An Easter Meditation

Where is your gaze?

Each of us has our landmark moments—events that have shaped our lives and sear themselves into our minds. As we step into each new day, there are reminder reels from our past that inspire, but also some that may haunt us. They shape how we face our friends and our family. They impact our work. And when we’re left to our thoughts, their drumbeat is even louder.

While it may sound polite to suggest otherwise, we are, in fact, defined by the past.

The question is, are we seeing the past in full color?

The Easter season baptizes the stories we might be tempted to write for ourselves. It puts them to death and in their place … redemption.

Whether aware or not, all of history has looked backward with grief and sorrow at the events of Genesis 3. Everything went wrong in an instant, and now everything continues the downward spiral.

And the reality of the Fall hits home in each of us.

We’re right there with Adam and Eve. Depending on the day, we’re prideful and more all-knowing than God, but on other days, we’re defeated and weighed down by guilt and sickness over our selfish and destructive ways. We scramble to cover our shame and hide from God’s face.

The cloud that lurks over Genesis 3 can be crippling.

But for the Christian, there stands another event that can eclipse everything else.

Instead of looking back to when sin entered the world, we look to the day the tomb was emptied.

We look back to a victory won in the garden of death, which gave way to life on the third day.

And as we look back, we look ahead.

Like the Old Testament saints, our gaze is forward-facing. Abraham, Moses, and David—they looked ahead to that day, knowing a redeemer would make right on their hope.

Their redeemer is the Redeemer. He was and is victorious, and He will return.

Redirect your gaze; glory waits on the horizon.