Resurrection: Hope in the Midst of SufferingSample

Today the world celebrates Resurrection. Christians are excited to step into the open. What a stark contrast to that first Sunday when all the disciples hid away without any hope. The disciples would’ve considered Silent Saturday to be the beginning of a deafening eternal silence. And it would’ve remained so had they not encountered the Risen Lord.

Philosopher Immanuel Kant believed that the only way life is livable is if there is life after death. If all ends in the tomb then both Hitler and Mother Teresa ended up the same. Could we say the same of their lives? How unlivable is such a world! Knowing there is a hereafter instils one with that unparalleled hope that evil will be undone and justice will reign. Christ broke through the tomb heralding the victory of the innocent, the defeat of death, the conquering of sin and the justification of the world. To live without this hope is to cease living.

How do we know if Jesus actually rose? The three facts surrounding Jesus’ resurrection are: the empty tomb, post-mortem appearances and the origin of the belief in His resurrection. If the empty tomb was a lie it makes no sense to place women as the prime eye-witness, for the Jewish 1st century mindset discarded women’s testimony as unreliable, unless the tomb was indeed empty. Even sceptics Gerd Lüdemann and Bart Ehrman believe that the disciples experienced witnessing the Risen Jesus. And why would the disciples 1) believe contrary to all Jewish expectations that their blaspheming Messiah was resurrected by God and 2) go on to be martyrs for the belief if they ‘knew’ directly that this was a lie? The best explanation for these and other facts is clear: Jesus was resurrected by God.

This bedrock of Christianity is not based on fables but on the historical fact that Jesus defeated sin and death. It transformed the disbelieving timid disciples into giants of faith. What the Risen Lord offers is without kin. Jesus’ question to Martha in John 11 prompted the late Hitchens to confide that “it is not without appeal to a dying man” (Larry Tauton, ‘The Faith of Christopher Hitchens’).

The powerful appeal of His victory reverberates throughout history and we find yet another opportunity today to remind ourselves of that everlasting hope we possess. We’ve been moved from hopeless end to endless hope because of Christ’s insurmountable victory. All praise unto the Lamb who was slain.

Application Questions:

• Reflect upon the glorious vindication of the Son by the Father through the Resurrection.
• Take a moment to introspect your life: Do I live daily as one who has been begotten into the lively hope on account of our Risen Lord?
• Surrender yourself in prayer, and seek His face so that you may live out loud the hope you have inherited, beckoning many into the life everlasting you possess.