Easter

2 April 2017

I dunno about you guys, maybe it is because I am getting older, but it feels like we have just celebrated Christmas.  And now it is Easter already.  Time flies when you are getting old. 

Christmas and Easter are always linked together.  But for most of us, Christmas is always celebrated in a grander way than Easter.  Christmas is like the climax at the end of the year.  Whereas Easter is just another long weekend of second-rated celebration somewhere in the month of April.  But do you know that if there is no Easter, Christmas would have no meaning at all?

Whenever the early Christians preached Christ, they preached about the empty tomb.  They do not talk about Bethlehem at all.  In fact, two of the gospels, Mark and John, does not even mention anything about the virgin birth of Christ.  But the resurrection of Jesus is constantly brought up again and again in every part of the New Testament.  Without the resurrection, there would be no Christianity at all.  In Romans 4:25, Paul says that Jesus was delivered up for our trespass and raised for our justification.  Christ’s death on the cross for our sins was so complete, so satisfactory, that God affirmed the Son’s righteousness by raising Him from the dead, demonstrating His power and victory over sin and death!

During Easter, we are also reminded of another Chinese festival, Cheng Beng, where most Chinese would visit the tombs of their loved ones.  It reminds us of our mortality.  That from the moment we are born, we start to die.

Death is a curse upon God’s perfect creation.  Romans 5:12 tells us that just as sin entered the world through one man, Adam, and death through sin, death came to all men, because all have sinned.  We die because of sin.  Sickness and old age are merely symptoms of the one great cause of death, which is Sin.

When Jesus rose from the dead, he broke the power of sin & death forever.    

Jesus said, “I am the resurrection and the life.  He who believes in me will live, even though he dies; and whoever lives and believes in me will never die.  Do you believe this?” (John 11:25~26)

What Jesus is saying here is, death for the Christian is not the end. It is merely the continuation of life into the presence of God.  Death holds no terror for the child of God.  That is what Paul meant when he says that death has now lost its sting, and the grave has lost its victory.  For to live is Christ and to die “is gain” (Phil 1:21)   

And one day, when Jesus comes again, we will be given a new and incorruptible body, scripture tells us.  What will our new body be like?

What was Jesus’ resurrected body like?  He could enter into a room without opening the door.  The disciples were able to recognize him and communicate with him. He could also eat food together with the disciples.  And the Bible tells us that when he appears we shall be like him (1 John 3:2), 

which means our new glorified body that God will give us one day will be similar to the resurrected body of our Lord.  

which means we will still be able to eat!  And we like that, don’t we? 

Not only that. We will see our loved ones again who have died in the Lord.  Our loved ones who have died in the Lord are not only a part of our past, they are also a part of our future! 

Because He lives, I can face tomorrow

Because He lives, all fear is gone

Because I know, He holds the future

And life is worth the living just because He lives!