Last week, we said that money doesn’t impress God. Which begs the question, what does impress Him? 

What a day to ask that question.

Easter is the climax of human history, the moment in time when the Creator of the universe became un-created, when the source of life laid His down, when the King of the cosmos surrendered.

An impressive day.

But let’s go back and review what clearly impresses God. At creation God saw what He had made and He said it was very good, and ever since He hasn’t grown tired of it. 

He commands the sun to rise every day and it brings Him joy, again and again (Psalm 19).

He clothes the lillies of the field with beautiful colors and says they show His glory (Matt 6:28).

Within Easter we have this message imbedded: God hasn’t forgotten about His creation—quite the contrary. He’s impressed by it.

The problem is, He is also deeply grieved by it. 

The King James says the whole creation groaneth and travaileth in pain together waiting to be made new again (Rom 8:22).

God feels both pride and sorrow when He sees creation.

But there was a day in the past, a little over 2,000 trips around the sun ago, that this planet saw something it will never see again. 

When Jesus came into this world, He was a nobody from a nowhere town in Israel. Over thirty years passes before He begins a public movement, a war on the curse that is strangling creation. He heals people (and trees) and shows the world what lies ahead in the new creation to come.

As Jesus begins His public ministry, God speaks from heaven and says, “This is my beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased,” and a dove, the symbol of God’s spirit, descends on Jesus.

The Bible doesn’t record God speaking to Jesus verbally ever again. Instead, Jesus says God speaks through Him. The dove came to rest in Jesus.

But at the cross, as God’s plan for Jesus came to its climax, Jesus was left alone. 

Hanging on the cross, Jesus looks into the sky and cries out, “Why have you forsaken me?”

No voice was heard from above, only the memory of a voice long ago.

Jesus was quoting Psalm 22, which begins in despair but ends in hope.

The Psalm ends, “All the ends of the world shall remember and turn unto the Lord: and all the kindreds of the nations shall worship before thee.”

But that day was not here yet.

As Jesus died, the sky darkened, the earth shook, the trees groaned, and the dead came to life—the life-giver gave up His life and that rippled into the next dimension.

But God had not forsaken Him. 

Three days later Jesus’ spirit re-enters His body, but a new body, not like the one before. 

As Jesus passed away and was renewed, so will the creation. 

That is the hope of Easter, the glory of Easter. 

God says the end of the story will play out this way:

“Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and there was no longer any sea...And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, ‘Look! God’s dwelling place is now among the people, and he will dwell with them...He will wipe every tear from their eyes. There will be no more death or mourning or crying or pain, for the old order of things has passed away.’” (Rev 21).

Every Easter we get the chance to remember this, the day God’s son defeated death and gave the victory to God, a gift of glory.

The most impressive story of all, a story that will change your life.