Monday, April 17, 2017

17 April 2017 - stronger than death



This man, delivered up by the set plan and foreknowledge of God,
you killed, using lawless men to crucify him.

We are complicit in the events of Good Friday. We ourselves put Jesus to death using lawless men to crucify him. This is the most significant of the many sins we all commit. But God did not give Jesus up to death to hold his death against us. He did not set the cross as a trap for us. Rather, he knew we would kill Jesus. He surrendered Jesus into our hands knowing precisely this.

But God raised him up, releasing him from the throes of death,
because it was impossible for him to be held by it.

God knew what he would do about death from the moment when death was a possible consequence of the choice set before Adam. He allowed for death, but only because it would not have the final say. He allowed for death, even if it meant the death of his Son, because on the other side of that death would be life.

God raised this Jesus;
of this we are all witnesses.
Exalted at the right hand of God,
he poured forth the promise of the Holy Spirit 
that he received from the Father, as you both see and hear.

Jesus wants to meet us this week to reveal to us that he is indeed alive in a way that no dead person besides him is alive. He is alive in a way that we one day share fully, in a way that we taste even now. Death still seems quite real to us. But Jesus is more real than death.

But God raised him up, releasing him from the throes of death,
because it was impossible for him to be held by it.

So let us meet Jesus this week as he shows us just how alive he truly is. And once we do, let us proclaim: He is risen! He is risen indeed!

Then Jesus said to them, "Do not be afraid.
Go tell my brothers to go to Galilee, 
and there they will see me."

If we follow the risen Christ we too walk the path to life, because that path culminates in living in his presence forever.

You will show me the path to life,
fullness of joys in your presence,
the delights at your right hand forever.


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