One of the truths that is dropped at the forefront during Lent is that we’re all going to die someday. Let that sink in for a moment …
Mortality is just not something that individuals enjoy interested by, let alone spending a chronic period meditating upon. But on Ash Wednesday, we were reminded that we’re dust, and in the long run, we are going to return to that from which we were made. Such a confession exposes our vulnerability.
Yet, if we consider life, we might need to acknowledge that we’re already aware of its fleeting nature. We see it in our aging bodies which might be vulnerable to disease and injury. The world is full of news of overwhelming danger and darkness. And then, inevitably, all of us face a time once we stare clearly into the realms of death when a loved one or friend dies. The coffin or urn bears the testimony that not only is the person gone, but that our fate is similar as theirs.
We also see it in the character of the destruction of forests and species. Of the unrelenting suffering that takes place due to natural disasters like floods and earthquakes. This world is full of evidence of decay, and eventually, we change into a component of it.
Where is hope, then, amid the gaping pit of death that looms like a black hole able to suck up every living thing? Is there hope?
The Bible doesn’t give us easy answers to life’s sorrows, but what we’re shown is the hope that’s present in the resurrection of Jesus Christ, a hope that changes the whole lot.
Who Is Our Living Hope?
Paul addressed a problematic belief that a number of the Corinthians held – that there was no resurrection. The Apostle corrected them by starting with the fundamentals of the gospel: Jesus died for our sins, was buried, and rose to life on the third day (1 Corinthians 15:1-4). If the premise of their salvation was the death and resurrection of the Savior, then they were clearly incorrect to say that there was no future resurrection of the dead. As he wrote, “For if the dead usually are not raised, then Christ has not been raised either. And if Christ has not been raised, your faith is futile; you’re still in your sins. Then those also who’ve fallen asleep in Christ are lost. If just for this life we’ve hope in Christ, we’re of all people most to be pitied” (1 Corinthians 15:16-19, NIV).
There can be no hope on this world if Jesus were merely a person who lived righteously and died like other great teachers and philosophers. Death can be the victor, and humans can be swallowed up by its bottomless pit. But that is just not what the Bible teaches. Jesus, the Son of God, got here to earth with the mission of saving us, which He achieved by His death and resurrection.
That is why Paul taught concerning the joy of knowing that believers will receive imperishable, resurrection bodies at Jesus’ return (1 Corinthians 15:51-53). The Lord was raised to life, and we, too, will live ceaselessly with Him. Hence, one other Apostle, Peter, described our hope as “a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead” (1 Peter 1:3, NIV). It is just not some far-flung wish, as many individuals associate with the word “hope” today. We have a longtime basis for our salvation – Jesus is alive.
Hope is present in the bloodied and beaten Savior who endured death for our sake. Death didn’t win despite its insatiable appetite. Our Lord is the Victor and someday He will swallow up death ceaselessly (Isaiah 25:8; 1 Corinthians 15:54-57). In the words of poet John Donne, “Death, thou shalt die.” That is the hope and promise on which we stand during Lent and beyond – a living hope that can’t be quelled.
What Is the Difference between the Expectation and Reality of the Resurrection?
As believers in Jesus, we might heartily agree with the reality of the gospel but should still be tempted to think: “Yes, that is nice to know for the long run, but what about now? How does the resurrection have a bearing on my day by day life or after I stand at the sting of a newly dug grave?”
Knowing the reality is different than living in light of it. There will probably be times when the long run resurrection seems so distant from our reality that we lose heart. Yet the reality of the resurrection is just not meant to be confined to our heads. Paul specifically addressed the practicality of the hope of Jesus’ resurrection and our own future resurrection when he encouraged the Corinthian believers to face firm and serve the Lord, knowing that their work was not in vain (1 Corinthians 15:58). Everything he had expounded upon, about Jesus’ resurrection and our future hope of getting an imperishable body, was meant to present purpose to how believers live daily. The seemingly trivial things we do every day matter because we’re inheritors of the promise of everlasting life. Salvation is just not only concerning the future – it involves our lives today how we live now matters.
And how we interact with this world matters. We may not consider animals or nature as being involved in our faith within the resurrection of Jesus. However, Scripture shows us that creation awaits the renewal of all things which is intricately connected to Christians receiving their glorified bodies (Romans 8:22-24). The salvation that Jesus died to present affects the whole lot for the curse will probably be reversed when God creates a recent heaven and recent earth (Revelation 21:1; 22:3). No longer will animals and nature suffer in bondage to sin. Thus, even the plants and creatures that we frequently take with no consideration or view with indifference are impacted by the excellent news of Easter.
The living hope we possess buoys us through the mundane clockwork of our lives, but in addition when the times come to a screeching halt due to loss. In one other epistle, the Apostle Paul explained how the news that our living Lord will return and resurrect those that had died is supposed to comfort us during our grief of losing family members (1 Thessalonians 4:13-18). Jesus was resurrected, proving His victory over death, so we are able to trust that our believing family members may even be resurrected (1 Thessalonians 4:14). Christ is, in spite of everything, the Resurrection and Life, and all who imagine in Him will live though they die (John 11:25).
We need this reminder in dark times when grief overwhelms us. Life seems to come back to an abrupt halt after the death of somebody we love, as if we were closing the book on their life and our relationship with them. But the Lord shines a lightweight on this darkness and speaks a greater story, a truer one.
He walks with us in our sadness, shepherding us through the shadowy paths of death. And all of the while, we see His nail-scarred hands and remember the empty tomb. The passing of our family members doesn’t mark the top of our relationship with them. It is barely a pause. For our Risen Lord has promised us everlasting life. As Frederick Buechner wrote, “Death is just not the top. The end is life. His life and our lives through him, in him” (“The End is Life,” quoted in Bread and Wine: Readings for Lent, Plough Publishers, 2003, p. 292).
We will see our family members again in heaven and walk with them on restored earth in resurrected bodies.
Practices and Rhythms that Tether Us
The struggle to understand the biblical realities is the very reason we’d like holidays like Advent, Lent, and Easter. We are invited to return, yet again, to the grand story of redemption. Of how we’re all caught within the throes of sin and death, but our God got here to rescue us. He took on human flesh to live on this broken world and endured the punishment we deserve to avoid wasting us.
Lent takes us through the times leading as much as Good Friday, when Jesus shed His blood, and to Easter once we find the empty tomb. Again, we enter the joyful chorus that Christ is risen, worthy is the Lamb. Even though our bodies will return to dust and ashes, we all know there’s way more to come back. For Jesus will raise our ashes, and we are going to live with Him ceaselessly. His death and resurrection are what give us hope to know that each one the pain and evil we currently see is just not all there’s: a greater world is coming.
And so, we observe this season with other believers, enter the rhythms of prayer and Bible reading, and rejoice the Lord’s resurrection. We achieve this to deliberately remember what our Savior has done, and to rekindle hope. Each act of religion and discipline we engage with declares that Christ is risen, which, after all, changes the whole lot – from the best way we interact with the mundane to how we perceive our last breath.
Photo Credit: © Unsplash/Alicia Quan
