the horror of death, and death's undoing: thoughts for Easter Sunday

Brad Williams Easter is Coming:

As Death haunts us, stalks us, and undoes us and all whom we love, Easter carries us...

If Jesus did not rise from the dead, we should quit Christianity...All the Christian’s hopes centre on whether or not Jesus really did take up His life three days after He laid it down. Easter helps us to remember this thing, this one amazing thing that we believe Jesus did: He beat death...

Death is out there, stalking us like a predator...And if Christ is not risen, then we can never be rid of it...We are all just dust if Jesus is not risen from the dead.

But the resurrection is more than that. It is more than just the assurance of being reunited with our loved ones in Christ. It changes everything. It changes the entire paradigm of life.

If Jesus is risen, then God is real. The universe is not just a massive piece of beautiful but cold space. It is the handiwork of an all-powerful God who happens to be our Father, a Father who sent His Son to save us and make us children. A Father who insured that His children would never die, but would live to see a thousand million sun rises, and maybe a thousand million galaxies. Maybe more.

It means this current life is a blip, a passing shadow, a mist on the grass before noon. Nothing I suffer here is worthy to be compared to the things I will see after the grave has to give me up to life forever...

I hate death...Death is an enemy; a cruel thief that steals the people we love. This isn’t the way that it should be, and the hope of Christ allows me to imagine a world, a reality, where death has been struck a mortal blow itself. 

Death is dying, it is now thrashing like an enraged and weakening beast...But its rage is futile, for if Christ is risen, then death must surrender all its spoils at a single command...Death itself will be judged, as will all the world. All of this is true if Jesus of Nazareth rose from the dead.

Christians have put all their eggs in this one basket, and where else can we go? Jesus has beaten death; He lay in the ground three days, stone cold dead, and then He rose to tell the tale. And now He beckons to the world, “Follow me, and you too will never die.”

Our resurrection day is coming; we will meet the Master of Life and Death.

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