What gives a widow courage as she stands beside a fresh grave? What is the ultimate hope of the disabled, the amputee, the abused, the burn victim? How can the parents of children who have brain-damage or physical handicaps keep from living their entire lives totally and completely depressed? Why would anyone who is blind or deaf or paralyzed be encouraged when he or she thinks of the life beyond? How can we see past the martyrdom of some helpless hostage or devoted missionary? Where do the thoughts of a young couple go when they finally recover from the grief of losing their baby?
When a family receives the tragic news that a little daughter was found dead or their dad was killed in a plane crash or a son overdosed on drugs, what single truth becomes their whole focus?
What is the final answer to pain, mourning, senility, insanity, terminal diseases, sudden calamities, and fatal accidents?
The answer to each of these questions is the same: the hope of bodily resurrection.
We draw strength from this single truth almost every day of our lives—more than we realize. It becomes the mental glue that holds our otherwise shattered thoughts together. Impossible though it may be for us to understand the details of how God is going to pull it off, we hang our hopes on fragile, threadlike thoughts that say, “Someday, He will make it right” and “Thank God, all this will change” and “When we’re with Him, we shall be like Him.”
More than a few times a year I look into red, swollen eyes and remind the despairing and the grieving that “there’s a land that is fairer than day”1 when, as John promised in the Revelation,
“He will wipe away every tear...there will no longer be any death...any mourning, or crying, or pain.” ...There will no longer be any curse...any night...because the Lord God will illumine them; and they will reign forever and ever. (21:4; 22:3, 5 NASB1995)
Hooray for such wondrous hope!
Just imagine...those who are physically disabled today will one day dance in beautiful co-ordination and leap in ecstatic joy. Those who spend their lives absorbed in total darkness will see every colour in the spectrum of light. In fact, the first face they will see will be of the One who gives them sight. And those precious souls whose minds and emotions are limited by mental disability, disease, or old age will enjoy to the full unhindered and uninhibited relationships. It’s enough to put a smile on any weary face. There’s nothing like the hope of resurrection to lift the agonizing spirits of the heavyhearted.
Unless, of course, it’s all a cruel hoax.
That’s Paul’s whole point in 1 Corinthians 15:19. Remember how he put it? If bodily resurrection is only an empty dream, then “we are of all men most to be pitied.” All our preaching has a hollow ring to it, our faith is worthless, the dead have perished, and we are still under the condemnation of our sins (15:14, 16, 18). What a deplorable state of affairs! It’s enough to make all of us run and hide!
But wait. That hypothetical argument hinges on a conditional presupposition...if. “If there is no resurrection of the dead” (15:13), then we’re out to lunch. But there is a resurrection with all its promised hopes. It is as sure as we’re alive at this moment.
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.
Because He has been raised, we too shall rise. As Paul stated in that same section of Scripture, “Christ [is] the first fruits, after that those who are Christ’s at His coming” (15:23). That’s us! Jesus Himself promised, “I am the resurrection and the life; he who believes in Me will live even if he dies” (John 11:25).
No wonder we get so excited every Easter! No wonder we hold nothing back as we celebrate His miraculous Resurrection from the grave! It’s a double-barrelled celebration: His triumphant hurrah over agony and our ultimate and eternal hooray.
Adapted from Charles R. Swindoll, Newsbreak, the weekly newsletter of The First Evangelical Free Church of Fullerton, California (April 19, 1987). All rights reserved worldwide.
1. Sanford F. Bennett and Joseph P. Webster, “Sweet By and By,” in The Hymnal for Worship and Celebration (Waco, Tex.: Word Music, 1986), 553.
