Sermon Tone Analysis

What is Πάσχα (Pascha)?

Unless you googled Pascha.

I’m guessing many of you are wondering what Pascha is.

Let’s start with that.

When you learn another language you associate a new word with familiar things.

When the new word you are learning is similar to what you already know it makes it easier to remember or even brings memories to mind.

For example, I grew up associating Easter with the word Pascoa, which is the Portuguese word for Easter, or Pâques (Paak) in French, or Pascua in Spanish, or Pasqua (Pascoa) in Italian, or Pasen (Paasen) in Dutch, or Πάσχα Pascha in Greek.

So Pascha is the Greek word for Easter.

What you might have noticed is that in several languages the word Easter sound similar to the Greek word Pascha.

This Greek word is the translation of another Hebrew word.

Does anyone want to guess what that might be? … It’s Passover.

Passover is closely associated with Easter.

Passover was a festival instituted by God in Exodus 12 where God told Moses to tell the Israelites while in Egypt before they left, to sacrifice a lamb and sprinkle the blood on the doorposts as a sign.

This is what it says in Exodus 12:23 “23 For the Lord will pass through to strike the Egyptians, and when he sees the blood on the lintel and on the two doorposts, the Lord will pass over the door and will not allow the destroyer to enter your houses to strike you.”

It was during the celebration of Passover that Jesus was crucified.

Therefore Paul calls Jesus the Passover lamb in 1 Cor 5:7 “For Christ, our Passover lamb, has been sacrificed.”

There is a lot of significance in Christ’s death at the end of the Passover.

There were many traditions and rituals that Passover might have brought to mind for the first-century believers.

So when they heard the word Passover or in Greek Pascha, it brought to their minds a lot of memories.

When I hear the word Easter it does not bring any memories to me, but hearing the word Pascoa, many memories come back to my mind.

You might expect that I could tell you the Brazilian traditions for Easter, but the traditions I have are more of a mix of my grandparent's traditions.

Since my father pass away when I was a kid, I have some precious memories with my grandparents.

My (grandma which I would call nonna, which is the Italian word for grandma) so nonna Celia had a strong Italian accent and Italian traditions, with her Easter was going to church, going on Good Friday procession, which is a Catholic tradition of remembering Christ’s death during Easter.

I could always count on getting a chocolate bar from my nonna.

My other grandmother, we would call her Mutter (which is the German word for mother).

My Mutter on the other hand would not give me a bar of chocolate, but a big egg of chocolate.

With my Mutter, we would take empty chicken eggs, wash and dry and then colored the eggs with a special kind of paper that bleeds the color onto the eggs.

After all that we would fill the eggs with sugary roasted peanuts.

I think my first ever egg hunt was when Byron hunted for eggs in our basement, for me growing up the Easter eggs would be in the kitchen with the dessert bowl.

I’m confident that you have different memories when you hear the word Easter.

These memories and traditions might be good, but honestly, they are not that important.

Because our traditions don’t define what Easter is.

Therefore we need to look at the question: what is Easter?

So what is Pascha, Easter?

It is a celebration of what is to come, it is a reminder to be anticipating the completion of our salvation.

Easter is one of the oldest Christian holiday.

Historically, the oldest Christian tradition is to meet weekly on Sunday.

The second oldest Christian tradition is to celebrate Easter, which was celebrated during the time of Passover.

This tradition was well established before the year 200.

The earliest records that we know of Easter were celebrated by a vigil beginning on Saturday evening and ending on Sunday morning with a dual focus on Christ’s crucifixion and resurrection.

Therefore, throughout the last two thousand years, Easter has been a time to focus on Christ’s crucifixion and resurrection.

We see from 1 Cor 15:3-4 that Paul highlights three things as the most elemental for our Christian faith.

First that Christ died for our sins.

Secondly, that Christ was buried.

Third that Christ rose on the third day.

Throughout the centuries the focus on Christ’s crucifixion and death is remembered on Good Friday, while today Easter Sunday the focus is on Christ’s resurrection.

For me growing up in the Catholic church there was much emphasis on the crucifixion during Easter.

But the living hope is in the Resurrection.

That will be our focus today as we look at two questions: why is the resurrection crucial? and what will the resurrection provide?

Why is the Resurrection crucial?

I think we all know the importance of the cross; how crucial it is for our salvation.

It is the sacrifice that Jesus provided.

We are aware of the power of the cross and of the blood of Christ.

But do we truly recognize the crucial importance of the resurrection?

