Sharing in His Resurrection [Easter Reflection]

As we come to Easter, the word itself rests on a much older word that comes from the Latin “tempus Pasquale,” mainly “the season of the Passover.” It describes Jesus’ personal Passover, from His Passion, death and burial to a new, permanent and indestructible life. A life into which He wants to invite us, here on Earth, and then later on in the Father’s house. A life which will be fully bestowed on us when Jesus returns again at the end of the age, and a new body, modeled on His own, will be granted to each of us, if we become and stay faithful to Him in our personal lives. 

For Easter, dearest brothers and sisters, is not only about the bodily Resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead; it's also a promise made to us that we will share in His personal Triumph, if we so live in Him now. For Jesus has given us access to His Father's house, and from there He has sent the abiding Holy Spirit to be the very life of the Church which is His body on Earth. 

The life in the Church, with all of its starts and stops in our own individual lives, our successes and our setbacks, as long as there is a repentance in our hearts for sin, a rejection of the evil one with his lies and deceptions, and the pursuit of a personal relationship to Jesus, so long as all those things are present in us, the life that is in His Church is meant to be a foretaste in hope of the permanent and enduring life of us sharing in the Resurrected body of Jesus Christ. 

So as we look around at what's passing by so fast, especially in these perilous times, we can see that the rhythm of life, this passing around us and passing by us, the economic situation, and economic stability, but even more so the passing of human lives that we have grown to love and count on. As we look around us during this time of the virus, we see all that passing by us so fast and, in many ways, passing away from us. In light of that, dearest brothers and sisters, the Easter life in the Resurrected Jesus Christ becomes and looks more stable, more durable, more attractive than ever before. 

The Lord says to us, “I live and you will live because of me,” and not only at some future date. Sometimes we talk about “eternal life” as something only for the future, but it's meant for the now, not only at some future date, but now that we've defined our meaning and our security of our lives in His Resurrected life. 

All that Jesus secured for us, by His awful passion and death, is secured to us in His Resurrection. All the celebrations and delights of Easter are grounded in His life. For death could not hold Him down and He intends it does not hold us permanently either. We are to be the living. In some ways, that encapsulates the celebration of Easter. It’s not only the Resurrection of Jesus from the dead, but it's our life in this Resurrected Person, and that life is intended to be experienced by us here and now. So that as we turn our lives over to the Lord, as we seek to deal with the faults and sins that beset us, we live in Christ and that life in Christ now will be our life in the Kingdom. But even more so, the Resurrected body of Jesus Christ is intended to be shared, His life in a resurrected body for ourselves when He comes again. 

You see dearest brothers and sisters that Easter isn’t simply the remembrance of a historical event, however awesome it is, but rather its the beginnings of a new life for us now, that we are to live the life of Jesus now. And if we do so with determination as we live in it now, we will live in it in the future when we go home to the Father’s house. So this is intended therefore to be the radical and profound joy and Easter hope. 

Even our own deaths can't frustrate that. If we have life in Christ now and we live that life deliberately, our own death will not cancel that out. That life is more powerful than even our own bodily deaths. It holds the promise, that when Jesus returns again, the life which is His Resurrected body will be communicated to us and we shall share in it. 

In these days when everything is so fragile, including life itself, we want to be confident in the Resurrected Jesus so as to share deeply in His life now, by our conformity to Him, and then to realize that that life will not be overturned even by our deaths. Rather we will continue on, into the Father's house, in the eternal life in heaven. 

Rejoice and be glad dearest brothers and sisters as we celebrate this Easter in this year 2020.