Why is Easter Good News? Part 1

hint: it's not about taking punishment

With Easter coming, we’re launching a 6-part series deep diving some ways the Bible explains what’s so good about it.

During this series, Great Big Bible Story Walkthrough resources will come as a separate email. So if you’re just here for this series, feel free to skip those. -M

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You Asked: Why exactly did Jesus have to die? Because the answers I grew up with either don’t make sense anymore, or I’m not comfortable passing them on to my kids, or both.

What, God as bloodthirsty tyrant who makes his own son die so that we could go to heaven isn’t the message you want your kid taking away about things? 

This question, or something like it, is among the most common things I get asked, which is understandable given that this is kind of the core of our faith we’re talking about.

What’s more, the internet has taught me in the past few years that some people would rather kids wallow in the sadness of their badness and Jesus’ death than celebrate that their friend Jesus is alive and learn what the resurrection means and makes possible.

While wallowing in the sadness of our badness has a long and storied history in the Christian Church, it is neither the way the Bible talks about Jesus’ death and resurrection, nor the best way to help kids understand the Easter story.

Because, you know, this should be GOOD news?

The fact is, the Bible gives LOTS of answers about why Jesus coming, dying, rising are good news–answers I find beautiful and hopeful. Answers that speak to the world we actually live in, not just a heaven we hope to rise to after we die.

This idea of intentionally holding onto a variety of answers sometimes get called a “kaleidoscopic view” of the atonement. (Atonement: fancy theology word for how God through Christ reconciles the world.)

So here’s where I start with the question: ‘Why did Jesus have to die?’

When Jesus came, he said God was doing a new thing. Jesus called this new thing “the kingdom.” The Romans didn’t like him because they already had a king, so Jesus was a threat. Some of the religious leaders didn’t like him because he claimed to speak for God, and that was unacceptable. But Jesus stuck to what he came to do and say, showing people who God was in a new way, and the powerful people were not going to let him keep doing and saying those things and live.

In other words, Jesus had to die because he scared the Roman and Jewish leadership during a time in history when doing that was a death sentence. You simply couldn’t say the things Jesus said and survive for very long, as many other so-called messiahs found out around the same time.

But also? That isn’t really what this sort of question is asking.

We’ve been told that Jesus’ death and resurrection were “good news”, but the way that good news is explained doesn’t always seem, well, good. 

If you’re uncomfortable with the version of the gospel you learned as a kid, it’s likely not because you’ve wandered off the faithful path, but because there are elements of that story that just don’t mesh with who we know God to be from other parts of the Bible. And so we feel that tension; it makes us uncomfortable; we feel like there must be a better answer out there. 

There is. Well, there are. Better answers, plural, out there. Because, like I said, the Bible doesn’t talk about the good news of Jesus’ death and resurrection in just one way. There are multiple images, metaphors, analogies, and explanations that are used in different places in the Bible.

Today we’ll tackle one of them, and continue weekly with 5 more.

Our first answer to why Jesus’ death and resurrection are good news?

Peace.