What’s the use of living a righteous life? Why bother wasting all of your energy trying to follow God and his commands? How can anyone even know what the right thing to do is anyway? Where was God when it mattered most? Are God’s promises even worth the paper they are written on? We prayed, why didn’t God come through and rescue Jesus? What’s the point to holiness? Why stand out in a crowd? Why live a life that is anything other than ordinary? See where it got Jesus? Dead, on a cross, like a common criminal.
While we will never know, these might have been some of the questions swirling in the heads of Jesus’ followers as they watched him arrested, tortured and killed. Questions steeped in doubt and confusion as to the reliability of God, Jesus, his word, and promises.
Over these past few weeks, following Easter, we have been looking together at the wider significance of Jesus’ resurrection. We have already seen that Jesus’ resurrection means freedom from the penalty of sin and our personal salvation. We have also seen Jesus’ resurrections means creation healed and the broken relationships between people and God, each other, themselves, and creation redeemed. Still, the significance of Jesus’ resurrection is even greater.
For Jesus’ followers, still consumed by questions, everything would change three days after Jesus’ death when he would be raised to life and walk, talk, and eat with them. As Jesus was raised from the dead, righteousness was vindicated. The character of God was tested in the public square and proven to be true and reliable by Jesus’ resurrection.
In the book of Deuteronomy, as the people of Israel is being formed into a nation Moses is giving the people instructions on how to live and who they should follow. He cautions the people to be careful of words spoken by one claiming to be a prophet:
“If a prophet, or one who foretells by dreams, appears among you and announces to you a sign or wonder, and if the sign or wonder spoken of takes place, and the prophet says, ‘Let us follow other gods'(gods you have not known) ‘and let us worship them,’ you must not listen to the words of that prophet or dreamer . . . That prophet or dreamer must be put to death for inciting rebellion against the Lord your God. . .” (13:1-3, 5)
Jesus is a prophet who predicted his own death and resurrection three days later. Even more, Jesus was the one predicted by the prophets of old. In Luke 24, shortly after his resurrection, Jesus would join two travelers confused by the events of the past week on the road to Emmaus. As they walked along, Jesus, “beginning with Moses and all the Prophets, he explained to them what was said in the Scriptures concerning himself” (vs. 27). Wouldn’t it be great to have a transcript of this conversation? As they walked along Jesus demonstrated to these travelers the faithfulness of God throughout history.
Jesus’ resurrection gives us confidence in the promises of God and true and reliable and the words of Jesus are faithful.
Blessings,
Stephen