Resurrection Perspective
When I recently visited my grandmother’s old house in East Texas, I realized it had changed. The porch that my brother and I used to leap off of, seemingly risking life and limb, I could now easily manage with one step, not even needing the stairs that led to the front door. Her pasture, the “finish line” of many races my brother and I had run from the porch when we were children, was now just a few long strides from the porch. It would not be much of a race at all now.
“How did this place get so small?” I mused to myself.
Then it hit me: I had gotten bigger! The house and its surrounding land remained virtually the same, but my perspective (along with my height and age) had changed dramatically.
Life is full of changing perspectives.
Easter Sunday marks the biggest perspective change in human history. The announcement to the women at the tomb that “He [Jesus] is not here; He is risen, just as He said. . . .” (Matthew 28:6) changed everything.
The disciples were still hiding, but they were about to find a new boldness. Death was still a reality, but it no longer held the kind of crippling fear over them that it once did. Their savior had demonstrated that not even death could stop the spread of this wonderful new kingdom that Jesus had told them about. A short time later, now filled with expectation, the disciples gathered in obedience to their risen Lord and received the fullness of the power of the Holy Spirit, enabling them to (in the words of Acts) “turn the world upside down” (see Acts 17:6).
Can we allow the resurrection of Jesus to change our perspectives? Can we let the reality of the defeat of sin and death through the love and resurrected life of Jesus Christ shape our thinking and our living?
From the moment that we allow our perspectives to be changed by His life and His defeat of death, we are on our way to being fully empowered witnesses of the reality of the Kingdom of God! Jesus has risen! Jesus is Lord! Jesus is calling us by the power of His Spirit to be part of the life-changing Kingdom of God.
Let us fix our eyes on Jesus so that our perspectives may be changed forever, and we can see things as they truly are.
Prayer for the Week:
O God, who for our redemption gave Your only-begotten
Son to the death of the cross, and by His glorious resurrection
delivered us from the power of our enemy: Grant us so to die
daily to sin, that we may evermore live with Him in the joy of
His resurrection; through Jesus Christ your Son our Lord,
who lives and reigns with You and the Holy Spirit, one God,
now and forever. Amen.
(prayer from The Book of Common Prayer)
Charles W. Christian is managing editor of Holiness Today.
Written for Coffee Break with Holiness Today.
