Leave it to John Piper to devise an Easter message without using the word love. It’s from 1983, and to his credit by 2009 he comes up with an Easter sermon that does use the word, though not applied to God’s intention toward man.
A far better exposition on what happened at Golgotha, and what followed at the tomb, can be found in St. Athanasius:
“He, the Mighty One, the Artificer of all, Himself prepared this body in the virgin as a temple for Himself, and took it for His very own, as the instrument through which He was known and in which He dwelt. Thus, taking a body like our own, because all our bodies were liable to the corruption of death, He surrendered His body to death instead of all, and offered it to the Father. This He did out of sheer love for us, so that in His death all might die, and the law of death thereby be abolished because, having fulfilled in His body that for which it was appointed, it was thereafter voided of its power for men. This He did that He might turn again to incorruption men who had turned back to corruption, and make them alive through death by the appropriation of His body and by .the grace of His resurrection. Thus He would make death to disappear from them as utterly as straw from fire.” (From On the Incarnation, emphasis added)
He is Risen!
