His Resurrection Helps Me Today

From Tim Hunt:

I was thinking recently that it seems as though our holidays have seasons. Thanksgiving and Christmas each have their own “season”, as it were, of remembering and celebrating. However, Easter often gets relegated to celebrating and remembering just the one day. This year Easter has proved to be a little different. No doubt in part due to this season of virus which has now finished its 4th week.

For one thing, it has had a more prolonged and enlightening impact on my celebration. As I have meditated on the resurrection and some of the implications of Jesus raising from the dead, it has resulted in a conviction of soul, a granting of the fruit of repentance and a reorienting of my thinking.

What I noticed these last two weeks of quarantine is that after being laid off by my employer and having no prospects of work in the near future, my “anxious” thoughts were a result of being diverted from His great and precious promises, of who I am in Christ and who it is that has placed me in Him, to a bleak financial future. But reflection on the resurrection has reminded me that not only do we have a greater hope in the future eternal life, rooted in the fact that Christ did not remain in the tomb, but I have, right now in this moment, been given new life because of his resurrection.

John 11 is the record of Lazarus’ story, and Jesus teaches us some amazing truths. When Martha confirms her belief in Jesus and a future hope of bodily resurrection, Jesus proclaims that he IS the resurrection and the life. He gives her (and us) a bigger picture of who he is by addressing not only the future life but life, real life, abundant life, here in the present moment. Martha was having trouble seeing this reality, that the life we all seek but fail to grasp because of deceitful hearts, is found right in front of her in the very person of Jesus.

Romans 6:4 reminds us that his resurrection has much bigger implications than we can imagine. Especially during this Corona season. Christ being raised from the dead through the glory of the Father allows us to walk or live now in a life that is new and radically different from the one we were living. Since we are in Christ, ALL things have been made new.

If you examine the words of Jesus in his command to the mourners, “unbind him and let him go”, you see that we also were once dead spiritually and by virtue of the effectual call, “Lazarus, come forth”, have been given faith to believe in Jesus, and have received this new life. We are now no longer bound by our old grave clothes, that which imprisoned us and controlled us. We are now free to live life in relationship to the life-giver and the one from whom the river of life flows. This is my reality. I am no longer bound by what I used to find my security in. It has been dissolved in the resurrection and been replaced by something, someone, more secure.

Resurrection life is not only our great hope for the future, but is our inheritance for this moment, even in today’s crises. And it is found only in the person and work of our great God and Savior Jesus Christ.

Till Christ is all we need. For He is risen indeed!