As is my habit, I spent this Saturday morning cleaning around the house and listening to a sermon, today by John Piper. As is almost always the case, his words both uplifted and challenged me. In particular, he spent a few moments exulting over the joy that Christ must have felt on that resurrection day as he awoke from the dead. Oh, what a wondrous thing that is to imagine! It struck me with such beautiful force that I thought it worthy of taking the time to share with you. My hope is that, on this beautiful Saturday morning, these words would lift you up to “set your hearts on things above, where Christ is seated at the right hand of God. Set your minds on things above, not on earthly things. For you died, and your life is now hidden with Christ in God.” (Coll. 3:1-3) Imagine with me, then, the wonder of that moment;
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Christ has died three days past, enduring, for the joy set before Him (Heb. 12:2), both physical and spiritual agony beyond our understanding as he was beaten nearly to death and then crushed beneath the wrath of God for our sins (Isaiah 53:10) upon the cross. All of this, He did in faith in God, trusting that His father would justify the righteous and make all things right. Christ new, even as he was being crushed beneath the wrath of God, that the will of God was being completed as He died, and with His last breaths he declared this fact, saying “it is finished.” (John 19:30)
We know not what Christ endured those three days as he lay there in that tomb. Did he descend to Hell? Was he simply suspended in some sort of non-existence for that 72 hour period? Did time even correlate? Oh, what a mystery! But it matters not, for we know the outcome.
Picture that third morning, early on what would later become known as “the Lord’s day,” as it was still dark and the rest of the country slept. For two nights thus far the guards posted at the request of the Jewish leaders have stood watch over the tomb without any event. But not on this morning; surely there shall be an event the likes of which the earth has never seen! A spark of life flickers through the limbs of the dead body that Christ had spent his earthly life in, sending electric currents tingling out from the heart to the tips of the fingers and toes as the heart begins to beat again with life that is far more than earthly. Those eyes, closed last as they looked out through lashes covered in blood upon a crowd that taunted him, open, now brilliant with an otherworldly light of their own to gaze upon the grave clothes that he has been wrapped in. The very pulse of heaven now courses through this human flesh, made into the image of how man was originally created, in perfect union with his creator. A wide smile spreads across the Son of God’s face as he sits up, letting the grave clothes fall away and He says softly to himself, “It is finished. Oh, Father, truly it is finished!”
At that moment a light that would blind any normal human tears through the opening of the tomb as two of the Lord’s mightiest angels tear back the stone that holds their King within the tomb in which he so willingly laid himself. At the sight of Jesus Christ, son of God himself, arrayed in the glory of the Father, these massive heavenly beings kneel and place one fist upon their chests, paying homage to the one who has ransomed men for God. Christ, beaming in response to the appropriateness of their actions, declares, “Rise, oh angels, and let sound your horn so that all of heaven might shake, for today the victory is won!”
The angels stand and take wing, spiraling up and out of sight as Christ exits the tomb, clothing himself with garments that were prepared for that moment, and once again tampering the brilliance of God that now shines clear through Him so as to appear human. For a moment, there in the dim morning light near the entrance to that now empty garden tomb, the Savior gazes upon the wounds that still scar his hands and feet, tracing the wound on his left hand with his right pointer finger. The scars remain, yes, but no more does the pain. By these scars he shall never forget those whom he accepted them for; those whom his father had predestined from all eternity to be called and justified by his life, death, and resurrection.
Again, a smile spreads across his face and an uncontrollable wave of laughter rolls out from his mouth, meeting the sun as it lifts the tip of its head over the horizon. Breathing deep of the earthly air that he would not much longer breathe before returning to sit at the right hand of his father, Jesus walked slowly up the path that led toward the town to wait.
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