He is not here: for He is risen, as he said. Come see the place where the Lord lay. –Matthew 28:6
Thy dead men shall live; together with my dead body shall they arise. Awake and sing, ye that dwell in dust: for thy dew is as the dew of herbs, and the earth shall cast out the dead. — Isaiah 26:19
For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever believes in Him shall not perish but shall have everlasting life. — John 3:16
It is Easter. And it is at this time that we remember and celebrate Christ’s rising from the dead. It is at this time that we remember Christ walking out of the tomb into the glorious dawn of eternal life.
We remember Christ. And from His rising, we rest assured that we, too, eventually, at some time to come, will rise from the dead, be freed from death, and live in eternal glory with God.
But why wait? Why hope for an eventuality, when the moment is now for us to resurrect from our own many present deaths?
Pride is death. Let us rise from the tomb of pride into the Easter day of humility.
Pretension and vanity are deaths. Let us rise from the tomb of pretensions and vanity, and rise into the new day of grace and contriteness.
Hatred, stoking fear, and exploiting the pent up anger and insecurities of others to feed our sense of self-importance, these, too, are deaths, and now is the moment to rise from the tomb of hatred and anger and of insecurities to shine in the Easter day of loving each other, respecting each other, and affirming the value and humanity of each one of us as children of God.
Cursing, cussing, ascribing evil on others, seeking convenience and self-interests, rather than justice and just ways, these are deaths. Let us rise from the tomb of cursing and injustice into the new Easter day of liberation.
Loneliness is death. Unhappiness is death. Let us rise from the tomb of loneliness and unhappiness, and enter the bright new day of fellowship and joy.
Tyranny is death. Fear is death. Let us rise from the tomb of tyranny and fear, and bask in the new Easter day of fearless democracy.
Not believing in Christ is death. Let us rise from the tomb of unbelief, and shine in the glorious day of everlasting life.
Let us rise from the tombs of so many deaths in our lives, and face the glorious resurrection day of our liberating and eternal grace.
This Easter morning, Christ’s resurrection is not so much the issue. He is eternal life, and He will never die. Death cannot keep Christ in the tomb. What is more the issue are our resurrections. Are we able to rise from the tombs of our sinfulness, insensitivities, unbelief, and deaths of our souls, and rise and shine in the new dawn of our eternal Easter?
Would we be able to shift our gaze from the face of fear and the tomb of death, and gaze instead on the face of faith, and rise into the shining day of eternal life in Christ?
Friends, this Easter morning, let us all remember: “God so loved the world that He gave us His only begotten son, Jesus Christ, that whosoever believes in Him shall not perish but shall have eternal life.”
And so I say, let us believe, and let us all rise and shine into the resurrection morning of eternal life in Christ!
