The resurrection of Jesus really doesn’t matter if His death on the cross and entombment had not occurred. Because without the death who needs resurrection? That may seem obvious but I think many of us live in the “DUH!” of it without a glimmer of understanding of what it really means. We go about our Easter weekend focused on the glory of that Sunday morning each of us relating to it from our own sense of fun and holiday and spiritual depth.
To those who live in pain and sorrow, despair and desperation, death would be much preferred over resurrection. To those in the mundane dribble of daily survival as well as those who live to purchase one new thing and accrue a larger pile of wealth, resurrection doesn’t offer them any more than what they already know in spite of grandiose and selfish schemes. As long as life as they know it now is good or adequate or at least not as bad as someone else they know who cares?
It is after all difficult at best to envision something other than what we experience now.
Jesus changed that. In his life we gained a new vision of what could be. Those who followed him, believed him, were then as now subject to derision from the scoffers who couldn’t see past the life they currently led. That is why there had to be death experienced, time in the darkness of the grave, and THEN resurrection. Only when the silence of currant life is felt can the joyful sounds of resurrection praise be experienced.
This is a key spiritual law. It is a natural law in the growing of seeds. And Jesus knew that He too would only bring the true healing of God to a dying world by living out this law in His Story of redemption.
Most Christians take seriously the week leading up to the resurrection Sunday, as well they should. They wave palm branches, walk the “stations of the cross”, and contemplate the horrors of the abuse the Savior took. The day of waiting and rest in the tomb is more difficult. The drama and action of the days before hold ones attention, capture the imagination and help us identify in our own coping with the evil in this world. But there is nothing of that in the tomb. No tongues creating sounds of derision, praise, or prayer. No tiny light shining hope. No movement or breath to disturb the acrid air. Human nature feels the panic rise, the claustrophobia start to close in. Smothering chokes the emerging screams. And yet that is where the Creator of that Human nature, the one who came clothed in it lay- Dead.
If it had all ended there we would have had no hope of anything better no matter what a mind chose to believe. But being there was important and as much a part of the victory as was the day after when the power of God blew away that grave and with it the power of the panic, the claustrophobia and the choke of death. We cannot take for granted that it would have made nearly as much difference though if that day of waiting rest had not occurred.
In the living that I do I know that I will also do some dying- letting go some cherished dream, feeling another steal what is rightfully mine, giving of myself for another’s good, postponing my well-being in my head long drive to find love—I can rest because Jesus did. I can endure the silence, the lack of progress, the waiting. And like that wonderful day when Jesus rose, I too will rise in Him and having learned to rest will step out of my “tomb” , through the door made by Divine power. Resurrection day is a day to do that! It is time to live and move and be all that Creator Father planned when He made his good plans for me!
Praise God for the Resurrection Power. Praise God it is worth waiting in the tomb and resting til it comes!