Monday, April 4, 2022
"Then Simon Peter came, following him, and went into the tomb. He saw the linen cloths lying there, and the face cloth, which had been on Jesus' head, not lying with the linen cloths but folded up in a place by itself...But Mary stood weeping outside the tomb." (John 20:6-7,11)
The Resurrection is the central event in Christianity. Even nonbelievers know that Christians stake their faith on the fact that Christ is risen from the dead. Given that familiarity, though, we might forget that this event surprised everyone at the time. Three women came to the tomb at the crack of dawn the day after the Sabbath, carrying spices to prepare Jesus's corpse for burial (they assumed that task had not been done properly in the rush to take His body off the cross). Peter and John then raced to the tomb, not because they thought Jesus lived, but to check out what sounded like a grave robbery. It did not occur to any of them that their teacher was alive.
But Jesus had risen, and this startling reality brings hope to the world. Jesus, compelled by love, had gone to the cross to die for our sins. His perfect sacrifice conquered death itself. Jesus cannot die again (Romans 6:9). We who identify with Jesus will also experience our own resurrection (Romans 6:8; 1 Thessalonians 4:14; 2 Timothy 2:11).
Stuart Townend, one of the song's co-authors, writes, "I think it’s vitally important we root our worship in historical fact. Christianity is not just an outlook on life, a code of behaviour, or a series of transcendent experiences. It's a wholehearted response to the truth of God founded on the real-life words and actions of Jesus."