RESURRECTION’S LIFE: PART ONE
I have had this question burning inside of me and I can’t quite seem to move on from it.
“I know what it means to share in your sufferings, Lord, but what does it look like to share in the power of your resurrection?”
I want to know Christ—yes, to know the power of his resurrection and participation in his sufferings, becoming like him in his death, and so, somehow, attaining to the resurrection from the dead. Not that I have already obtained all this, or have already arrived at my goal, but I press on to take hold of that for which Christ Jesus took hold of me. Brothers and sisters, I do not consider myself yet to have taken hold of it. But one thing I do: Forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead, I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus. Philippians 3:10-14
As I continue to ask this question, I have become more aware of this weight of responsibility of which I had been previously ignorant. I had been in such a prolonged season of stripping and death, that the very thought of resurrection thrusted me through a threshold of transition and into a vast, unfamiliar territory, forcing me out of a cave of processing past and present where I had grown far too comfortable and settled. Hope deferred had kept me from apprehending the future with an unshakeable confidence only found on the other side of an empty tomb.
What does a resurrected life look like? What does it sound like?
The resurrection of Christ is the most hotly contested, controversial and divisive aspect of his entire life and ministry. Why is that? Perhaps this points to the very power hidden in the revelation of his resurrection, and what has been made available to us as His Body. If we come into a deeper understanding that a man actually overcame death, what then is possible for those who believe? What then, does that require?
Here is what God is teaching me in this wrestle with taking hold of a resurrected life…
Resurrection is the first fruit of a life laid to rest through death. The tomb that previously prophesied finality becomes a womb of life, a new beginning. To be willing to be emptied is only part of the journey.
Resurrection is the full expression of Love that was initiated by the cross. To be perfected in Love means to embody resurrection’s life.
Resurrection carries a sound. It is a sound of hope, of belief, of encounter. It knows the end of the story. It is a sound of victory gained in intercession.
True intercession always gives birth to resurrection.
Resurrection’s gospel says “I’m coming back for you. I will not settle until what was broken and lost in death is regenerated and reconciled in love.”
Resurrection dances upon the skeletons of robbery and injustice with joy.
Resurrection prophesies that the grave does not have the final say. It is simply a doorway.
Resurrection declares “what you thought was the end is only the beginning. This is your victory lap.”
The sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the law. But thanks be to God, who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ. 1 Corinthians 15:56-57
Resurrection bears the fruit of power and authority that was sown in lowly surrender. And with that power comes great responsibility…
“The times of ignorance God overlooked, but now he commands all people everywhere to repent, because he has fixed a day on which he will judge the world in righteousness by a man whom he has appointed; and of this he has given assurance to all by raising him from the dead.”
Now when they heard of the resurrection from the dead, some mocked. But others said, ‘we will hear you again about this.’ Acts 17:30-34
Resurrection rewrites history and violently apprehends the future.
