Easter 2026

In Matthew 5:17-20, Christ said that He did not come to destroy The Law and Prophets, but to fulfill them. With such a wide ranging claim, encompassing the totality of The Old Testament, and even our life here today; we have spent the past 5 Sundays looking at everything this means.

From the very beginning, we can sees that every time God gave a law in Scripture, He was revealing His own character and nature. How can we know what God is like? Look at all of the laws in the Bible. When we do, we will see that He is not some manner of superhero; extra strong, extra fast, and extra smart. Neither will we see that He is some nice and fluffy grandfather in the sky, raining down sweet sweet blessings upon all the good people; while throwing lightning bolts at all the mean people. 

When we take the time to listen to the countless preachers whose pulpits, even this morning, glow brightly with the unfiltered truth of who God is; when we actually open our Bibles and begin to read those long written down words; when we devote even a portion of our brain power to thinking about Him based on what The Bible teaches; we will see that the God of The Scriptures is the unchanging, unmoving fountain of life and morality. 

He is the definition of “right & wrong”; which means that when He tells us “this is a good thing” or “that is a bad thing”...He is revealing Himself to us. 

He is pure life, pure existence; which means that when anyone joins this world, or when they leave this world to join the next; it is all according to His will.

With just these two aspects, and not taking into account any others, we can see why the angels of Isaiah (Is. 6:3) and Revelation (Rev. 4:8) raise their voices to sing aloud that He is “Holy, Holy, Holy.” He is fully set-apart from everything, wholly different. Perfect in everything He says and does, the reasons why He says and does them. And nothing in Heaven above or Earth below can be compared to Him.

Reading → Matthew 5:17 - 20 & Opening Prayer

Remember, brothers and sisters, the kind of God that we just described. One fully set-apart from everything in reality. Whose thoughts are as far from ours as the East is from the West. A God with no beginning and no end; does not experience the passing of moments; existing in the eternal present. This God, for His own reasons, and consulting no one; chose to create the entire Universe. Planets and plants; Animals and Energy; swirling Galaxies and Seas teeming with life; all came from the first six days of Creation. Also, it was not simply the material aspects of our world that He created there, but the immaterial as well. All of the Scientific laws that govern how the world works, hard for even the smartest to understand; unbreakable and constant; are nothing but ripples in the water from His creative action.

And on that sixth day; with all of the fundamental laws of reality now governing every element on the periodic table, as well as the planets they act upon; with stars and suns shining into the farthest reaches of space, and light swimming forward at the exact speed He ordained it to; when everything was in its place…God created humanity in sinless perfection. From the dust of the Earth He created them, male and female He created them.

And there, in the glowing green of the Garden of Eden, and even further beyond its borders, stretching into the expanding recesses of space, everything was good. Perfect.

Never a tear was shed in those days, for there was no reason for them to be shed.

No fear.

No pain.

No death.

Adam and Eve, our first parents; perfect in every way; never felt the sting of sorrow, and they were strangers to both abuse and abandonment. Their work was joyful, easy, and fruitful; with no worry or anxiety about clouds of poverty or shame gripping their thoughts. No disease or death ever came their way.

Everything was perfect. Their marriage never rode upon the waves of this world that so many of us have felt. There were no secrets between them, and no questions of sincerity ever bubbled up from the back of their hearts. Furthermore, as if perfect harmony with all of reality was not enough; our first parents enjoyed a face to face, direct, tangible relationship with the God who made them; the God of the Universe.

During those first nights; when the moon shone far more brightly than any of us have ever seen, and they let their bodies rest in fearless comfort; they never asked themselves:

“Does God really love me? Am I living the right way? Does my spouse love me? Is my family safe, and on the right path? Can I build a life worth living? Can I be the person I need to be? How can I face tomorrow, when I barely made it through today? Is God angry with me? Have I let Him down? Has He abandoned me? Did I do enough good things? Have the bad things I've done, canceled out the good things? Can God forgive someone like me?”

These questions that so plague us, brothers and sisters, were not even shadows for them. They were alien thoughts, unable to be formed in their sinless minds. For it was there, in that Garden, that the God we today struggle to know, walked with Adam in the cool of the day. 

Do not pass by this, children of Clyde-Savannah.

