This story comes from Luke 24 v 1-8, but it starts right back at the beginning of the Bible. Here it tells us that God made a perfect world but that people disobeyed his rules—they said no to God. They were not friends with God anymore, and because of this, the whole world became broken.
Sadness, hatred, illness and death came into our lives; we cannot live for ever anymore. Our broken friendship with God is “the thing that makes everything broken”. But someone was coming to fix it!
The Bible tells us that God came into the world as a person, Jesus Christ, with no guilt of his own to pay for. Jesus paid the punishment for when we have said no to God and his rules—the punishment of death, the most broken of brokenness. Now, if we believe in Jesus, we can be friends with God. But Jesus did not stay dead: “He is not here,” said the angels by his grave (v 6). He came alive again, the first person ever to do so. He is like the first fruits on a tree, showing us that the punishment of death was paid, and that God will bring his friends back to life for ever too, in a world that is all fixed.
Some people did not love God, and still said no, closing their hearts to the one God sent. But Jesus welcomes everyone who comes to him and says yes to God. Because of Jesus, we can be friends with God for ever.
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