Just the Beginning
“For I handed on to you as of first importance what I in turn had received: that Christ died for our sins in accordance with the scriptures, and that he was buried, and that he was raised on the third day in accordance with the scriptures, and that he appeared to Cephas, then to the twelve. Then he appeared to more than five hundred brothers and sisters at one time, most of whom are still alive, though some have died. Then he appeared to James, then to all the apostles. Last of all, as to one untimely born, he appeared also to me.”
I’m just gonna let Paul say it today, because it’s better than anything I could write. Real perspective -- eternal perspective -- is more valuable now than ever, and this morning there is just a single question running through my head:
Are you living with resurrection in mind?
If resurrection is real, not even death is final. Only God’s victory. If death can’t separate us from God, then nothing can. So we are without justification when we treat people like lost causes. If God pursues us past death, we can love others when they fail us.
“Who will separate us from the love of Christ? Will hardship, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword? No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. For I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor rulers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.”
If resurrection is real, we live with deep intentionality, knowing that we won’t come to end of our lives only to meet nothingness. We will meet GOD. Hedonism befits nihilism; people who know there is more to this life live with the knowledge that sin matters (1 Cor. 15:32-34). But we live with a taste of eternity even now.
“Therefore, since we are surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses, let us throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles. And let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us, fixing our eyes on Jesus, the pioneer and perfecter of faith. For the joy set before him he endured the cross, scorning its shame, and sat down at the right hand of the throne of God.”
And last, if resurrection is real: every other task and call pales in comparison to the “first importance” of the Gospel speaking loud through your life. There is no such thing as true vocation apart from this mission and goal.
Especially now, while people are afraid and uncertain, you have been given the solution to death and fear: Jesus died to completely handle our separation from God, and He came back to life after that because He killed death itself. This is first importance, of Paul’s letter to the Corinthians, and of our own lives
“Since, therefore, the children share flesh and blood, [Jesus] himself likewise shared the same things, so that through death he might destroy the one who has the power of death, that is, the devil, and free those who all their lives were held in slavery by the fear of death.”
Your life now, with all its anxiety and all its problems, is merely the beginning of the eternity Jesus won for you. I hope you find rest here, and energy from knowing you are already safe. I hope it empowers you (all of us) to live without fear and in wild freedom, sharing the beautiful life you’ve found with everyone you encounter. I hope it makes all of us into that kind of evangelist.