“The time has come… the kingdom of God has drawn near. Repent and believe the gospel!” (Mark 1:15)

When I was a young Christian, I remember attending Good Friday services and becoming overwhelmed by them. The Tenebrae service that we use for our Good Friday evening service is updated from that service (I asked my boyhood pastor to “borrow” it when I was a vicar. I’ve used it ever since.) I remember leaving the darkened sanctuary awestruck, sometimes in tears, to hear again the lengths to which Jesus went to secure the salvation of the world… to secure MY salvation.

However, Easter Sunday didn’t have the same effect. While the hymns and the readings sounded like the coronation of a King, I remember wondering what all the hubbub was about. The real work was done on the cross; Easter was just sort of a cherry on top. As a high school student, I never really understood the importance of Christ’s resurrection from the dead.

It was only when I went to Seminary that began to understand the importance of the Resurrection. St. Paul writes in Romans 4:25 that not only was Jesus “delivered up for our trespasses” but He was also “raised for our justification.” St. Paul writes similarly in Philippians 3:10 that to be a Christian is to “know [Christ] and the power of his resurrection.” These verses are saying that the resurrection of Christ is a source of salvation, life, and power to us now. I had never grasped the magnitude of the promise until seminary.

This is something that shouldn’t be reserved for seminary students; this truth needs to be taught to all new believers. So, just in case you haven’t heard this before, here’s why Christ’s resurrection from the dead is so important: Christ’s resurrection is a restoration of God’s natural order.

We have lived in a broken, fallen world for so long that it has become “natural.” Since humanity turned away from God, both humans and the natural world have become dominated by sin and evil, disorder and disease, suffering and death..  But when Jesus rose from the dead, He inaugurated the first stage of the coming of God’s kingdom power into the world to restore and heal all things.

The resurrection of Christ does not mean that Christians merely have a hope for the future; it means that we have a hope that comes from the future. The Bible’s startling message is that, when Jesus rose, He brought the future kingdom of God into the present. As Jesus declared at the beginning of Mark’s Gospel: “…the kingdom of God has drawn near” (Mk 1:15). In Christ’s resurrection, we see the beginning of the end for death, evil, and the devil. While these things are not totally eradicated yet, their end has begun now.

In the crucifixion, our sins have been atoned for and reparations have been made for them. In the resurrection, God begins to set things back to the way they were supposed to be… the way they were created to be. This is why the Resurrection of our Lord, Easter Sunday, is the most important day of the year for us Christians, because it shows that the power of God has come into the world and begun its restoration. Come Lord Jesus!

In Christ,

Pastor Tom Vanderbilt