Christ is risen! Alleluia!
This Easter Sunday, we rejoice in Jesus's resurrection from the dead!
But what about tomorrow? What impact will Jesus's death and resurrection have on our lives going forward?
Jesus's death and resurrection are something we generally pack away until next Easter or until we have to deal with the inescapable reality of death. Faced with the death of a friend or loved one, we pull out the hope of the resurrection. Death is not the end. Jesus was raised from death by the power of God, defeating it and breaking its power. He was the first fruit (1 Corinthians 15:20). We, too, will share his resurrection. In this hope, we affirm, "Death has been swallowed up in victory" (1 Corinthians 15:54) as we face the reality of our own death in the death of the other.
But Jesus's death and resurrection reach beyond our Easter celebrations and our confrontations with the reality of death. When we limit our thinking about Jesus's death and resurrection to Easter and funerals, we miss a core spiritual truth - a truth that has the power to transform our lives and how we live. That truth: death and resurrection is the pattern of the spiritual life! It was the pattern of Jesus's life and is the pattern of life in the Godhead. It is the governing principle in the Kingdom of God. Thus, it is the way of life for the follower of Jesus.
Jesus taught this truth. "If any want to become my followers, let them deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me. For those who want to save their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake, and for the sake of the gospel, will save it" (Mark 8:34-35).
Paul patterned his life after this principle: "I want know Christ and the power of his resurrection and the sharing of his sufferings by becoming like him in his death" (Philippians 3:10).
Both Jesus and Paul spoke of dying as the pathway to life - dying to live - death and resurrection.
Jesus spoke of dying to who the world told us we had to be if we wanted to be accepted and valued. He spoke of dying to the persona we fashioned by conforming to the cultural values and established patterns of the society in which we grew up and in which we live. This persona is an ego-based self, built through self-effort and self-reliance. It operates out of merit-based, if ... then thinking that emphasizes deserving. It allows us to feel better than those who fail to measure up to the community's standards of what is acceptable (right) and what is not (wrong).
Paul spoke of dying to that persona - "If anyone else has reason to be confident in the flesh, I have more: circumcised on the eighth day, a member of the people of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin, a Hebrew of Hebrews; as to the law, a Pharisee; as to zeal, a persecutor of the church; as to righteousness under the law, blameless. Yet whatever gains I had, these I have come to regard as loss because of Christ. For his sake I have suffered the loss of all things, and I regard them as rubbish" (Philippians 3:4b-7, 8b).
We resist dying to this constructed persona. In our minds, it is who we are ... our sense of self ... our identity. It is how we have established our sense of value. It is how we seek to gain acceptance and belonging in our group. We have no sense of who we are apart from this constructed, ego-based self. But in reality, this persona is a false self, not our true self.
Those of us who have built our persona around religious belief and involvement - a religious persona - are especially resistant to dying to self. Our religious belief and practices reassure us we are "right" ... and, by implication, others are wrong. (A reliable indicator that we are living out of a constructed persona, an ego-based self, is us-them thinking that divides the world into those like us and those who are different. Another indicator is being critical of others, judging them for what they do or don't do. Judging and condemning reflect us-them thinking.)
Both Jesus and Paul spoke of dying to this constructed self as the path that leads to life. The life we experience as we die to our constructed self is the abundant life of which Jesus spoke ... the life in the Spirit of which Paul spoke ... life in which we grow spiritually ... life in which the character of Christ is ingrained in the core of our being ... life in which who God created us to be (our true self) is set free ... life in which we live out of our God-given gifts and passions ... life in which we do what we cannot do in our own strength through the power of the Spirit ... life in which we love as Jesus loved and love who Jesus loved ... the life for which we were created when God created us in the image of God ... the very life of God that Jesus lived ... eternal life.
Paul spoke of this quality of life as participating in the power of the resurrection (Philippians 3:10). It is life in which the power that raised Jesus from the dead is at work in us and through us (Ephesians 1:19-20). Just as God raised Jesus from the dead, so God raises us from death to our constructed, ego-based self to a new life in Christ. "If anyone is in Christ, there is a new creation: everything old has passed away; see, everything has become new! All this is from God" (2 Corinthians 5:17-18a). Our new life in Christ is God's work ... the Spirit's transforming work in our hearts and minds.
Embracing death and resurrection as the pattern of our lives produces striking changes in our lives - characteristics of our new life in Christ.
The dominant emotional tone of our lives becomes peace and joy and thanksgiving.
We live out of grace and forgiveness as we take on the mind of Christ (Philippians 2:5-11; 1 Corinthians 2:16b). We move beyond us-them, better than-less than thinking to view and value, accept and embrace each person as a beloved child of God. We respond to others with patience, kindness, understanding, gentleness, compassion, and forgiveness (Galatians 5:22-23; Colossians 3:12-17).
A servant spirit underlies all we do. We are freed to authentically serve without our ego getting in the way. The ego-based, constructed persona - particularly the religious persona - twists serving others into being about "me." Dying to our ego-based self frees us to wash the feet others (John 13) without concern as to who gets the credit or recognition. Dying to our constructed, ego-based self is the key to loving one another, loving our neighbor, and loving our enemy.
Our response to the pain, suffering, and loss that are an inescapable part of life is no longer one of fear and resistance. We learn to embrace the pain and suffering of life as an opportunity for God to work. Believing that the pain and suffering (precursors of death) are not the last word, we look for the good that God will bring out of our experience (Romans 5:3-5; 8:28-29). We view these life challenges as opportunities to grow spiritually.
Embracing death and resurrection as the pattern of our lives changes who we are and how we experience life. Embracing this pattern of living, we - though the power of the Spirit - live as Easter people ... as people of the resurrection ... as Kingdom people.
"Not that I have already obtained this or have already reached the goal; but I press on to make it my own, because Christ has made me his own. Beloved, I do not consider that I have made it my own; but this one thing I do: forgetting what lies behind and straining forward to what lies ahead, I press on toward the goal for the prize of the heavenly call of God in Christ Jesus. Let those of us then who are mature be of the same mind." (Philippians 3:12-15a).
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