Resurrection Day

Ephes. 2:1-7 (ESV)
And you were dead in the trespasses and sins
[2] in which you once walked, following the course of this world, following the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that is now at work in the sons of disobedience— [3] among whom we all once lived in the passions of our flesh, carrying out the desires of the body and the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, like the rest of mankind. [4] But God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us, [5] even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ— by grace you have been saved— [6] and raised us up with him and seated us with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, [7] so that in the coming ages he might show the immeasurable riches of his grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus.
You were dead. It is a word so cold and brutal. And yet so true is it in its spiritual diagnosis. We lay in the dust of death, like Isaiah’s vision of dry bones; we can do nothing but lay in silence.
“I am the Resurrection and the Life.” (John 11:25) Jesus said these words against the doubt and uncertainty of life when death seemed to have the last word. On the human side, death’s pangs have a certain finality to it. The body goes back to the dirt it came from and the intense ache in the stomach of love’s bereavement is all too “real” to imagine anything different. This is the curse of sin, and the last enemy, which speaks so strongly to us mortals.
Yet, we are rooted in a greater reality, if we truly belong to Christ. Come Easter, we join the chorus of a sacred company that gives testimony to something grand and glorious. We will join the company of Job who longed to see his Redeemer in his physical body (Job19:24). We stand with Martha and Mary who saw and embraced a brother walk from a tomb, with the aroma of new life (John 11:44). We stand with the company of 500 witnesses who knew that Gospel was true because they saw the Resurrected Jesus (1 Cor. 15:6). This is the truth of what we embrace in the reality of Christ’s power and glory in His Resurrection. Many who’ve heard this story since childhood or listened with causal interest in countless sermons, the Easter message is old hat, or just another special day for family dinner. To such, the reality of this life-changing truth has not possessed their soul, nor captured their heart. For the same power that raised Jesus is promised to those who commit their lives to Christ (Eph. 2:4). This is resurrection reality as it bears relevance for our daily lives. It is as much a present and living experience as it is a future hope.
Think what Job had in being the oldest testimony of this precious hope. Job is considered by many scholars to be the oldest book in the Bible. The commentary of the English Standard Version of the Bible states:
“Considered both a theological and a literary masterpiece, the book of Job is an honest discussion of why God allows good people to suffer. The test of Job’s faith, allowed by God in response to a challenge from Satan, revealed God’s loving sovereignty and the supremacy of divine wisdom over human wisdom (personified by Job’s four friends). Believing that God is good despite the apparent evidence to the contrary, Job rested in faith alone. In the depths of agony he could still proclaim, “I know that my Redeemer lives” (19:25). In the end God silenced all discussion with the truth that he alone is wise” (chs. 38–41).
Join the company of those who know this power and long to praise their Redeemer this Sunday. For this is a good day as is every first day of the week to be reminded of this most important truth about what gives us hope and gives us power for living life, in the face of a world blindly pursuing the “dust of death.”