The Church Needs an Easter Reset in 2021
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Easter Sunday was the ultimate reset for the followers of Jesus. The old order of things had passed away and the new had come. Jesus was vindicated as Truth-teller and Lord of the universe. His claims to be the divine Son of God and Savior of the world were fully verified.
The rule of death, sin, Satan, and Hell was forever overturned by the resurrection of Jesus. Gone are hopelessness and despair. Jesus is powerfully pouring out His life, love, light, and power to the ends of the earth.
Over the next 40 days, Jesus will spend time with His disciples, preparing them for His ascension into Heaven and for the outpouring of the Holy Spirit. Once endowed with the Spirit’s fire and power, this small band of disciples will explode out over all the ends of the earth, carrying the Good News that Jesus is Lord.
Kingdom and Christendom
Jesus is resurrected, ascended, and enthroned as the King of all kings. Every knee will bow before the King who died and rose for their salvation.
This Kingdom message has reverberated from Jerusalem for over 2,000 years and has reached billions of people. It is hard to fully articulate the impact that Jesus’s life, death, and resurrection have had on this spinning planet we call Earth.
As the Gospel spread in the earliest years, the followers of Jesus were persecuted by ruthless Roman emperors. Strangely enough, the early Church father Tertullian said, “The blood of the martyrs is the seed of the Church.” Persecution caused the Church to grow exponentially in the first 300 years.
It took until the year 313 AD for the Roman emperor Constantine to declare religious tolerance toward Christianity. Within 10 years, Christianity would become the official religion of the Roman empire.
Scholars have long argued that ever since that pivotal moment in the 4th century, Western governments have both upheld and promoted the Christian faith. This led to both the expansion of Christianity but also to its privileged status in the West. We refer to this period of privilege hailing from the 4th century forward as Christendom.
