Why do the nations conspire and the peoples plot in vain? The kings of the earth take their stand and the rulers gather together against the Lord and against His Anointed One (Ps 2:1-2)
The astonishing events of Easter morning put all of Biblical history into context:
In the very beginning, Adam and Eve heard God tell the serpent ‘he will crush your head, and you will strike his heel’ (Gen 3:15)
Moses confidently tells the new nation of Israel ‘The Lord your God will raise up for you a prophet like me from among your own brothers’ (Dt 18:15)
Psalm 22 describes not only the anguished personal suffering on the Cross (‘my God, my God, why have you forsaken me?’) but also the certainty that God ‘has not hidden his face from him but has listened to his cry for help (Ps 22:24)
And in what is perhaps the high point of all Messianic prophecy, Isaiah’s description of the Suffering Servant leads into ‘After the suffering of his soul, he will see the light of life and be satisfied … therefore I will give him a portion among the great… (Is 53:11-12)
The Resurrection is the glorious fulfilment of so much prophetic expectation and hope. It is God’s ‘Yes!’, His vindication of His Son, His acceptance of the sacrifice at Calvary, the outworking of His incredible plan of salvation, devised in His heart before the creation of the world.
So when human rulers and leaders in their foolish blindness set themselves up ‘against the Lord and against his Anointed One’ they are simply setting themselves up for a fall. God in his omnipotent enthronement ‘laughs; the Lord scoffs at them’. (Ps 2:4)
In our rejoicing in the glorious Easter truth of new life, let’s pray for our national leaders, that they will not line up with those who ‘conspire’ against the Lord, but with those who ‘serve the Lord with fear and rejoice with trembling’ (Ps 2:11)
Then they, and we, will know a truly Happy Easter.
