This is the holiest night of the year! It is the night we celebrate which saw Christ rising from the dead! Our entire faith; our entire past, our entire present, our entire future depended and depends upon the fact of this very real event!
If Christ was not raised from the dead – then everything he ever said or did would have proven worthless and useless. For Jesus did not come simply to be a good man, an ethical man, a teacher, a healer – there were already plenty of those around; he came to be our Savior – something no one else in the history of civilization was, is or will be qualified to do! He was the God-Man! He was the only one able to reconcile the situation caused by the sin of Adam.
In the Easter Proclamation tonight we heard sung of the "happy fault" of Adam, which wrought for us so great a redeemer! Because of the sin of Adam we now have come to know Christ – to know his love – to know his power – to know his intention for us to be united with him in his Body the Church, as it exists now on earth and as it will forever in heaven!
And so – it is true! Christ was raised from the dead by the working of the Holy Spirit at the bidding of God his Father!
Now the life of resurrection that Jesus experienced that night in the garden is not the same human life that he had before his death, simply restored: it is a newness of life! A newness of human life! A human life made up now of a spiritual soul and a spiritual body, rather than a spiritual soul and a material body! Jesus is the first-born of the new creation that awaits each of us! This is amazing and fantastic news! This is GOOD NEWS!
This was God the Father's will and plan all along – his plan in sending Jesus would restore us to original blessedness – but things would be even greater than before because we would have the very life of Jesus abiding in us forever! How more fantastic and awesome could anything be than that!
We can and we must spend our lives being grateful to God for what he has done for us! And the way we show our gratitude and our love – the only way that makes any sense is by loving everyone that God puts in our path each day! If we can't and don't love them – who are also redeemed by Christ's love, death and resurrection – then we can't and don't really love God – and we are ungrateful creatures!
Let us be the sons and daughters of freedom that we are – made so by the death and glorious resurrection of our Lord and Brother, Jesus Christ! Let us rejoice in our place of membership in the communion of saints: our brothers and sisters who, like us, are loved beyond all telling by God the Father, God the Son and God the Holy Spirit!
All glory and praise to God, forever!
Amen. Alleluia! Alleluia! Alleluia!
No comments:
Post a Comment