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.

You can read the rest here.

Easter catch-up

I'm relieved to see that Meredith is also behind on her family Bible Easter readings! I, too, have put Meredith's readings in some plastic eggs (along with some lollies) and we're reading the Easter story together in the evenings. It's the first time we've attempted this. I've doubled- and tripled-up the readings to fit them into 12 eggs, which isn't ideal, but it's been very encouraging nonetheless.

I'm also behind on my personal Easter Bible readings (like Nicole and Meredith, I'm reading through Nancie Guthrie's Jesus, Keep Me Near the Cross) and again, I'm reading a couple a day. I've been deeply encouraged by reading through the Easter story with the kids in the evening, then opening this book in the morning and meditating on the wonder of Jesus' death.

This morning I was reminded that he - the perfect, innocent Son of God - became sin for me: all my rebellion, all my idolatry, all my lovelessness. And that he faced hell, the burning horror of his Father's anger, instead of me. I'm filled with wondering thankfulness today.

Easter family pictures - and an Easter basket craft!

Here are some photos from our Easter holiday at Grandma's house in the country:

picking Grandma's berries



(and eating them),

building the biggest bonfire ever,

playing with Grandma's toys,

and, of course, celebrating Easter Sunday with an Easter egg hunt!




Don't you love our Easter baskets?
If you look closely, you'll see that Lizzy's basket is decorated with an Easter egg hunt (the fuzzy spots are the eggs!). They were made by cutting shoeboxes in half, taping down the lids, sticking paper on the sides, decorating them, and adding a cardboard handle.

It is not death to die

Just in time for Easter, a post about death and resurrection, and more encouragement from the CD Come Weary Saints.

I was driving the kids home from school when I saw something you don't expect on an arterial road in a major city. It was a horse-drawn carriage, taking up the left-hand lane, slowing the traffic to a crawl.

As we stopped at the traffic lights, I looked more closely, and realized it was a hearse pulled by two grey horses with black plumes nodding on their heads, incongruous against the bare concrete wall of our local shopping centre. On the seat behind the horses perched two cheerfully chatting black-suited men—one bare-headed and balding, the other in a top hat. The hearse was topped with a plain wooden cross worthy of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, and its glass sides displayed a glossy mahogany coffin, boasting a huge floral arrangement and brass fittings.

Behind the hearse drove three cars in tasteful green. The first car was packed with flowers. The second and third cars—stretch limousines with darkened windows—were, no doubt, packed with well-dressed mourners.

It all seemed a little excessive, this ostentatious panoply of death. But perhaps that's what is left when you die without Jesus. Like a glamorous wedding, a funeral becomes an opportunity for extravagant theatre, for it's the closing scene in the all-important story of ‘me’. Such a funeral displays the forlorn hope that death, in all its horror and finality, can be placated with pomp and held off with ceremony.

For Christians, death still brings sorrow. But we don't grieve “as others do who have no hope” (1 Thess 4:13). We weep, but we also rejoice. When Jesus died and rose again, he defeated death and overcame its power (Acts 2:24; 1 Cor 15:54-57; Heb 2:14). In a Christian funeral, instead of despairing ceremony and exaggerated eulogy, there is comforting simplicity and praise for the one who has freed us from the fear of death.

As the lights changed and we drove past the hearse, I flicked over to the song ‘It is not death to die’* on Come Weary Saints, the CD that was playing on my car stereo. It's a song that sums up the Christian attitude to death: there is no despair in leaving this weary life and exchanging it for heaven, for Jesus has conquered the grave.

I've always sworn that I'll never say, “I want such-and-such at my funeral”. But I've broken my promise to myself. When I got home, I told my husband (and now you!) that while I certainly don't want an elaborate funeral cortege, I do want this song sung at my funeral. I want people to remember that it is not death to die.

* From a 1832 hymn written by Henri Malan and translated by George Bethune, adapted and arranged by Bob Kauflin for the Sovereign Grace album Come Weary Saints.

This post first appeared on Sola Panel yesterday.

images are from wolfmanmoike at flickr and stock.xchng