Happy Resurrection Sunday! Hallelujah! Yes, Christ is risen indeed! We have recieved the gift of eternal life and so much more. Let us learn everything we can from the life, death, and resurrection of Christ and live the resurrected Christ-life.
We aren’t “just given” life eternally but the way to live a “just life” intentionally.
Live the resurrection now, don’t wait until you die.
We aren’t “just given” life eternally but the way to live a “just life” intentionally. Live the resurrection now, don’t wait until you die. Like the angels said to the women looking for Jesus’ dead body, “Why do you seek the living among the dead?” Shed that old skin and all that doesn’t fit. Renew your mind and limited understanding. Let the finished parts in you be transformed. Let go of the decayed and broken systems that keep people in tombs and may Christ come alive in you! In us! Hallelujah!
Harvey Cox said it this way—”Stories of raising the dead in the Old Testament did not have to do with immorality. They are about God’s justice. They are expressions of a human hope that is born of a moral, not metaphysical, impulse. They did not spring up from a yearning for life after death, but from the conviction that ultimately a truly just God simply had to vindicate the victims of the callous and the powerful.” (*274) And speaking of Jesus rising from the dead, Cox said, “To restore a dead person to life might be seen to strike a blow at mortality. But to restore a crucified man to life means to strike an equally decisive blow at the system that caused his wrongful death.”(*277)
Jesus’ crucifixion should motivate us to support victims in this world and abolish the systems that victimize. This morning we are writing and preaching on the intentional resurrected life of Jesus. We pray you will find ways to live, love, and lead others as a renewed person. Make it a Happy Easter for humanity.
Hallelujah! The resurrected Christ can resurrect me!
*When Jesus Came to Harvard: Making Moral Choices Today by Harvey Cox