The Urgent Reality of the Resurrection

It’s urgent that you listen carefully to this: Anyone here who believes what I am saying right now and aligns himself with the Father, who has in fact put me in charge, has at this very moment the real, lasting life and is no longer condemned to be an outsider. This person has taken a giant step from the world of the dead to the world of the living. It’s urgent that you get this right: The time has arrived—I mean right now!—when dead men and women will hear the voice of the Son of God and, hearing, will come alive. John 5:24–25 The MESSAGE

Easter was this past Sunday, but the reality of the resurrection infuses my life today. Does it yours? You see, the resurrection is not simply a ticket for another time and another place, but a reality today and tomorrow — a thousand times today, a thousand times tomorrow.

One of the stories of Easter is that of two men walking away from Jerusalem in pain and hopeless disappointment because hope for them had been crucified. Yet in the midst of their hopelessness, the risen Jesus came and walked beside them. Even as they were unaware that it was he, Jesus listened to their story, was present in their pain, stopped with them, ate with them and then revealed himself; revealed the hope and joy that had unbeknownst to them been present long before they recognized him.

I suspect that is how it is for so many. Walking in pain, wondering if the plans that they made were in vain. Concern, worry, hopelessness and fear close companions; all the while, Jesus is walking alongside, risen, victor — the restorer of hope and a future. The risen Jesus puts hope back where it is intended to be – in the present and in the future. The impossible is made possible in his life. Death no longer has the final say. The powers that line up under the power of death — cancer, divorce, broken relationships, fear, the unknown — no longer have the final say because Jesus defeated death — and all the powers that are under it.

Jesus is alive so that we might have hope, so that we might be freed of the fear that keeps us from living the life that we were meant to life.

Are you living that life now? Is your life all you thought that it would be? Or are you stuck. Do you feel like you are going through the motions “is this all there is?”

What about hope? Have you lost hope somewhere along the way? Has hope become a past tense word? In your marriage, in your job, in your health, in your family, in your faith?

That’s why Easter is the most important day of your year, of your life. Jesus who was dead is now fully alive with the keys to death and hopelessness in his hands, comes alongside you. Breathe! The breath of life that you were always intended to breath.

On the cross Jesus bought life for the dead. In his life, he demonstrated what that life looks like. In his resurrection, he gave us the power to live it.