If someone were to give an analogy for the Easter story, it’d look something like this:

A zookeeper and his son are on a walk discussing the recent events at the zoo. The zookeeper turns, bends down and says to his boy, “Today, a lion slipped into the llama pen and killed two llamas. Yesterday, another lion killed our koala. Last week, two of them ate the camel. And the week before, it was painted storks and grey herons. And who’s to say for sure who snacked on our golden agouti? The situation has become intolerable. Something must be done. I have decided that the only way the lions can atone for their sins is if I feed you to them.” *

What?

The Easter story is bizarre. There’s supposedly an all-powerful, perfect God who created the whole Universe, except God’s imperfect creation (humanity) rebels against Him in every way possible and God resolves this how? By giving up his perfect Son, a part of himself, to die and save humanity. This defies human logic on so many levels, that if any ordinary guy tried adopting this reasoning, I’d imagine his friends would slap him across the face and tell him to get a grip. But let’s unpack this bizarre Easter story with two questions.

Q1: How badly did humanity screw up for God to resort to send His perfect Son to die? People often point to the resurrection as being a stumbling block for Christianity but if Jesus was truly God the Son, it’s not strange that he, the author of life, should conquer death. Rather, it’s much more startling that he should die at all than that he should rise again. As Charles Wesley wrote, “’Tis mystery all! The immortal dies”. So, creation would’ve had to fail not just a little bit, but a lot for this price to be paid. Idea 1: Humanity sucks, a lot.

Q2: Why did God pay this price? I mean, surely wiping creation out and starting over again would’ve been a more logical approach versus sacrificing your Son? The only answer is simply out of love: pure, unconditional love. If that seems crazy, I don’t blame you – it’s radical, mind-boggling and almost unbelievable. Idea 2: Humans are loved, a crazy big lot.

And yet this Easter weekend, billions of people across the world treat this Easter story as an Easter miracle, with many pointing to the event of Jesus’ resurrection as the basis for their entire life. To me, it seems confusing why anyone would defy logic and accept this bizarre Easter story without a good reason to. Perhaps the ideas from this story give us a clue: that we are more broken and flawed than our wildest dreams, yet at the same time, loved more than we could ever dare hope.

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Footnotes
* This analogy was inspired by The Life of Pi.