Resurrection is our life
The power of the resurrection of Christ
It is true that our Lord Jesus Christ died on the cross for our salvation, yet He rose from the dead to lift us up unto His kingdom. “And hath raised us up and together with Him, and made us sit together with Him in Heavenly places in Christ Jesus.” (Eph. 2:6)
If Christ had died only, then His mission would have ceased, similar to all other righteous people; but he rose from the dead to remain alive forever. His life is for our own good as it nourishes our souls after purgation of sin. For “even where we ever dead in sins, hath granted us life in Christ.” (Eph. 2:5).
The resurrection of Christ grants us life and resurrection, we therefore plead Christ our God to help us be introduced to, feel and own in ourselves, the spirit of resurrection. Its value is not historic nor is it a ritual to be practiced but rather a life we live and pray that it never parts with us.
To us, the resurrection of Jesus Christ means:
- The end of sin
Resurrection implies a spiritual meaning in our lives, namely that sin is dead and uprooted from our lives. Resurrection means that we put on all what is new and put off all ancient and old, meaning the tendency to sin. But the new is the resurrected mean, the new creation that we experience through the power of the resurrection of Christ. “If so he that ye have heard Him, and have been taught by Him, as the truth as in Jesus; That ye put off all whatever concerns the former old man, which is corrupt emerging from conceit and arrogance. And be renewed in the spirit of your mind. And after God in righteousness and tree holiness.” (Eph. 4:22-24)
- The power of victory
There is power in resurrection which enabled us to be victorious on all what is related to death and may depart us from God. The power lurking in the resurrection is in our favor and relates to our victory, yet it is an experience that we need to pass through “That I may know Him, and the power of His resurrection, and the fellowship of His sufferings, being conformable unto His death; that by any means I might attain unto the resurrection of the dead.” (Phil. 3:10-11)
The resurrection from the dead is but victory over death, and victory over death is simply victory over sin, lurking in us, and uprooting it.
- The after-life
It is the fruit of the resurrection of Christ. He opened up the gate, for us, leading unto the Kingdom of Heaven. He even, through his resurrection, opened up for us the door that guarantees our arrival at his Kingdom, leading the way holding our hands. All what we need to do is to ask in prayers, endeavor spiritually neglecting the vanity of this mortal world. This was experienced by St. Paul, the apostle, “If ye then be risen with Christ, seek those things which are above, where Christ dwell on the right hand of God. Set your affection on things above, not on things on earth. For yeare dead, and your life is hid with Christ in God.” (Col. 3:1-3)
- Resurrection & Joy
The resurrection in the life of the disciples implies full trust in the words of the Lord Jesus Christ trusting Him, that all what he said will definitely come true. This trust implies complete surrender to God’s work in oneself. But witnessing the resurrected Lord from the dead puts an end to all sadness and sorrow resulting either from our sins or from material less or even, from the death of our beloved ones, for the resurrection is the true joy “I will see you again, and your heart shall rejoice, and your joy no man taketh away from you.” (John 16:22)
Thus the Bible recorded the joy of the disciples having witnessed the resurrection of the Lord: “the disciples rejoiced when they may disperse sorrow and sadness. Such permanent and comprehensive joy can only be found in the resurrection of the Lord.
- Resurrection is a victory and an end to all sorrow
The Holy week reflecting Christ’s pain lasted for a week, but the joy of resurrection lasts fifty days (the Holy Fifty). Moreover there is the celebration of the resurrection of Christ every Sunday. Thus pain, thus pain is temporary, while the resurrection is permanent, “always bearing about in the body the dying of the Lord Jesus, that the life also of Jesus might be manifest in our body. For we who live are always delivered unto death for Jesus’s sake that the life of Jesus might be made manifest in one mortal body.” (2 Cor. 4:10-11)
The utmost pain is death, yet we no longer fear death, as it is going to lead us to life in Jesus; and the philosophy of pain turned out to be as follows: “though our outward man perish, yet the inward man is renewed day by day for our light affliction, which is but for a moment, worketh for us a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory.” (2 Cor. 4:16-17)
Our view is shaped according to the goal set up for us by God namely to look forward to the glory of resurrection and the after-life, “while we look not at the things which are seen, but at the things which are not seen: for the things which are seen are temporal; but the things which are not seen are eternal.” (2 Cor. 4:18).
Thus the resurrection came to mean to us experiencing the death of sin and the power of victory leading unto eternal life which fills our heart with true joy thus enabling us bear the pain and hardships of this life, hoping for the eternal one.