For Easter, at our church’s Early Rise Service, I had an opportunity to give a brief reflection on the resurrection of Christ and why it matters to me. I thought I’d take the opportunity to share that in written form today.

In college, I memorized 1 Corinthians 15 and that’s greatly influenced my thinking about the resurrection over the years. It’s really a great chapter, and I encourage everyone to read the whole thing and consider it carefully. The chapter has really stuck with me through the years and it is truly vital to the Christian life. In my message, I didn’t have time to read the whole thing, but it’s very much worth taking a few minutes to do so.

This chapter reminds me of the core of the Christian gospel, the good news. It begins, “Now I make known to you, brothers, the gospel which I proclaimed as good news to you, which also you received, in which also you stand, by which also you are saved, if you hold fast the word which I proclaimed to you as good news”. The gospel is the good news – and it’s salvation to all who receive it, believe it, and hold fast to it.

The passage goes on to offer eyewitness testimony to the truth of this gospel, and the reality of the resurrection of Jesus Christ. Paul, the author, mentions more than five hundred of the believers who saw Jesus after his resurrection from the dead – as if he were saying, “Go ahead – you can visit them and ask if you need to check the evidence that Jesus really was raised.” In other words, the resurrection is verifiably true. Christ really did die for my sins, was buried, and was raised from the dead.

This chapter also reminds me that the resurrection really is crucial to the Christian life. Otherwise, there wouldn’t be a whole chapter of 1 Corinthians digging into the evidence for and significance of the resurrection.

At the time I memorized this chapter, I think I had seen the resurrection almost as an afterthought – that it was just about Christ coming back to life at the finish of his work on the cross. But this chapter convinced me that the resurrection is about far more than that. Our faith is in vain if the dead are not raised (1 Cor. 15:14), we are told. The resurrection proves that God saves, and ensures our future hope. It says, “If we have hoped in Christ in this life only, we are of all men most to be pitied.” Additionally, the resurrection guarantees my future resurrection and a better body and life. That proves particularly important when I find out how much this life disappoints and leaves me longing for something better. Additionally, it makes life worth living not for its own sake but for the future. v32 says, “If the dead are not raised, let us eat and drink, for tomorrow we die.” That is, if there were no resurrection, then I ought to be living just to squeeze every last drop of enjoyment out of the present, for this is all there is. But this is NOT all there is.

This chapter, then, is very practical – it was so for me when I first memorized it, and it’s just as practical now. Life is hard, busy, exhausting. Sometimes we long for peace and rest. In particularly busy times of life, I found myself trying to encourage my wife by saying things like, “I know it’s really busy and hard right now, but it’s just a season. It will get better.” Eventually, I realized this advice was wrong, though – life may not get better on this earth. As I wrote previously, part of the result of the first sin in Genesis 3:17-19 was, essentially, that we would have to work very hard in this life. The general sense may even something like “I’ll have to work very hard my whole life until I die.” (See my prior post for more on this.) The Christian faith doesn’t promise a better life here in this lifetime, but a better eternity. Or, back to 1 Corinthians 15: “If we have hoped in Christ in this life only, we are of all men most to be pitied…” So, I live not for this life, but for the life to come. THERE is the hope and rest I long for, the reward I seek. I won’t find it in a better weekend, or a better vacation, or a better season of life after the kids are grown, or a better retirement, or whatever else.

The Bible pictures the Christian life like a race where I must run hard until I reach the finish. I’ve run a number of races, and I’ve never run one where I wasn’t delighted to finally cross the finish line and be done. The resurrection, then, gives the promise of a glorious finish and life to come, not a life of rest and peace in the present.