I do not know what I would do without my desk calendar. I cannot begin to list or mention what I would forget to do without having it written down on my calendar. Once I hear about a meeting or deadline, I immediately write it on my desk calendar so that I don’t forget. I even need to write the important events down so that I don’t forget them too. The fact that they are important still might not be enough for me not to forget. Even though I am younger and appear to be tech-savvy, I still have not switched over to inserting my calendar into my phone, which can even give me reminders for upcoming events. There is something about writing things down that helps me to remember things. Perhaps you are the same.
As Christians, sometimes we can forget about a key part of our faith: the resurrection of Jesus and the importance of it. While that might sound like a strange thing that we could forget about, hear me out. During the time of Lent, we focus on our sin, repentance, and the death of Jesus. While we look forward to Easter, we don’t necessarily focus on it, or on the resurrection. As Christians, we often tend to focus more on the death of Jesus than on His resurrection. While that is not necessarily a bad thing, we do ourselves a disservice when we forget about the resurrection.
To repeat, the death of Jesus is important. In His death, He takes our place before God. He takes on the punishment that we deserved, and He satisfies God’s righteous anger. But sometimes, we can stop there and sell the resurrection short. Listen to a few verses that talk about the resurrection of Jesus, and its importance.
Romans 1:1-5: Paul, a servant of Christ Jesus, called to be an apostle, set apart for the gospel of God, 2 which he promised beforehand through his prophets in the holy Scriptures, 3 concerning his Son, who was descended from David according to the flesh 4 and was declared to be the Son of God in power according to the Spirit of holiness by his resurrection from the dead, Jesus Christ our Lord, 5 through whom we have received grace and apostleship to bring about the obedience of faith for the sake of his name among all the nations,
Romans 4:22-25: That is why his [Abraham] faith was “counted to him as righteousness.” 23 But the words “it was counted to him” were not written for his sake alone, 24 but for ours also. It will be counted to us who believe in him who raised from the dead Jesus our Lord, 25 who was delivered up for our trespasses and raised for our justification.
1 Corinthians 15:13-17: But if there is no resurrection of the dead, then not even Christ has been raised. 14 And if Christ has not been raised, then our preaching is in vain and your faith is in vain. 15 We are even found to be misrepresenting God, because we testified about God that he raised Christ, whom he did not raise if it is true that the dead are not raised. 16 For if the dead are not raised, not even Christ has been raised. 17 And if Christ has not been raised, your faith is futile and you are still in your sins.
The resurrection of Jesus shows His identity as God’s Son and the completion of His saving work (Rom. 1:4-5). It shows us that God accepted His sacrifice and that we are justified before Him (declared righteous; Rom. 4:25). The resurrection is also a central tenant of our faith. If Jesus didn’t rise again from the dead, then our faith is vain and useless. We would still be in our sins (1 Cor. 15:13-17). His resurrection also reminds and points us to our future resurrection. As we look at Jesus’ death and resurrection over the following weeks, don’t just stop at Good Friday or His death. Include Easter and His resurrection. Don’t forget about it! As we include both together, we see a wonderful picture of our Savior: He is the Son of God Who died in our place to save us. His resurrection confirms and shows us that this is all true, and that we will be raised one day too. We need to include both His death AND His resurrection to get this picture and truth. God’s blessings as you finish your Lenten journey and continue into the season of Easter. ~Pastor Nick Kooi
(Originally published in Emmaus Footprints, Vol. XVIII, Number 9, April 2017)