The time-less and space-less God; Him with no beginning or end; “He who is not worshiped with men’s hands, as though He needed anything, since He gives to all life, breath, and all things; and has made from one blood every nation of men to dwell on all the face of the earth” (Acts 17:25 &26); Him who wears galaxies as rings upon His beautiful fingers as His beautiful feet rest upon the Earth as a footstool; that God walked and talked…with us.

Him with all authority, whose own will decides everything from the decay rate of atoms and the speed of light; up to and including the span of every human life; that God chose to reveal Himself to creatures that He created.      

Perhaps the abject magnitude of God will help us see why the laws of The Old Testament go to such extreme lengths, covering everything? Why are there laws about clothing, food and fabric? Why are there laws about marriages, families, prayers, and peoples? Why do we see so many commands for nations and citizens; judges and criminals; kings and courts?

Why did God give so many laws? …because we need them.

We need them because Adam & Eve’s story didn't stop when I stopped telling it. It is a story we have all heard a thousand times in our life, at least I pray that you have. I pray that your heart has heard, a dozen times over, the story of the Tree of the knowledge of good and evil, of the forbidden fruit that hung upon its branches, and of the lying serpent who spoke to them. For it was then, brothers and sisters, on that fateful day 6,000 years ago, when all of those questions that never plagued our parents…became a reality. 

From that day forward, through until this very moment; all of us have questioned if the God of the World hears our cries and prayers. If the life we are living has any purpose before it, or motivation behind it; if our actions are good enough to open those pearly gates, or if the flames of Hell crawl across barren caverns as they spell out our name.

It is like this, oh questioning one, because every child born beyond the borders of the Garden…was born fallen. Born broken, you and I, with no hope of repair. There in the depths of our mother’s womb, all of us can join together with King David and proclaim that we were conceived in sin (Ps. 51:5). And when we first came screaming and breathing from our mother, every action and thought of our life revolved around ourselves. We love ourselves as our highest priority, arranging everything according to our own will, and are willing to do anything to keep it safe. By nature, we are the center of our own life, which means…God isn’t. The One from whom we were given breath, is the One we use that breath to curse.

Even though that may be bleak, it gets far, far worse. For on that day, not only did we begin to worship ourselves; we were separated from Him who is the source of all life, making death…a law. As unchanging as the laws that govern the physical world; the law of sin and death was ratified when we left the garden, and none can escape it. Its jurisdiction reaches everywhere, governing every aspect of creation. From families to nations, and insects to individuals; everything is bound by the law of sin and death.

Because of sin, our work is hard, our food rots, and our communities crumble to the point of breaking. Because of sin; our families splinter and sprint toward rage and ruin, and our hearts are continually inclined towards evil. Because of the sin loving hearts with which we were born, we have acted on our own selfish desires, and have become eternally separated from the source of life. All of us, from the ignorant to the intelligent, are now slaves to a binding law that was sewn into the very fabric of reality; making death the inevitable end of everything; the law of sin and death. Born as slaves we are, you and I, with no hope of escape.

This is the reason behind the bloodshed of every Old Testament sacrifice. Death has enslaved the world, and it will continue to enact its tyrannical rule until something dies.

Do you see this in the world around you, children of Clyde-Savannah?

Do you see a society hungry for truth?

Do you see families; perhaps even your own, struggling under the weight of evil, eagerly pulling upon the doorknobs of Hell? Do you see it…in yourself? Do you see yourself, oh tired one, going after that which God has clearly told you not to? We are slaves to the law of sin and death, and no good deed we could ever do would satisfy it. No amount of charity or love shown, can meet the requirements of the grave. No Church attendance, Baptism, or portion of memorized Scripture can ever fill the grave that God has reserved for those who sin. All of it is so evil, and God is so holy, He must act against it by killing it. By killing…you.

Nothing but absolute perfection; nothing but holiness; is what He demands of us; and because we are slaves to the law of sin and death, unable to not to sin; we can never achieve it.

And because He is holy, He will never let evil go unpunished.

He will always punish evil, and leave no sin unaccounted for.

No crime swept under a rug; and no betrayal left unanswered.

