The Power To Change Your Life (Part 2)

1. Christ’s DEATH has power to change our lives

A couple of years ago the BBC website carried a touching story about forgiveness.

Child soldiers from the Acholi tribe in N Uganda who were abducted by the Lord’s Resistance Army (what a name), brainwashed, and made to kill members of their own family. These same child soldiers were being offered a chance to return home and receive unconditional forgiveness.

The Acholi tribe had a special cleansing ceremony. The child soldiers were asked to step with their right foot on an egg and afterwards they pass down a line where they shake hands with the village, hug family members, and with tears of joy are welcomed, unconditionally, back into home.

They believe that an egg is a sign of innocence, something which has life but is pure and uncontaminated. They believe that you can be forgiven and unconditionally welcomed home when something pure, uncontaminated and living is crushed on your behalf.

Theologians call these kinds of beliefs “redemptive analogies”. They are pictures that God has put into different cultures to remind us that something pure and uncontaminated needs to be crushed for our forgiveness. The Jews believe a pure and spotless lamb needs to shed its blood in order for people to be forgiven.

Isaiah 53, written about 700 BC, is a prophetic passage about the death and resurrection of Jesus. It has this to say in verse 5.

But he [Jesus] was pierced for our transgressions,
He was crushed for our iniquities;
The punishment that brought us peace was upon him, and by his wounds we are healed.

Jesus, totally pure and fully uncontaminated by sin, allowed Himself to be crushed so that we could be forgiven and welcomed back into God’s family.

To the Jews (and Christians, who believe Christ completes the Old Testament story) Jesus becomes the Lamb of God that was slain, once, for all time, so that we might be forgiven and welcomed back into God’s family.

To the Acholi tribe, Jesus is their ultimate Easter egg, that was crushed, once, for all time, so that they could be forgiven and welcomed back into God’s family. They can return to God’s village, step on Christ, shake hands with a long line of angels, hug God, and hear him say, “Welcome home”.

The child soldiers had a choice. They knew their traditional story. They saw the posters that families had put up telling them about the offer of forgiveness. But they still had to come to the village. They had to step on the egg in order to be forgiven and unconditionally welcomed home.

It’s the same for us. We may know the Easter story. We may know it well. We may have seen the “posters” calling us home. We may find the story bloodthirsty, ugly, messy! But, the fact remains, even through the offer is open to the whole world, we all need to personally come back to the village and receive Christ’s forgiveness before we can be welcomed back into the family of God. But, when we do, we’ll experience the power of God to change our lives.