resurrection sunday

"And if Christ has not been raised, your faith is futile and you are still in your sins. Then those who have fallen asleep in Christ have perished. If in this life only we have hoped in Christ, we are of all people most to be pitied." - 1 Corinthians 15:17-19

I'm not sure of all the historical developments that have made Easter a day to celebrate bunnies and painted eggs. Don't get me wrong, bunnies are cute and all, and painted eggs are pretty. I also like jelly beans and chocolate candies of all sorts but these things belong to the commercialization of the sacred not to the sacred itself. Resurrection Sunday is in my mind the most important day of the liturgical calendar. The biblical writers saw the resurrection as the event that proved the validity of the rest of the gospel story. Thus, if Jesus didn't rise we have no hope because it's all a sham. Christians don't believe that the spirit of Jesus rose and therefore our spirits are raised. We believe in a tangible, physical, flesh and blood, historical resurrection. We believe that Jesus' spirit was renunited with his physical body. We believe that through the power of God the Father, God the Son shrugged off the decay and disgrace of death. In Jesus physical resurrection we see the Father beginning to fulfill his promise to bring new physical life to all of creation. Death is an enemy that has been conquered and the beginning of this victory is displayed in the resurrection of the Christ. The sins that Jesus bore for his people on Friday were buried and left behind when he rose on Sunday. His resurrection is not simply a happy ending to an otherwise tragic story, it is the proof that our salvation is both real and complete.

I apologize if this post and the last have come across as "preachy." That was not my intent. If I am preaching to anyone it is to myself since my heart is overly forgetfull of even these most vital truths. Jesus once said, "I am the resurrection and the life. Whoever believes in me, though he die, yet shall he live, and everyone who lives and believes in me shall never die. Do you believe this?" As crazy as I know it sounds, yes I do.