RESURRECTION

Soft sand slid under his feet. The air was pure and fragrant, redolent with the life it carried as he breathed it deep into his lungs, his body rapidly regaining its strength with every step. He felt the life-blood coursing again through his veins, and revelled in the feeling of the soft breeze on his skin.

Three days he’d lain in the grave, bound and lifeless as his spirit travelled deep into the bowels of the earth on its crucial journey. His mission? Reclaiming the Keys of Death and Hell lost since human time began. The future of all creation pivoted around who held those keys; whoever possessed them would also own the Race of Man. The success of his mission would bring freedom of choice to every person, whether alive now or in the future, to walk in newness of life, free from the deadly effects of sin.

As he strode on through the blackness, he’d thought again of his own words to his Father: ‘if it be possible…’ But it hadn’t been possible to turn his back on death. Death couldn’t be avoided or ignored. This road had been chosen for him to walk even before the beginning of time – resident within him was the fate of mankind, and their destiny also. His death would defeat death and his life would result in abundance of life.

As he walked on through the emptiness of Sheol, the excitement, the immense satisfaction that came from doing his Father’s will had sustained him. He’d known he was walking in victory; a victory won already by the laying down of his life, not over those few hours but over years, each act of obedience laying down another layer in the platform of freedom from sin he was building for us. All those times he’d said ‘yes’ instead of ‘no’ and ‘no’ instead of ‘yes’ had culminated in one terrible day on a cross, but even now, that sacrifice was being swallowed up by victory. He thought of the loving heart of his Father toward those He had created. The greatest anguish and the most heartfelt despair, when surrendered in obedience, had become the mightiest triumph and the most incredible salvation.

And there! The keys! Those precious keys, given over eons before, were now, incredibly, no longer under guard. The captor of the keys and men’s hearts and lives, in his stupid vanity was now so sure of his victory that he didn’t feel he needed to guard them any more. Safe in the knowledge that he had destroyed the Lord of Glory, he boasted and bragged in the darkness, exulting in the knowledge that the Father’s one hope was dead and buried. Now who owned the souls of God’s people forever? Me and me alone…he thought!

Into the midst of the celebration of night, with the cacophony of sound and fury that only hell can spawn, the Light began to creep. At first it came unnoticed, so great was the orgy of death greedily gulping at the wine of conquest.

Then, in an instant, the blaze of glory filled the room! The evil one turned…but the keys were gone. No, not gone, but held now in a scarred but powerful hand, held in a grip that even with all his strength and cunning, the devil could not break! The echoes of those screams of anguish go howling down the centuries as the Son of God, eyes blazing with fire and face shining like the sun, walks in triumph out of death and into life everlasting.

The keys are His. Death is swallowed up in victory. Crown Him Lord of All!

Luke 24:5,6 “…Why are you looking for the living among the dead?” asked the men. “He is not here, but He has been resurrected!”

Christianity is a faith of LIFE! No other god in any religion has given their life for those whom they created. No other god has laid down their power to serve the ones who were called to worship him.

Our God is an awesome God; a different God! He chose to die in the most dreadful way, in order to bring life to His own people. The awfulness of His death lay not in the physical pain, terrible as it was. The unimaginable pain He suffered was because of carrying our sin. Not just yours but mine also. Not just ours, but every sin ever committed across the vastness of generations and geography on this beautiful planet.

Because of His death, we are free to live in freedom! But so often we find ourselves back at the graves we were pulled out of, wallowing in our failures and the failures of others. There’s a perverse and addictive kind of satisfaction that comes from speaking death into our lives and the lives of those around us. Don’t be fooled into thinking this defeat of death is for the time when you stop breathing. It’s so much more than that. He died to defeat the death of your hope, the death of your future, the death of your love; He rose again so that you can rise again and again and again.

Jesus didn’t die so that we could live a half-life. He didn’t die so that we could appreciate His resurrection but not our own! Don’t play around in the shallows of your resurrection; dive into it. Risen-ness is a characteristic of the Christian who has a revelation on what Jesus did that day so long ago, when He allowed His life to be surrendered to Death, in order that Death could be defeated once and for all.

I pray for each one of us to continually experience His risen-ness in our own hearts and lives.

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