Spring is here! There's green shoots of all sorts of plants coming up, flowers blooming, and so many other things growing besides. It's a season of new birth, new growth after a long winter which seemed to be grasped in the icy clutches of death. Many things happen in the spring, and all point to the glorious riches of our creator.
Near 2000 years ago, it was a quiet morning, grasped in the icy clutches of death when a group Soldiers saw the angels appear as lightning, and they became as dead men. It was a quiet morning when the angels broke the seals on a tomb, rolling the heavy stone from it's mouth. It was a quiet morning of women came to prepare the entombed body of their Lord and Master, only to hear "Why are you looking for the living among the dead?" It was a quiet morning when two men got in to a footrace to hear the news, and were astonished to see for themselves this strange news that was reported. It was a quiet morning when a weeping woman saw her anguish turn to joy, and shouted Raboni!" Just because something seems like it is clutched in death's embrace does not mean joy does not follow after. In that cold, silent morning, the King arose, folded His death shroud, cast off His death clothes, and walked out of that tomb, the first fruits of the resurrection. And He did it so that nothing would ever be the same.
Before we meet Christ, many of us are in the cold, icy embrace of death. Yet the King has called us, out of the Grace to live in the Resurrection life with Him! Jesus did not stay in the Tomb once the work was completed, and we can have that assurance, both now, and in the time to come, that we do not need to stay in that embrace. We can walk in resurrection because our King is alive, and it is the First Fruits of what is to come. Let us then walk as if our King Lives, let us follow Him in to glory, as we walk in the newness of life, the image bearers of the King, that we might, too, show others that the King still calls the dead to life!
From Luke 24:
1But on the first day of the week, at early dawn, they went to the tomb, taking the spices they had prepared. 2And they found the stone rolled away from the tomb,3but when they went in they did not find the body of the Lord Jesus. 4While they were perplexed about this, behold, two men stood by them in dazzling apparel. 5And as they were frightened and bowed their faces to the ground, the men said to them, “Why do you seek the living among the dead? 6He is not here, but has risen. Remember how he told you, while he was still in Galilee, 7that the Son of Man must be delivered into the hands of sinful men and be crucified and on the third day rise.”
