Today marked the beginning of week number three of my long overdue return to running. Unfortunate for me, what little rhythm I enjoyed was disrupted by a nasty sickness late last week. Today I punched back. But someone else threw a surprise punch. Strapping on my running shoes was very spiritual today. I’ll tell you why. And if you’re up for a dare, I dare you to read this book I wrote.
Thanks to my ever-intrepid job description, I found myself in a high school classroom listening to a German teacher talk about Easter’s roots. According to him, Easter was not the holiday I was always thought. Though this isn’t the point, I did wonder why, if Easter was about the resurrection of Jesus, it dynamically falls on the first Sunday following the first full moon of Spring. I mean, really, what the heck? I figured this much: Easter really has no deep ties to the event of Jesus rising from the dead. Yes, Easter celebrates the resurrection, but thanks to the ever-spreading cliché epidemic, very few know what resurrection really means. Very few actually know deeply, spiritually, experientially, and mystically what this event really means. I resolved to talk to God about this matter, and be cured of the cliché.
And what He taught me more than consumed me—it changed me. I think, like 'abundant life', the story of the resurrection is one of Christianity’s best-kept secrets. That’s because it’s one of, if not the most significant moments in God’s story of redemption. Jesus took the fatal blow for the entire weight of the world’s sin. But God raised him from the dead.
The writer of Hebrews says, “During the days of Jesus’ life on earth, he offered up prayers and petitions with loud cries to the one who could save him from death, and he was heard because of his reverent submission. Although he was a son, he learned obedience from what he suffered and, once made perfect, he became the source of eternal salvation for all who obey him.” (Heb. 5:7-9)
Paul said of Jesus, “He was delivered over to death for our sins and was raised to life for our justification.” (Rom.4:25) It’s a fancy phrase that means we are completely made right before God. If Jesus did not rise from the dead, his death would have meant nothing. Jesus,raised from the dead, is the confirmation that what he did is perfectly acceptable to and enough for God to cancel our record of wrongdoing, and replace it with the birthright of a son—something we definitely didn’t nor cannot earn.
The writers of the story could have stopped there and we’d have enough, but God wanted us to know even more. There is more, much more.
The resurrection of Christ was an epic foreshadowing of the most beautiful truth God revealed to his people.
We will be changed.
There’s something far greater than life on earth. Something so great and so mystically beautiful that it radically changes the way one lives on earth. It makes life mean something precious and rewarding unlike anything this world could offer. The resurrection was both a confirmation and a promise for those who embrace the life of Jesus by faith. Paul described it as the unseen. To see it, we must walk by faith, not by sight.
Here’s the point. You and I, we’re tiny, ugly seeds. (At least I’m ugly). That’s how Paul described it anyway. You cannot birth the enormous Oak tree by planting the tree itself. You plant the seed—for it must die before the tree mystically appears. Paul says, “God gives the seed a body as he has determined, to each kind of seed he gives its own body.” (Read 1 Corinthians 15:35-49!) If you think the heavenly bodies of the sun, moon, and stars have splendor, God says that the body he will raise in the place of our flesh will be glorious unlike anything in creation. What is perishable will be raised imperishable. What is dishonorable will be raised in glory. What is weak will be raised in power. What is natural will be raised a spiritual body. The last Adam undid what Adam destroyed, and in the place of natural man, the last Adam became a life-giving spirit! Amazing! As it is written, “Just as we have borne the likeness of the earthly man, so shall we bear the likeness of the man from heaven.” (1Cor. 15:49)
And so Paul wrote, “For our light and momentary troubles are achieving for us an eternal glory that far outweighs them all.” If you held it in your hand, it would pass right through you. The creation itself “waits in eager expectation for the children of God to be revealed…We know that the whole creation has been groaning as in the pains of childbirth right up to the present time. Not only so, be we ourselves who have the firstfruits (taste!) of the Spirit, groan inwardly as we wait eagerly for our adoption, the redemption of our bodies.” (Rom. 8:18-21)
And so it changes the way we live. There’s something captivating on the horizon. It’s enough to make us hate sin and in its place, walk in newness of life. (Read Rom. 6:1-11) We fix our eyes on what is unseen. We make it our goal to please him, whether we are in our bodies or away from them, that we may receive what is due us for the things we do in this life, whether good or bad. We have more than a reason to endure the most ugly and painful of circumstances. We stand firm, we let nothing move us, and we happily give ourselves fully to the work of the Lord because we all know fully that our labor in this world is not in vain. We suffer and deny ourselves what the world offers us because we have an enduring promise, a kingdom that cannot be shaken. We give up our lives on this earth to persuade humanity to believe in the one who can restore them to life. We give up our lives because only then will we ever really find them deep and wholly in the promise of the resurrection.
Today, I did something stupid. I ran an out and back; I ran out 1.5 miles down hill cursing myself to run back home 1.5 miles uphill. And it hurt, much like hell. The final 800 meters was the steepest part of the hill. In agony, refusing to stop, I ran into an alarming surprise. Turning the sharp corner toward the crest of the hill, there bright in front me stood the sun. It shined intensely into my eyes glued on the finish line. It shined so bright that I all at once forgot about the pain and ran home in the warm company of the sun.
You better believe that God spoke through the sun. He beckoned me to always keep my eyes on the horizon, enduring all of what He places in front of me.
So, what’s on your horizon? Are you watching?
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