Easter Reflections: Resurrection Sunday!

Easter Sunday is the day of Jesus’ Resurrection!! Death has been overcome, and Jesus’ predictions/promises regarding His death on the Cross have become realized — because after 3 days, He has raised Himself just as He said He would, as proof that He is the Son of God He claimed to be (i.e. Matthew 16:21). Jesus sits at the right hand of the Father, and has sent the Holy Spirit upon us, to live in our hearts, to remind us of all He has taught us, and to empower us to make disciples of all nations in His Name.

(1) In Him, we have forgiveness of our sins and access to the perfect love of the Father. It doesn’t matter how far gone you have been or are — in fact, the more conscious or aware you are of your own depravity, your own inability to justify yourself, the quicker and easier it may be for you to go to Jesus and receive the true redemption and reconciliation His blood alone can provide. When I am feeling lost, I need only remember from what depths and hopelessness and despair over life God called me, and I am once again reassured and set back in my right mind, my only boast being that of how great is the love of the Father, who is able to save humanity in its depravity, even myself.

Jesus answered, “I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.” (John 14:6)

“But now a righteousness from God, apart from the law, has been made known, to which the Law and the Prophets testify. This righteousness from God comes through faith in Jesus Christ to all who believe. There is no difference, for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God and are justified freely by his grace through the redemption that came by Chirst Jesus.” (Romans 3:21-24)

“Therefore, there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus, because through Christ Jesus the law of the Spirit of life set me free from the law of sin and death. For what the law was powerless to do in that it was weakened by the sinful nature, God did by sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful man to be a sin offering. And so he condemned sin in sinful man, in order that the righteous requirements of the law might be fully met in us, who do not live according to the sinful nature but according to the Spirit.” (Romans 8:1-4)

(2) In Him, we are Overcomers…of enslavement to our sinful nature and of the power of death. Forever and always, joined now on the winning side, we are overcomers in this life and for eternity. But not in the “worldly sense” that our natural inclinations as human beings would understand overcoming to mean, as though there is now no trouble or grief to be faced on this side of Heaven. There must be a sense of having died to to the desires of the flesh in that we no longer live for the approval of man, nor for our stomachs and the seeking after pleasure and comfort as though they are worth living for. There is a higher calling, a higher way of living — when we seek after Him with all of our hearts and all of our strength, even to the point of a willingness to die to the world, we find that we actually end up finding life and living life, and having life to the full.

“I have told you these things, so that in me you may have peace. In this world you will have trouble. But take heart! I have overcome the world.” (John 16:33)

“If anyone would come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross and follow me. For whoever wants to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for me will find it. What good will it be for a man if he gains the whole world, yet forfeits his soul? Or what can a man give in exchange for his soul?” (Matthew 16:24-26)

“I tell you the truth, I am the gate for the sheep…I am the gate; whoever enters through me will be saved. He will come in and go out, and find pasture. The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy; I have come that they may have life, and have it to the full.” (John 10:7-10)

(3) In Him, we are commissioned to live in and for Him.

To live in Him is to believe in Him: In John 6:29, Jesus explains that, “The work of God is this: to believe in the one he has sent” (John 6:29). To believe in the one he has sent is to believe in Jesus and all that He claimed about Himself — that He was indeed the Son of God, the Messiah, the Savior of the world…sent to earth to be crucified for the forgiveness of our sins, so that we may be reconciled to the Father through repentance and reliance on Jesus’ work of redemption on our behalf. If we believe Jesus not only came to die for this stated purpose, but that He indeed was God and able to accomplish this purpose, then we also believe that His resurrection from death after the designated 3 days is proof and the actualization of Jesus’ victory over the power of sin and death. And we believe that in Him, we no longer need to succumb to the power of sinful nature in our own lives, in how we conduct ourselves…and we also no longer need to fear death, because we know now that our earthly death is a mere passageway into an eternity in Heaven!

To Go and make disciples of all nations:

In Matthew and Mark, Jesus ends His post-resurrection appearances to His disciples with what is known as the Great Commission:

Then Jesus came to them and said, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age.” (Matthew 28:18-20)

He said to them, “Go into all the world and preach the gospel to all creation. whoever believes and is baptized will be saved, but whoever does not believe will be condemned. And these signs will accompany those who believe: In my name they will drive out demons; they will speak in new tongues; they will pick up snakes with their hands; and when they drink deadly poison, it will not hurt them at all; they will place their hands on sick people, and they will get well.” (Mark 16:15-18)

Jesus’ work on the Cross has been completed, but the mission of the Cross has just begun: Jesus is after disciples of all nations, to so many more people who do not yet know the good news that in Him and through Him, everyone may now come and be reconciled to God. This is the mission He has entrusted to His people — at that time, to His disciples who followed Him to the end…and today, to us His disciples who desire now to be used by Him to spread the good news.

I wonder though, sometimes, how well we understand this good news. I know personally, I am so far from feeling competent as a minister of the Gospel in regards to the Great Commission, and can be much too unconfident — and therefore likely unconvincing? — in communicating who Jesus is to people who don’t yet know Him… Rather than a cause for despair, I stand confident (for myself and all believers out there!) that our confidence and competence will come from God, Himself, as long as we allow Him to continue cultivating and growing this desire in our hearts to be used by Him: “Such confidence as this is ours through Christ before God. Not that we are competent in ourselves to claim anything for ourselves, but our competence comes from God. He has made us competent as ministers of a new covenant–not of the letter but of the Spirit; for the letter kills, but the Spirit gives life” (2 Corinthians 3:4-6; see also The Ministry of Reconciliation, 2 Corinthians 5:14-21).

To feed and take care of His sheep:

In John 21:15-19, Jesus reinstates Peter from his three denials by asking him 3 times, “Do you love me?” And with each “Yes, Lord,” Jesus asks him to then “Feed my lambs” (v.15), “Take care of my sheep” (v.16), and “Feed my sheep” (v.17). The way we are to act on our love for Jesus, if we indeed truly believe in Him and desire to worship Him and serve Him with the remainder of our lives, is to express this love in taking care of and feeding His sheep… Who are His sheep? All whom Jesus calls to Himself, and desires still to reach out to and call to Himself. Because like us, their only hope for reconciliation to the Father, and their only way of overcoming the power of sin and death over their lives, is through Jesus! We are to care for one another, and to reach out to and care for others, in Jesus’ Name…such that we may nurture their faith in Christ, that they may hold true and persevere even when holding on to faith is challenged whether by life circumstances or by persecution. We must do this for one another, understanding the sacred work it has become because it is what Jesus Himself asks of us, the practical outworking with our hands of the message we are entrusted to testify to and preach with our words. Service and care go hand and hand with the message of the Great Commission.