Resurrection Today

Easter is primarily a celebration of Jesus’ resurrection. Rather like Christmas being a celebration of Jesus’ birth, however, do we stop to do more than recount the narratives telling us about Jesus' resurrection two millennia ago? Why does Jesus’ resurrection matter? How does it impact us? What do we do with it today?

We do well to understand just how life-shattering it was for the disciples to hear Jesus was alive. In one account, the women leave the empty tomb and say nothing to anyone, for they were afraid. In another, they tell the disciples, and Peter and John run to the tomb to check in out. One of them believes, the other is just in shock. We criticize Thomas for not believing the others who have told him of Jesus' eating with them. We overhear the disciples on their road to Emaus not understanding that Jesus was right there with them.

These bits of narration are important for much more than the history they impart. They show that were it not for the resurrection Christianity would have died out with Jesus that Sunday morning. In fact, it had already died. It had died right along with Jesus as the disciples’ struggled with their faith. They had not really grasped what Jesus had been telling them. They were not prepared for his death, though he had told them more than once it was coming. They had not understood Jesus would arise from the grave. They were at a loss to grapple with Jesus’ death before them.

It was only in the light of the resurrection that the disciples understood that Jesus as Messiah had in no means come to embody Israel’s desire for political and military victory over Rome. It was only with resurrection that the disciples understood they were to allow God’s Reign to live in them and through them without waiting for some other time or some other time. Resurrection shifted the Messianic hope from a political reality to a reality ignoring the limitations of politics. It shifted the reach of God’s Reign far beyond one nation. It empowered the disciples, the church, to go forward in the power of God’s Breath to bring new life into this world.

Sure, resurrection also indicates something of eternity and a heavenly realm in which we may be included. That was not the focus of the disciples, however. They were concerned with how they were to allow resurrection to change their immediate community. It took them from a ragged band of men hiding behind closed doors to becoming leaders of a community living out the principles of God’s Reign Jesus had been preaching. They shared their worldly goods with one another on the basis of need. They gathered in one another’s homes for encouragement, for growth, for fellowship, for study. They allowed their relationships to be transformed as they gave themselves over to God’s Reign here on earth.

Resurrection freed Jesus from the limitations of a single human body that could only be present in one location at a time. Resurrection welcomed God’s Breath onto and within the entire congregation of believers, empowering them to become ambassadors of God’s Reign. Resurrection empowered the church to take up our mission to represent God wherever we chance to be. Resurrection grants us the power to live and lean toward spiritual perfection. It demonstrates God’s ultimate victory over our greatest enemy and fear—death.

As God has overcome death in resurrection, I can be confident in God’s indwelling power that enables me to live as Christ taught. I am freed and empowered to love as God who gave himself on our behalf. I am freed to give even my very life, knowing that I am safe in God’s care.



— ©Copyright 2023, Christopher B. Harbin 



http://www.sermonsearch.com/contributors/104427/

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