All evil; no matter the intention of the person; every sin and every sinner; all of it and all of them, will drown under the white hot neon wrath of God, poured forth in glowing waves from the cup of His anger. Plainly stated: because a holy God presides over a Universe with sin, it means that the law of sin and death is inescapable. Something has to die. And because we are slaves to this law, it means that all of us, without exception, are bound, hand and foot, for Hell. 

Every single sin we have acted on, or those that never made it past our thoughts; every evil thought, action, word or deed; instead of earning us the freedom to live how we see fit, has earned us nothing but eternal damnation. All of us, The Scriptures teach, have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God (Rom. 3:23), and the wages…that which we earn…of even one of those sins, is death eternal (Rom. 6:23).

However, simply because of who God is…and for no reason apart from Him; simply because “The Lord, the Lord God, is merciful and gracious, longsuffering, and abounding in goodness and truth” (Ex. 34:6); He set in place all of the sacrifices we see in The Old Testament, accepting their death instead of ours, each drop of blood bringing harmony to the existence of evil in a world ruled by a holy God. 

My friends! These sacrifices were not accepted in the place of the people…because they earned or deserved it, no. The lambs were not slain because the people were worthy of their blood, and had earned the forgiveness its shedding brought, no. Their death was accepted by God as our death, for no other reason apart from His mercy and grace.

The death of each sacrifice was the law of sin and death coming to bear against a people whose sins earned them death, yes. But each one, each lamb selected with care by a loving shepherd, was a shadow of the Spotless Lamb soon to come.

Because God is holy, and we are not; because God is perfect, and we are not; He sent His only begotten Son, Jesus Christ, to live a perfect life, never sinning; so when He was nailed naked and alone to the Cross, all who will ever repent of their sins and believe in Him will not perish but have eternal life…because His death will count as ours.

Death to death! Death by Death! Dead by dawn!

It is finished! Justice was carried out! Mercy was shown!

Jesus Christ; God in the flesh; firstborn over all creation; Jesus Christ; the sin-less, time-less, space-less King of the cosmos; that day on the cross, drank dry the white hot wrath of His Father for every single one of His children without exception. He will not fail to save any of them. He will not hold back forgiveness from the unworthy, for all of us are unworthy, with no way to change. We are forgiven; of the deepest and darkest sins humanity could ever commit; not because we deserved it, but because Jesus Christ fulfilled the law of sin and death when His Father killed Him instead of us. 

The red which flowed from His beautiful brow, pulled forth by roman thorns, washes away the sins of His children; because the righteous anger of holy God was appeased by God Himself. And though He died, His body laid in the grave that was reserved for us, He did not remain there. After three days, with beams of explosive glory erupting up from that rock-hewn tomb, the God of all creation rose back to life, paving the way out of the grave for all of His children. Repent, oh tired one, oh questioning one, and see the trail of blood He left when He walked out of your grave! And now, today, if you have already followed that crimson trail; see that “there is now no condemnation to those who are in Christ Jesus”, for He, in His life, death, and resurrection, “has made us free from the law of sin and death” (Rom. 8:1-3).

Rev. Jacob Marchitell

April 5th 2026

Do you see yourself as guilty before a holy God?

Why?

Is there anything you can do to make yourself innocent?

Do you want to be innocent in His eyes?

Then repent of your sins and believe in Jesus Christ. “If you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord…” meaning He is the final say for your life in every aspect; every thought, word, or action; “...and believe in your heart…” not superficially, or intellectually, but a soul-level belief, “...that God raised Him from the dead…” a death that should have been yours, “...you will be saved.” Rom. 10:10 You will be saved, oh lost and broken one, from the judgement of God. 

Do not think, even for a moment, that your sin is too dark. Too evil. Let no thought of “I am too far gone” ever take root in your heart. Because the forgiveness that comes to us from God, is not based on us, but on Him. He forgives because of the price His Son, Jesus Christ, paid. And when you do repent, not only will your sins be accounted to His death…His righteousness will be accounted to you. Meaning, that when God peers over those glittering edges of Heaven to set His all-seeing eyes upon you…here and now…in this life…He will not see your guilt and shame and sin; He will see the perfect glowing blood of His Son, marking you as just as holy as He is, and reserving a seat for you in the neon future of eternity.

He will never leave you.

He will never abandon you like so many people in your life already have.

And He will use everything in your life; from your past, present, and future; regardless of the pain it may have caused you; He will use it all for your good.