By Shirley Rosemarie Evans and Christopher Dryden
Then the men asked, “Why are you looking among the dead for someone who is alive? He isn’t here! He is risen from the dead! Remember what he told you back in Galilee, that the Son of Man must be betrayed into the hands of sinful men and be crucified, and that he would rise again on the third day.”
Luke 24:5-7 ESV
You can understand it, to be fair. The women had seen Him die, they knew He’d been buried and so they were on their way to where they expected the dead. On their arrival, though, they were among the first to get what Jesus had been saying to His friends on numerous occasions. We do not serve a dead hero. We serve the one who is not where you expect the dead – He’s where you expect the risen.
Those who live in Christ, do not live regular lives. Those who live in Christ enjoy the reality of resurrection lives. Here are some ways in which that truth should give us reason to rejoice as well as shape how we live now:
- To resurrect Christ from the dead is to manifest that He alone is sovereign ruling over both life and death. (1 Corinthians 16:54-55).
- Jesus being resurrected from the dead is absolute proof that He is who He says He is that He is the Son of the Living God, the Messiah, fully Deity sharing the attributes of God. (Phil 2)
- The Resurrection is irrefutable proof that He is the Saviour of the world and our hope for Salvation. (Acts 4:12)
- The resurrection of Jesus approves His claim that we too will be resurrected. No other religion can claim they have a Saviour who beat death so that we too can have life after death. (John 11:25-26)
- His resurrection means that we don’t have to work to receive eternal life – Christ has done it all for us. Eternal life is a sure reward as we live in and for Christ. (John 3:16)
- Without the resurrection our faith, our testimonies and our hope would be in vain. We would be still in our sins and there would be nothing beyond the hopelessness of life lived without a Saviour (1 Corinthians 15:13-14).
- His resurrection means we live out our lives in Christ, patiently enduring the trials and afflictions in this life knowing that nothing we face in this life can compare to the eternity Christ has gone to prepare for us (Matthew 24:13).
We know He lives because of the empty tomb. We know He lives because of the witnesses who report His movements and teachings after His death. We know He lives because of those whose lives proclaimed that Jesus is the Risen Lord. We know He lives by faith as we declare and demonstrate how His life makes a difference to us. We know He lives because we have life in the Son.
He has risen and allows us to experience resurrection power today in preparation for the fulfilment of all things on His return. Our understanding of life now can be etched by the experience of eternal life because He has conquered the grave, and He rules forever. There is good reason to rejoice in the resurrection.
Ask: As the women approached the tomb, they did not expect what they saw. Why do people still question the resurrection?
Seek: Reflecting on the resurrection, how does it impact and influence your faith?
Knock: He is risen! Hallelujah! Thank you, Father, for the reality that Jesus conquered the grave and we now have a living hope of eternal life in Him.
(Upper Photo by Pisit Heng on Unsplash)
(Inner Photo by simon wood on Unsplash)
