The sun shone with the yellow glow of Spring today - all the grass is suddenly green, and the tulips will be blooming any day now. Grandpa bought each grandchild a plant as a parting gift when Grandma passed away almost a year ago. The cheerful yellows and pinks last May seemed irreverent on that rainy day of the funeral. We donned trench coats and wore eyes red with tears standing next to the grave-site. Now the curly green leaves are popping up through the soil that's been bathed in sunlight. Soon the flowers will bloom again. Though nascent, that life will soon be testifying to the new birth of the season, and the hope of resurrection.
Today, on Easter Sunday, we celebrate the physical, historical resurrection of our LORD. More than something that brings a smile and a tear on the holiday itself, the resurrection gives us a real hope. The Scripture is replete with the promise of the life to come; it goes so far as to tell us that the real point of living IS eternity. It is the world [and it's prince] that have taught us to repeat the lies of materialism, body-worship, idol-worship, defeatism, hopelessness, depression, and everything that comes with those Evildoers. The Greeks taught us to think that the next life is something completely mystical - a sort of haze that the spirit will enter and fly around in - and resemble the sunday school images of golden roads and glory so bright you'll grasp for sunglasses. Since they believed the body to be a sort of painful bondage that they spirit is packaged in, the emphasis has slipped completely onto the spiritual man, leaving the body to return to the dust.
But aren't we missing something?
Didn't Mary see Jesus after his death and burial in His body? Didn't Thomas put his hands where the nails had pierced? It was no accident that the prophecy of Psalm 2 was fulfilled in His bodily resurrection: He did not undergo decay. He ascended into the heavens instead, where He now sits at the right hand of the Father Almighty.
"For if we have become united with Him in the likeness of His death, certainly we shall be like Him in His resurrection.." Romans 6:5
We're so good at religious visualization. We see Christ on the cross, dying an agonizing death for us, as the only One who could satisfy the wrath of a Holy God. Can we see Him outside the empty tomb? Do we picture Him victorious, seated at the right hand of God the Father Almighty? Friends, we ought to. For that is where He is right now, at this moment.
He has conquered the grave! That is the blessed news of Easter, beloved of God. What does that mean for you and I when we wake up to a new day? The sun will shine down, smiling on the green grass, and those curly little greens will send up shoots that will bloom in beauty. The tulips tell the Easter story, too. Are you listening?
"Therefore, my brethren, you also were made to die to the Law through the body of Christ, so that you might be joined to another, to Him who was raised from the dead, in order that we might bear fruit for God." Romans 7:4
