Journey To The Cross | Easter & Lent Devotional Sample

I Am the Resurrection

By Ken Shigematsu

In John 11, Jesus received news that his friend Lazarus was very sick. When he finally arrived in Bethany, Lazarus had already died. Jesus said to Martha, “I am the resurrection and the life. The one who believes in me will live, even though they die; and whoever lives by believing in me will never die” (vv.25–26). Then Jesus approached the tomb and said, “Lazarus, come out!” (v. 43). And Lazarus came out in his grave clothes. The raising of Lazarus from the dead was a glimpse of something else that was to come.

On a Friday, Jesus was nailed to the cross, absorbing our sins into himself so that we could be forgiven and made clean in God’s sight. And on that first Easter Sunday morning, God raised Jesus from the dead, conquering death. This is why the apostle Paul could say, “Where, O death, is your victory? Where, O death, is your sting?” (1 Cor. 15:55).

The poet George Herbert wrote, “Thy curse being laid on him, makes thee accursed. . . . Spare not, do thy worst. I shall be one day better than before.” Herbert is saying to death that death's curse has been laid on Christ—our sins and the judgment for those sins, including eternal death, were laid on Christ on the cross (see Gal. 3:13). Because Christ took the curse for us on the cross, death is cursed. Because he voluntarily entered the grave, we can come out. Because he was made ugly on the cross, we can be made dazzlingly beautiful.

The true message of Easter is that there is a world to come beyond death, where our greatest potential will be fulfilled and where we will be united with loved ones. If we entrust our lives to the Christ, God will raise us one day from the dead. He will not only make us new, but he will also renew this earth.

If God will one day renew this Earth, then every prayer, every act of love and kindness, every work of art or music inspired by the love of God, every act of care for the earth, will somehow find its way into the new creation that God will one day bring about. If there is a resurrection not only of our bodies but of the world to come, then Easter makes a world of difference.

Ken Shigematsu is pastor of Tenth Church in Vancouver, BC, and the author of God in My Everything.

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