When we look at the Scriptures it seems that the resurrection was a foundation truth for the first-century believers and apostles.

We see the importance of the resurrection in the gospels as the climax to the story we call the gospel.

Then we see the apostles boldly proclaiming Christ and putting their lives at risk because they were eyewitnesses of the resurrection.

Not eyewitnesses to Jesus’ miracles or the wrongful death… but His resurrection.

I’m sure you have studied this passage in Acts 4 before, but notice the importance of the resurrection in this account.

When Peter and John were before the council because the priests and the captain of the temple and the Sadducees were according to verse 2 “2 greatly annoyed because they were teaching the people and proclaiming in Jesus the resurrection from the dead.”

Let’s pause.

So the leaders were upset not because they were preaching or healing or even talking about what Jesus did, but because they were proclaiming the resurrection from the dead!

You might remember this was a major difference between the Pharisees and Sadducees.

The Sadducees didn’t believe in the resurrection, they would say the life we have now is what there is.

The Pharisees did believe in a resurrection and that this life is not all that there is.

So it is ironic and significant that they both stand against Peter and John.

The reason they did stand against the apostles was that they were against Jesus, that it was in Jesus the resurrection from the dead.

Jesus equally debunks their own conception of God, instead, they should have been listening to Him.

Then Peter and John were arrested and when they were questioned about how they healed the crippled man because clearly, the leaders didn’t like what they were preaching, so they try to change the topic by asking “by what power or by what name did you do this?”

Peter filled with the Holy Spirit responded in v 10 “10 let it be known to all of you and to all the people of Israel that by the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, whom you crucified, whom God raised from the dead—by him this man is standing before you well.”

Then the council couldn’t find a reason to imprison them regarding the account of the man that was healed.

Therefore the leaders charged the apostles to speak no more to anyone in this name.

Because that’s what bothered them, they didn’t mind the miracle healing, the problem was Jesus or even the mention of Jesus’ name.

Isn’t this the same in our world today?

you can talk all you want about Christian life or even God, but people don’t like when you mention the name of Jesus.

But, back to Acts, then Peter and John responded in v20 “20 for we cannot but speak of what we have seen and heard.”

specifically Jesus' resurrection!

One application that is screaming to be addressed is our responsibility to share this news with others today in the same boldness as the apostles.

To tell people proclaiming in Jesus the resurrection from the dead.

We have not seen the resurrected Christ with our physical eyes, but by faith, we have seen Him and believe in Him, so we too can proclaim the resurrection from the dead in Jesus.

Easter might be a time where we repeat traditions, let’s not miss the hope of Easter, the hope of resurrection.

We don’t need to change our traditions but we need to make sure that we are not putting Jesus aside in our traditions.

Like Peter and John, we need to boldly and faithfully proclaim Jesus to our kids, friends, and family, to our neighbors, and to anyone God will put in our paths.

In summary, we see the resurrection as prime importance in what Peter and John were teaching the people in the temple after healing the cripple man, the apostles pointed out that it was through the name of Jesus, whom God raised from the dead, that they were going to continue preaching.

Not just preaching but because they had seen and heard, they were eyewitnesses of Jesus’ resurrection and could not remain silent because of such miraculous and life-changing news.

We continue seeing the centrality of the resurrection in 1 Cor 15 where Paul says in v14 “14 And if Christ has not been raised, then our preaching is in vain and your faith is in vain.”

Then 1 Cor 15:17-19 “17 And if Christ has not been raised, your faith is futile and you are still in your sins.

18 Then those also who have fallen asleep in Christ have perished.

19 If in Christ we have hope in this life only, we are of all people most to be pitied.”

We can see here God saying that the resurrection is crucial for the foundation of our faith.

There are many aspects of the resurrection that we could focus on, but today after we focus on the two guarantees the resurrection provides for us right now, we will also study the future blessing the resurrection provides.

First, the resurrection guarantees our justification.

Before we go any further we need to be reminded of the definition of justification.

According to Elwell “Justification is the declaring of a person to be just or righteous.

It is a legal term signifying acquittal.”

Acquittal is the same as not guilty in legal terms, it certifies that the accused is free from the charge of an offense.

Baker encyclopedia of the Bible defines justification as “The act of God in bringing sinners into a new covenant relationship with himself through the forgiveness of sins.

Along with such terms as “regeneration” and “reconciliation,” it relates to a basic aspect of conversion.

It is a declarative act of God by which he establishes persons as righteous; that is, in right and true relationship to himself.

We could summarize justification as the declaration of being righteous.