Easter

April 17, 2022

Delightfully, Easter is one of the more historically credible events in the Gospels. We can quibble over the details, but the broad fact of the resurrection is pretty sure. Something has to explain why the early followers of Jesus continued to follow him after he was brutally crucified. The best explanation? He didn’t stay dead, but was resurrected.

This in itself points to how world altering the resurrection is. If the resurrection is true, the way we live is transformed. The rules of the world, the “way the world is,” is no longer the way things really are. Death is the ultimate “the way the world is,” but now death is not final!

Out of death flow a lot of implications. “I can’t trust that tribe, because they might attack us. I have to protect myself!” “I must enslave her, because then my position in life will be more secure, and I will be insulated from death.” “I can’t associate with him, because that would hinder my social standing, and my social standing is important for my lifestyle. My lifestyle keeps me far away from death.” “I have to steal, because I’m an inch away from death.” “I’m so close to death all the time that the only way for me to be free from the stress is alcohol and getting drunk.” On and on it goes. Death underlies much, if not all, of our sin, even if we normally ignore it.

But the resurrection is the overcoming of death. We don’t have to be afraid of death—we are awaiting the same resurrection Jesus experienced! We don’t have to live like death is final, because it isn’t! We can love our neighbor, we can pick up our cross, we can face life with all its problems, because we have the promise of life and, even now, eternal life!

Galatians talks about the “elemental spirits of the world,” which we have been freed from in Christ. First Corinthians talks about how every ruler and every authority and power will be destroyed by Christ, with the last enemy to be destroyed being death (1Cor. 15.24-26). The resurrection of Christ is the beginning of this victory, even as the final victory will be won at the final resurrection. 

Putting these ideas together, death is one of the things in the world that shapes how we live. It enslaves us, because we can’t see any way around it. But in Christ, we have been freed from slavery to death. We don’t have to live the way death demands we live. We can live in light of the resurrection instead! 

The final resurrection will bring about new creation (even as Jesus’s resurrection initiated it). We will live together in peace and harmony, because we will live out the will and reign of God. Yet, “if anyone is in Christ, there is a new creation: everything old has passed away; see, everything has become new!” (2Cor. 5.17). As we will live then, let us begin living now.

—John Coffey