Our Ultimate Hooray
How can we be so certain that we will be resurrected? What is the source of our assurance? What gives us unshakable confidence in the face of death? The fact of Christ’s Resurrection.
Like the narratives of Christ's birth, the accounts of His crucifixion and resurrection are so familiar that we can miss the full intensity of the unexpected event. Though Jesus warned His disciples, they were not at all prepared for the trauma of His death or the shock of His Resurrection. Because we know the outcome, it's hard for us to identify with what they must have felt.
Although we may wish we could have been present at Jesus' birth, who wishes to have seen His cruel, torturous death? Few want to read the details of what He suffered. We've sanitized Easter with aromatic lilies and colourful eggs.
But we must know exactly why the Father let His Son hang on the cross and why Jesus chose not to escape it. We need to grasp the glory of His resurrection. What blending of love and power can we see in these events? It's almost as if Jesus could hear the tearful praises of future believers singing:
My sin—O, the bliss of this glorious tho't—
My sin—not in part, but the whole,
Is nailed to the cross, and I bear it no more,
Praise the Lord, praise the Lord, O my soul!1
We hope these resources will help you better understand what really happened when Jesus died and rose from the dead, why there was no other alternative, and why it makes all the difference today!
¹Horatio Spafford, “It Is Well with My Soul.”
How can we be so certain that we will be resurrected? What is the source of our assurance? What gives us unshakable confidence in the face of death? The fact of Christ’s Resurrection.
When John arrived, he stopped at the entrance and looked inside. Peter ran straight into the tomb and was shocked by what he saw. Joining Peter inside the tomb, I like to think that John whispered, “He’s alive!”
Recently while thinking of the glorious message of the Resurrection, I found myself suddenly overwhelmed with the music that has accompanied the subject of the empty tomb for centuries. Various scenes crossed my mind.
If Christ did not come back to life, then those who put their trust in Him have absolutely no hope. It’s as simple as that. But...He did come back to life, and now His followers get to experience all the hope that resurrection offers.
There is something altogether reassuring about Easter morning. When Christians gather in houses of worship and lift their voices in praise to the risen Redeemer, the demonic hosts of hell and their damnable prince of darkness are temporarily paralyzed.
In that single word rests a whole new world beckoning our participation. Death has been defeated. Newfound meaning and joy replace the minute-after-minute-after-minute monotony of ceaseless sweating and striving...all because God is now at hand!
Christ’s Resurrection means believers too shall be raised—there is unimaginable dessert coming! But some believers may not be aware that’s not all it means. There’s more than just pie in the sky when we die.
We dare not allow Easter to pass without sufficiently rejoicing in and declaring our hope. It is Jesus Christ—the miraculously resurrected Son of God—who remains the object of our worship and the subject of our praise.
In John 20:24–30, John described the stirring scene when Jesus appeared to His disciples—except for Thomas—following His Resurrection. Naturally, they were huddled in a closed room in fear for their lives.
Had Christ not taken a drastic step, sinners like us would’ve never survived the fall. We would never have been rescued. We would be permanently lost. The cross was God’s incredible response to our extreme dilemma. Christ did something radical.