Beauty from Ashes

What follows is something I wrote two years ago, slightly edited. Parts of reiterate my previous post, parts are new thoughts. Enjoy this rare occurrence of two posts in one day!

Easter is the most joyful day of the year for me, as a Christian. It’s like knowing a secret the rest of the world does not know. We know that we have reason to hope! Our Lord has defeated death! But to arrive at Easter Sunday, we have to first go through Friday.

Friday has precious little reason for hoping. Imagine, if you were a follower of Jesus in His lifetime, what “good” Friday must have been like. Seeing your reason for living, dying. Your Savior cursed and mocked, scourged and bruised, dying the worst death possible. Where is there any reason to hope in that? How could there be anything but despair and anguish?

Sometimes we would prefer to gloss over Friday. Skip the pain, go straight to the celebration. We know that Christ has risen, and would prefer to think about that because it’s much more pleasant. But Jesus’ followers then couldn’t do that. Jesus had told them what was going to happen to Him, but they didn’t understand. They didn’t know about the joy of Easter morning. It had to have been heartbreaking, to believe and love Jesus, and in one day to see your greatest hope destroyed.

Even after Friday is over, Saturday still has to be dealt with. Saturday’s numb despondency is not the raw despair of Friday, but is almost worse in its own way. The grim reality, or what appears to be reality, sets in. He’s dead. There’s no way around it, no way out of it, nothing that will change it. With Saturday comes the horrible idea of shaping your life minus the One who had become its center. You can’t imagine how to live without Him, but no longer can you be with Him.

Imagine, out of this most hopeless of situations comes the greatest hope of all. The unfettered joy of Sunday morning! That’s what Easter Sunday means, more than anything else at all. Joy! A joy the world doesn’t know, cannot know. We know something they don’t! Our Savior defeated death, once and for all broke the power of the grave, opened the chains of sin, and trampled the enemy under His feet! He provided the way for us to be with Him, and that is the secret the world doesn’t know. Jesus’ followers weren’t aware of it either, at first. Coming to the tomb early in the morning, they believed Him to be still held by death. If the joy is so great for us, imagine what it must have been for them! “Why do you seek the living among the dead? He is not here, but is risen!”

I think Easter is my favorite holiday. To be perfectly honest, at Christmas or Thanksgiving or any other holiday, I would miss the trappings if they weren’t there. Important as the “reason” really is, I would not like to do without the presents and the dinner and the decorations and all that. But for me, this day is different. You could take away the candy, the baskets, the bunnies, the festive dinner–all of it!–and it would still be the most joyful day of the year!

Why? Because there is nothing that can compare to the knowledge that our Lord has conquered the enemy! He has defeated death itself, that which seemed so powerful. So final. So unalterable. But He broke it, conquered it, trampled it under His feet! He holds the keys of death and hell now, and death is swallowed up in victory!

It is the most central aspect of our faith; as Paul says “And if Christ is not risen, your faith is futile; you are still in your sins!…If in this life only we have hope in Christ, we are of all men the most pitiable.” (1 Corinthians 15:17, 19) If one were to stop there, life would be hopeless and our celebration of Easter as the resurrection day would be a ridiculous mockery! But that’s not the end! The next verse continues: “But now Christ is risen from the dead, and has become the firstfruits of those who have fallen asleep.” And therein is our reason for hoping. That is what sets us apart. Not only did He die to free us from our sins, but He rose again to bring us life, and life more abundantly!

Christ is risen! Alleluia!