The passion of our Savior and Lord is at the
heart of our redemption. Yet, that passion
quickly becomes mute if we forget the
resurrection. After Jesus was crucified, the
disciples were locked behind closed doors. Their
lives were in danger; their families were in
danger. They, no doubt, saw themselves as the
laughingstock of Israel. Jerusalem was still in
an uproar and guards were standing watch over
the Savior’s tomb. I understand there was a
rumor in Jerusalem that friends tried to
convince Joseph of Arimathaea not to give his
tomb for the burial of this confessed Messiah.
He is reported to have said, “Why not, He only
wants to borrow it for three days.”
His disciples had lost one of their number to
suicide; Judas’ death was horrible. It was so
violent that all his bowels gushed out. As they
contemplated the loss of their Lord, one out of
their number, and their future, Godly women were
carrying burial ointments to the tomb to add
embalming spices to a hastily buried Jesus. I
can imagine that after they found Jesus’ body
gone and were rushing to the location of the
eleven, the disciples heard them coming down the
alleyway. They must have been screaming, “He’s
alive, He’s alive; His grave clothes are there
but He is gone.” The disciples’ fear was
immediately broken and they openly ran to the
graveyard. The immobilizing powers of fear and
sorrow were gone because they had heard the tomb
was empty. There is not one word of fear ever
named again among His disciple s. Hope arose in
their hearts like sunrise at midnight.
Thank God that we do not worship before a
victim on a cross. There is no hope in such a
sense. Apostle Paul settled this great truth in
his discourse on the resurrection. He said,
“And if Christ be not
raised, your faith is vain; ye are yet in your
sins. Then they also which are fallen asleep in
Christ are perished. If in this life only we
have hope in Christ, we are of all men most
miserable. But now is Christ risen from the
dead, and become the firstfruits of them that
slept” (1 Corinthians 15:17-20).
Our hope is not in contemplating His wounds
but rejoicing in His completed victory. The
risen Lord they saw was so glorious in
resurrection victory that they never talked
about His mutilated body again. When they spoke
of sharing His death, they spoke not of a
lacerated body, but they spoke of death to their
plans and dreams and a total surrender to His
will. They turned the world “upside down”
because His resurrection became their
resurrection. “Yet a
little while, and the world seeth me no more;
but ye see me: because I live, ye shall live
also. At that day (after the resurrection) ye
shall know that I am in my Father, and ye in me,
and I in you” (John 14:19-20).
What glorious truth! Living a life delivered
from sin by His death but raised in His
resurrection is the New Testament standard.
Apostle Paul did not see Him before He ascended
to Heaven but He did see Him shortly thereafter.
In his testimony before the Jews in Jerusalem he
said, “And when I could
not see for the glory of that light, being led
by the hand of them that were with me, I came
into Damascus” (Acts 22:11). Later he
testified to King Agrippa,
“At midday, O king, I
saw in the way a light from heaven, above the
brightness of the sun, shining round about me
and them which journeyed with me” (Acts
26:13).
This victory of a glorified Jesus totally
arrested Paul (then called Saul of Tarsus). It
was so heavenly that he wrote to the Philippians
of his new life and our hope and spoke of this
glorious body that Jesus now possessed. Apostle
Paul said, “For our
conversation is in heaven; from whence also we
look for the Saviour, the Lord Jesus Christ: Who
shall change our vile body, that it may be
fashioned like unto his glorious body, according
to the working whereby he is able even to subdue
all things unto himself” (Philippians
3:20-21).
The early churches were powerful in ministry
because they served a risen and glorified Lord.
His “Glorious Body” was their assurance of their
future “Glorified Body.” They never gloried in
the lacerated and wounded earthly body that He
offered on the cross; they gloried in the
“Glorified Body” that reflects the absolute
victory of the cross and the Resurrection.
“Wherefore lift up
the hands which hang down, and the feeble knees;
And make straight paths for your feet, lest that
which is lame be turned out of the way; but let
it rather be healed” (Hebrews 12:12-13).
The “Gospel of Jesus Christ” is the “good news”
that He is not in a tomb or on a cross, but He
is alive and at the Father’s right hand and soon
to appear. Serve Him with great joy and
unfailing hope.
