which they were drawn. There are three years worth of children’s Sunday lessons broken up into various categories such as the Resurrection, so feel free to CLICK HERE to learn more about that.