The angel told the women, “Don’t be afraid, because I know you are looking for Jesus who was crucified. He is not here. For he has risen, just as he said. Come and see the place where he lay” (Matthew 28:5-6 CSB).
Jesus closed His earthly mission consciously, with a deliberate choice to give His life freely. Yes, give. No one took His life from Him. Jesus did not die the death of a martyr . . . but willing Savior. It was the most extravagant of all gifts.
Gloriously, His story doesn’t end there. For on the third day that crucified body breathed again! But before Jesus made His exit, He left behind a gift for His disciples in that empty tomb. It was that of His folded face cloth (John 20:7). Was it a sign to assure their bewildered faith and reeling minds? Was it a clue that His body had not been stolen? It seems Jesus was trying to tell them that God had accomplished what He’d been telling them all along. That cloth was but the first proof that Jesus was alive.
Jesus was given back His life—raised from the dead as vindication from the Father.
Death could not hold He Who is Life. The author of the Letter to the Hebrews says death has been rendered powerless. Jesus took on flesh to conquer the one who held the power of death. He died to deliver us from slavery to our fear of death (Hebrews 2:14-15). Jesus has trampled that fear under His nail-scarred feet and has given us a hope for a glorious future.
What Jesus our Lord said of Lazarus, “Though he die, yet shall he live,” is true of us (John 11:25). That is our refrain!
The truth of the resurrection totally rewrites our story, too. Believing it is central to our faith in Jesus Christ (1 Corinthians 15:17). The facts that Jesus truly died, that the tomb truly was empty, and that there were witnesses to His personal visitations (Acts 1:3), should so rock our worldview! It should bring balm to our souls to know that though we are dying, we will yet live. But unfortunately, many are still walking an Emmaus Road.
Hold to the gift of Jesus’ words tightly in your heart: “I have come down from heaven, not to do my own will, but the will of him who sent me. And this is the will of my Father: that everyone who sees the Son and believes in him will have eternal life, and I will raise him up on the last day” (John 6:38, 40).
Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! According to His great mercy, He has caused us to be born again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, into an inheritance that is imperishable, undefiled, and unfading, kept in heaven for us, who by God's power are being guarded through faith for a salvation ready to be revealed in the last time (1 Peter 1:3-5). Help us hold firmly to this truth until the end, Father. I pray I will live by the power that comes from our hope in the resurrection—living the gift of my eternal life now to the fullest.
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