August 9, 2007

“’But God raised him from the dead, freeing him from the agony of death, because it was impossible for death to keep its hold on him.’” Acts 2:24.
Peter proclaims that, while all of humanity sought to kill Jesus and keep Him in the land of the dead, God raised Him from the sin-induced “agony of death”. Peter was making his proclamation to the large crowd of festival-goers in Jerusalem that morning so long ago, and God has been making this proclamation down through the centuries. Jesus could not be contained by the grave! He was made alive again, but not in His old body. He was raised from the dead in a new, glorious body! While death was the evil intention of those in the religious and political establishment, God, in His deeper plan, used Jesus’ death for other, ultimate purposes.
In my last writing, we were confronted with the responsibility of Jesus’ death. As hard as that is to believe (“How could we be responsible for His death?”), this week, we are confronted with something much harder to grasp, intellectually. We are confronted with Jesus being raised from the dead. We call this “the resurrection”, and it is the most outstanding, central event in all of history. And yet, most of humanity struggles believing that it could have happened. It is so hard for our minds to get around the concept of someone coming back to life, after they have died, especially after dying such a brutal death as did Jesus. Faith and trust become key ingredients for acknowledging Jesus’ resurrection.
For me, while I believe in the resurrection of Jesus from the dead, it is mostly an intellectual decision that I choose to believe. Unlike Peter and the other early followers of Jesus, I did not have the “luxury” of witnessing first hand Jesus’ ministry among them and then to witness His death, burial, and resurrection. Nor did you, unless you are quite a bit older than me! And yet, as followers of Jesus, many people choose to believe in a literal resurrection of Jesus. And through the centuries, many believers placed their lives quite literally on the line because they chose to believe in Jesus’ resurrection.
What do you think of the resurrection of Jesus? How significant is it in your life? Take some time today to reflect and to remember that the grave could not hold Jesus down and that God raised Him to new life!