Celebrating What Is to Come

Easter morning will find me at the cemetery where my late wife, Eleanor, was buried in 1998. Yes, I intend to be in Sunday School and church that morning, but about the time the sun begins its climb across the sky, I plan to be standing by Eleanor’s grave giving thanks for God’s faithfulness and celebrating what is to come.

Easter Sunday focuses on what God did through the resurrection of Jesus from the grave.  My thanksgiving that morning will focus on what the resurrection means to Eleanor, to me and to all who believe on the name of the Lord Jesus as personal Savior.

Death is destruction of the created order. Death is departure from relationships and all that gives meaning to life. But not even death can separate the believer from the love of God, according to the Apostle Paul (Rom. 8:38–39). That conviction was founded on ancient biblical teachings and on the words of Jesus Himself.

The psalmist wrote that God would provide guidance and strength, even through death, and then receive one into His glory (Ps. 73:23–26). Psalm 16 declares the conviction that God’s child will not be left in Sheol but will share the joy of the presence of God after death.

Jesus’ words are more explicit. He declared, “If a man keeps my word, he will never see death” (John 8:51). In John 11:26, Jesus said, “Everyone who lives and believes in me will never see death.”

The resurrection of Jesus makes that claim reality. Jesus entered the domain of death and came forth in glorious resurrection. He broke the power of Satan who holds the power of death (Heb. 2:14–15). Now Jesus holds the keys of death and Hades (Rev. 1:18).

When Eleanor died, she was not abandoned to destruction. No believer is. Rather, the One who now holds the keys of death itself welcomed her to Himself. That is the promise of Jesus.

Luke 23:42–43 records Jesus’ promise to the dying thief on the cross that “this day you will be with me in paradise.” Death would be real to the thief. Death would be painful. But on the other side of death awaited companionship with Jesus. That is why Paul could write in Philippians 1:23–24 that to be “absent from the body” is to be “present with Christ.”

That presence is a personal presence. When the Sadducees tried to trick Jesus with a story about a woman with seven husbands (Mark 12:18–27), Jesus pointed out that God is not a God of the dead but of the living. He declared that the great patriarchs of Judaism — Abraham, Isaac and Jacob — continue to live.

Matthew 17:1–8 records the incident when Moses and Elijah appeared with Jesus. They appeared as distinct personalities recognized by Peter, James and John though none of the three had ever before seen the prophets of old.

Insistence on the preservation of personhood after death is a doctrinal distinctive of the Judeo-Christian heritage. Christianity knows nothing of migrating souls with multiple lives or nothing of absorption into some great state of being. Christianity contends for the uniqueness and value of each human being.

Jesus died for persons like Eleanor, like me, like you. That personhood is preserved, even in the face of death’s destruction. The resurrection declares it so.

Jesus was raised in bodily form. He was seen, recognized, touched. Others had been resuscitated only to face death once more. Only Jesus was raised from the dead never to face death again. He was the “first fruits” (1 Cor. 15:20). As He was raised by the power of God, so shall all who are in Christ be raised at His coming.

God is faithful. He is there to receive believers when they die. He was there to receive Eleanor. His power turns the destruction of death into a gateway to eternal life. Instead of being bound by Satan, Christians are ushered into the presence of God by Jesus, the resurrected Christ, the author and finisher of their faith.

As glorious as that is, God has more in store for believers. Their resurrection awaits. A time is coming when those who have died in Christ will put on glory and power and immortality (1 Cor. 15:42–44). They are all gifts of God, part of the “spiritual body” in which believers will be clothed for eternity.

My mind cannot fathom the depths of such an event. I doubt that any human mind can comprehend it all. But it is what God promises and God cannot lie.

So Easter morning I will stand at the foot of Eleanor’s grave thanking God for His faithfulness. I will thank Him for His redeeming grace, for His conquering death, for His preserving love, for His presence shared.

And I will celebrate His promise of what is yet to come, the resurrection of believers.