31 March 2013 - risen indeed

31 March 2013 - risen indeed

This is the day the Lord has made; let us rejoice and be glad.

The LORD makes this day new by the new life revealed in Jesus.  The old creation stalls out with the sin of Adam and Eve.  The seventh day Sabbath rest of God is corrupted by selfishness and becomes the sleep of death which afflicts all men until Jesus.  Jesus starts the new creation by his act of selfless obedience to the Father.  Because of this act, his seventh day rest in the tomb is transformed and rewarded with eternal life.  This act of selflessness is ever new.  It is an act which can't be constrained by death.  Death only has power over the proud.  Where can death strike the truly selfless?  This is why Pope Francis calls Jesus the "today" of God.  And this is why Scripture tells us it is impossible that the grave should him.


I shall not die, but live,
and declare the works of the LORD.”

This indestructible life of Jesus Christ can now transform us all.  


The stone which the builders rejected
has become the cornerstone.

His work isn't simply a monument to stand on its own.  It is not simply a stone but a cornerstone. It is meant to be the solid ground on which everything that lasts is to be built.  All that is not built upon it is built instead of the shifting sands of this temporary world.  Nothing else will endure.  The only thing sufficiently pure to pass through death is the heart of Christ.  Only in him will we see that distant shore.  We begin to glimpse it now for Scripture says that "we were raised with Christ" in baptism.


If then you were raised with Christ, seek what is above, 
where Christ is seated at the right hand of God.

We must fix our minds on the permanent.  We are not told here to distract ourselves from our surroundings by imagining some distant heaven.  Instead we are to build on the rock of Christ in our own lives within this world.  We have already died to the fading things which used to hold us captive.

For you have died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God.

When Christ your life appears,
then you too will appear with him in glory.

Rather than ourselves appearing where Christ already is, he instead will appear here in our midst.  Then all that is truly built on him as the cornerstone will be revealed.  The passing things will pass and the permanent will "appear in glory" and abide.  

But we are slow to believe.  The temporary things are the immediate things.  But now that the power of the resurrection is already breaking forth and transforming the world his words can begin to make sense.


Remember what he said to you while he was still in Galilee, 
that the Son of Man must be handed over to sinners
and be crucified, and rise on the third day.”


At first this seems like nonsense.  But the tomb is empty.  The power of the resurrection is already at work.  As this knowledge takes hold, let us rejoice:


“The right hand of the LORD has struck with power;
the right hand of the LORD is exalted.