Easter 2006

Romans 8:11
If the Spirit of Him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, He who raised Christ Jesus from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through His Spirit who dwells in you.
Life and death are words that conjure up in our hearts profound thoughts, these two disquieting words “life and death” are central to everything we do and think,
and Easter touches both of these two central questions for the human being.
It brings new meaning, it gives fiber and root to our faith and every culture has its own view of life after death, therefore they will offer you many answers, that are mutually exclusive. Some will say that we’ll live in paradise with thousand virgins
Others deny paradise, instead they propose many reincarnations, man cannot understand the concept of eternity, and man cannot grasp the concept of his own death that is, ceasing to be.
I am here to tell you that in Christ, we find the answer to our existential restlessness. Blaise Pascal, the 15th century French mathematician, physicist, and religious philosopher wrote: “But what does all this restlessness and helplessness indicate, except that man was once in true happiness which has now left him?
So he vainly searches, but finds nothing to help him, other than to see an infinite abyss that can only be filled by one who is infinite and immutable. In other words, it can only be filled with God himself.”
He was right, in the resurrection of Christ, we find fulfillment, why? Because we have a promise: “If the Spirit of Him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, you will also live”, that is why if we deny the bodily resurrection of Christ, we don’t have any hope of eternal life. Paul makes it very clear: “17 If Christ has not been raised, your faith is futile and you are still in your sins.” (1 Cor 15).
Can one call himself a Christian and yet deny the resurrection of Christ? How central is the importance of Easter for Christianity? It is like a man who lived all his life in the desert lands, an eremite or hermit. One day, browsing through some old dusty books, he laid his eyes on plans on how to build a boat and he decided to build one for himself
the problem was that he has never seen the sea or any body of water, and really didn’t believe it existed. His well- traveled friends tried to help him out, to enlighten his understanding of reality, they brought him some National Geographic magazine showing images of the sea, the great lakes, but he always refused to believe: you made this up! -How can I be sure that it is true? Finally someone asked him: “do you know the real meaning of what you’re building in your backyard? He said: no, but it sure looks good.
For Christians, everything we believe, hangs on a marvelous fact in history, the resurrection, otherwise we will be like the eremite building boats on dry land, saying that you believe in Christ, but relegating his resurrection to a corner makes you just like that hermit. “He who raised Christ Jesus from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through His Spirit who dwells in you.”
God’s original project for man was that he would never die. In the garden of Eden, death was not an issue, but since the fall of man, death entered into our vocabulary, since then, we live in a mortal body, it decays, it dies, but through Christ, God has given man a chance to rediscover eternity, but it can’t be done with this corrupted body that we have, the only way to be transformed, is letting die the old body and being resurrected with a new one.
According to the Bible this transformation is done through the Spirit, who dwells in you, no other force in the universe will ever have this power, the power to give life, to make something anew, even the scientific process of cloning animals, proves that an exterior force has to be at work. The cells won’t start to reproduce, until somebody begins to manipulate all the scientific equipment .Christ is the author of our life, and He is our hope, just read : “54 When this perishable body puts on imperishability, and this mortal body puts on immortality, then the saying that is written will be fulfilled: "Death has been swallowed up in victory."55 "Where, O death, is your victory? Where, O death, is your sting?"56 The sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the law.57 But thanks be to God, who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ. ( 1 Cor 15)