Easter is coming up and is quickly becoming my favorite "holiday" or rather time of year. There are many reasons for this. In school it meant that summer was quickly approaching, a good meal with Grandma PB was imminent, time with family and friends, Reese's peanut butter eggs (Keri's favorite) and my birthday is several weeks away. These are things that people look forward to, someone of them more foolish than others but still things that put a little jump in your step. However, over the past few years my thinking has been changed.
I still look forward to those things mentioned above but within my soul there is something that is shouting for joy. Christ's resurrection. I have known since I was a child that the stone was rolled away and he was not there. The familiar greeting in church "He Is Risen" was always fun to say as a child. But now by process of something else, Christ's resurrection has taken a new hold in my heart. It started my senior year of high school.
I decided to participate in Talents For Christ. This is a competition where teenagers prepare different presentations, lessons and musical pieces for judging but above all for the Glory of God. I tackled Oral Interpretation of Scripture. I was to memorize a passage of scripture that was 8 to 10 minutes in length and present it with a dramatic interpretation. Being a high schooler and not really having a clue I started looking through my Bible, reading passages and timing them. I tried several well known ones but they were either too long or too short! I finally came across 1 Corinthians 15. It was about 9 min and 30 sec in length, it had great flow and a dramatic finish. Exactly what I was looking for. It's interesting how God works some times. I did not understand everything in that passage and I still don't but the journey of realization of scripture through memorization was amazing.
I have had this passage memorized for over 6 years now and when I talk through it in my head I still notice and learn and am encouraged by different aspects of it.
All of this leading up to say that I love the Easter season because of the hope of Christ's resurrection and what it means for me as a believer. This world is not the end, this physical body is not the end, this life is not the end. It says "that we shall all be changed". Christ's resurrection was a foretaste of what is going to happen to every individual that has ever lived. But let me be clear. That does not mean that everyone who has ever lived will go to heaven. Everyone who has ever lived will live for eternity either in heaven or in the Lake of Fire described in Revelation. Christ talked about this is John chapter 5.
"Do not marvel at this; for the hour is coming in which all who are in the graves will hear His voice and come forth—those who have done good, to the resurrection of life, and those who have done evil, to the resurrection of condemnation." - John 5:28,29
1 Corinthians 15 covers the Gospel in the first few verses, moves to witnesses of the resurrection, talks about God's grace in the life of the believer (1 Cor. 15:10). It moves into a logical argument of why the resurrection must be true to validate the Christian faith. It describes the resurrection, how the body is sown in corruption but raised in in-corruption, it is sown a natural body but it is raised a spiritual body. And it ends with the triumph of Christ over death and hades. Christ is the one who gives us the victory, only Him and nothing else.
The final commendation by Paul to his readers is to stand firm, be abounding, and to be faithful in the Work of the Lord. This is how I am trying to live my life.
Easter is in approximately 2 weeks and there will be many activities that will be going on but in my heart I will be rejoicing with Paul as he wrote in 1 Corithians 15. Christ is risen and without His resurrection everything would be in vain. But we can rejoice because Christ has risen, indeed He has. My question to you is, do you believe it? And if you do, have you placed your faith and trust in the work of Jesus Christ, His death and His resurrection? If you have done that, you can rejoice as well this Easter saying, "He Is Risen".
"Jesus said to her, “I am the resurrection and the life. He who believes in Me, though he may die, he shall live. And whoever lives and believes in Me shall never die. Do you believe this?”" - John 11:25
Try and keep up.
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