He is Risen - as He said
Every year we mark many events on our calendars. Most are anniversaries of an event which celebrate a particular person or happening from the past. Many remind us of people whose actions and sacrifices allow us to be what we are today. We celebrate past presidents and preachers on either their birthday or other days set-aside for them. We celebrate anniversaries of our own birth, or marriage. We look back on explorers who reached out the New World and started things on this side of the globe. We celebrate moms and dads, grandparents and children. We decorate with hearts, shamrocks, Christmas trees and pumpkins. We set off fire works and blow the flame out of candles on a cake. And then we set that particular holiday aside until the same time some 365 days later when it shows up on the calendar. We know before the year starts when Christmas and Birthdays and Presidents Day will happen. July 4th, November 11 and April 1 will always be Independence Day, Veterans Day and April fools. Even Thanksgiving, which seems to move a bit each year always ends up on the 4th Thursday of November. Only one holiday and those directly impacted by it happen at different times on the Calendar. What makes that day so different from the rest?
Perhaps it is the one time we really see God at work in something wonderful in His own way and in His own particular time. Just as no one was going to pin Jesus down, arrest him or kill him until the time was right, No one is going to set the time of His death, resurrection or coming again. It is in His time not ours. The fact of the matter is even the time of His death is tied to a calendar we no longer use.
This year the most important date in the Christian calendar, Resurrection Sunday falls on April 12. It is the time we as the body of Christ celebrate the Risen Savior who is in the world today. The action rising of Christ, while a basic tenet of our faith was not unique in a physical sense. The Bible reminds us that Jesus was not the first or even the last one to be resurrected from the dead. Prophets and disciples were instruments of God's healing before and after the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. So one might wonder, what would make this particular event so momentous, and so wonderful? What would make it so different from say, the widow’s son (Luke 7:15), Jarius’ daughter (Luke 8:54-55) or even Lazarus (John 11:43-44) whom Jesus raised from the dead just before his own resurrection? They were raised to remind us that we can be raised from the bondage of sin and death. They were examples of the awesome liberating power of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ.
What makes His Resurrection so wonderful is that He chose to die for us, He chose to be obedient to the Heavenly Father’s will even to the point of a cruel death on the cross. What makes this so marvelous is that Jesus is the ‘first fruit’ the one to lead the way, to show us the way, for He is the Way, the truth and the life. God does things in ways we can not fully understand. Our language, our thoughts, even our calendars can not grasp hold of the things He has done and is doing even now. It may be beyond our understanding, but it is real. The Resurrection Reality is that God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whomsoever believes in Him will not perish, but have ever lasting life. While we may not have a full grasp on the time or day, by faith we can be reminded this month the mystery of our faith, that Christ has died, Christ is risen, Christ will come again.
