The Origins of Easter - (Episode 1)

[Upbeat Music] We celebrate all kinds of things throughout the year like: Christmas, weddings, St. Patrick’s Day, burns night, our birthdays, our dog’s birthday and New Year's but there’s another celebration that I love that doesn’t always get the same attention as the rest, and that’s Easter! [Upbeat Music] - Maybe when you think about Easter, you picture the Easter bunny, or painting your egg masterpiece. But for me, there is one tradition that tops them all. And that’s the chocolate, and my favourite is the iconic creme egg! But the question is: How do you eat yours? [Upbeat Music] - For me though, it’s all about the Easter Egg hunt. I don’t really want the chocolate, what I want is the win! I want to find the most eggs! [Upbeat Music] But what is the point of all of these traditions? Why has Easter been celebrated for thousands of years by people from all across the world? Where did Easter come from? - Well, firstly, Easter is a massive Christian celebration, that’s just as important as Christmas and like Christmas to understand its origins, we have to go way back, like back to the very beginning... The Bible starts by telling us that God created the whole world and it was full of beauty and all kinds of incredible things. Then God created people, His friends, to help him look after the beautiful world that He had created. [Upbeat Music] - But sadly, they turned their backs on God. Instead of choosing to help God, they went their own way. And the beautiful world which God created was now filled with brokenness and all kinds of bad things. This damaged the friendship between God and people. [Upbeat Music] - But because God is a loving creator, he promised to rebuild what was broken. And that’s why God sent Jesus to Earth, which is what we celebrate at Christmas. Jesus, being both God and human, shows us what it really looks like to live in God’s world! [Upbeat Music] But more than that, Jesus came to restore the friendship between God and people! - Throughout the eye witness accounts in the Bible, we see that Jesus did so many incredible things as he journeyed with his friends. He healed a man’s hand; he talked to people everyone else ignored; miraculously fed over 5000 people with only 5 loaves and 2 fish; and he even raised a young girl from the dead! - Because of all these incredible things that Jesus did, he was being talked about everywhere. At the end of his journey, Jesus enters Jerusalem on a little old donkey. This was a bit of an unexpected entrance for someone claiming to be God! There was a massive crowd that gathered there to worship Jesus because they loved what Jesus was doing and they followed him everywhere. But some people hated him so much that they plotted to kill him! - But this was all a part of God’s great plan. As Jesus sat with his friends one evening, he said to them: “the greatest way to show love for friends is to die for them” (John 15:13). This was incredible because Jesus was saying that he was willing to die for them and that everything that was about to happen to Him was for a reason. He could have looked the other way and ignored the brokenness in the world. But because of his extraordinary love, God chose to rebuild what was broken. [Upbeat Music] - One night, just before He was arrested, Jesus was praying in the garden of Gethsemane. He was really struggling with what was about to happen to him and as he was thinking about his death, the Bible says that “he was in such agony of spirit that his sweat fell to the ground like great drops of blood” (Luke 22:44 NLT). [Upbeat Music] And it’s not like his friends were on board with the idea either! When the Roman soldiers came to arrest Jesus, we read that his friend Peter reached for a sword and cut off a soldier’s ear! - But Jesus stepped in. Instead of joining Peter and fighting back against the soldiers, He healed the man’s ear and He turned to his friends and said: “Don’t you realize that I could ask for thousands of angels to protect us, and He would send them instantly?” (Matthew 26:53 NLT). Jesus had a get out of jail-free card! He could have chosen to save himself if He had wanted to. But in order to show God’s extraordinary love, he let it happen, He chose to surrender rather than fight. [Upbeat Music] - People had been expecting that Jesus would be the one who would rescue them. But now He is in chains, being taken away by the Roman soldiers! [Upbeat Music] If Jesus is who he says he is, and if he really was going to rebuild what was broken, then how on earth was he going to do it?