I met Steve Sherwood at the Sundance Film Festival last winter. Steve is a long time Young Life guy who now teaches at George Fox University in way-too-beautiful Oregon. Steve is also a fellow contributor to rednoW.com. Here’s his take on the question, “Why does Easter matter to you?”

“Death where is your victory? Death where is your sting?”

The resurrection means a lot to me, but one thing that I increasingly hope/believe is that one of the victories denied death by the resurrection is an end to death’s limit of the possibility of response to grace. That friend that was just beginning to take a look at faith before dying in that car crash. That beloved Grandfather who never really had time for church. All those millions and millions of people who live/lived somewhere and never heard… In the Parable of the Sheep and the Goats, all these people come before Jesus and are welcomed into paradise. “But when did we feed you…?” they ask. Basically, we weren’t following you in our lives. And yet, here, after death, they come before Jesus and are welcomed. I believe the resurrection makes that possible. Christ the only door? Absolutely! These 70 years or so the only time to find it? Maybe not.

Steve recently won a contest sponsored by Emergent Village. The idea was to write about alternative metaphors for the atonement. You can read Steve’s submission here: Three Stories of Grace.