Resurrection Reflection

The man and his wife heard the sound of Elohim moving about the garden…

~ The Book of Genesis

Where does your Bible begin? I believe the answer to this question greatly shapes how we view Resurrection Sunday.  

If your Bible begins in Genesis 3 with the entrance of sin and the fall of mankind, then most likely your primary worldview is one of decay, struggle, sin, and suffering.  You can catch this dynamic fairly quickly in fundamentalist preachers. 

The Genesis 3 Good News becomes a never-ending plea to recognize how bad things are; so bad, Jesus had to be killed.  But, if you say the prayer and believe the prescription, you can be freed from the devil’s domain and will one day soon — go somewhere else.

However, if your Bible begins in Genesis 1 with the Creation story where God saw that everything was good and walked with His beloved image-bearers in the garden, then most likely your primary worldview is one of Presence, awareness, peace and glory — here and now. 

The Genesis 1 Good News becomes an open invitation to receive the self-giving love of Christ that has germinated the reconciliation of all things (The ultimate restoration of every thing toward perfect harmony). Yes, we can look forward to eternal life, but the abundant life Jesus offers has already begun and is available here and now because of resurrection. 

If you are a Genesis 3, there may be a subconscious satisfaction brewing that all of the earth will soon burn up as it deservedly should.  If you are a Genesis 1, you may feel a responsibility and urgency to re-present Christ here and now because it’s the very thing the earth needs most.

All of creation eagerly awaits the revealing of the sons of God.

~ Paul to the Christians in Rome

Scripture says that everything seen and unseen was created by Him and all of creation is held together in Him.  So when Adam sinned in Genesis 3, all of mankind and the perfect creation of Genesis 1 was subjected to death and decay.

Just as sin entered the world through one man and death through sin, so too did death spread to all people

~ Paul to the Christians in Rome

The mission to reconcile all things is an event far greater than any Big Bang.  When Jesus breathed his last, every sub-atomic particle in the universe was subsumed in the death of Christ.  

For God was pleased to have his fullness dwell in the Son and through him reconcile all things to himself by making peace through the blood of the cross

~ Paul to the Christians in Colossae

We do not celebrate Resuscitation Sunday because all who are revived will eventually die again. After being dead for three days, Jesus raised to life — never to die again. The word used in scripture is anastasis, or a rising up to stand after death. Jesus did not simply say, I will be resurrected. Profoundly, he said, I am the resurrection.

Through resurrection, the permanency of death is negated, all who are in Christ rise in eternal life, and the reconciliation of all things is underway. This is why we celebrate resurrection!

We have become far too numbed by an Easter story where Jesus dies every Good Friday, revives every Easter, and helps children find barely-hidden plastic eggs.  So today, let us stop and realize that when Jesus emptied himself of undying Divinity and willingly descended into the deepest chambers death, his resurrection is the inauguration of the new creation foreshadowed in Genesis 1.

The creation itself will be set free from the bondage of decay

~ Paul to the Romans, Chapter 8 

This foremost includes; you and me.

As opposed to an evacuative escape to a castle in the clouds, notice the coming down-ness of heaven at the end of the Bible in Revelation 21.  

And I saw the holy city descending out of heaven from God, made ready like a bride adorned for her husband. And a loud voice said, ‘Look! The residence of God is among human beings and He will live among them and they will be His people and God himself will be with them.’

The story begins in a garden.  Jesus was arrested in a garden.  At the empty tomb, Mary first thought the resurrected Christ was the gardener.  And in the grand finale, we see the end of the story is a descending city — which is a society of well-ordered gardens. While Genesis 3 is entirely true, it’s not where the story begins — or ends.

If your view of the gospel starts with a problem that needs to be fixed, you may be a Genesis 3. If your view of the gospel starts with the invitation of Elohim, the loving community of Trinity in Whom there is a space saved for you, then you may be a Genesis 1. 

May we enter Resurrection Sunday with a renewed awareness of what Jesus has accomplished.  May we apprehend the reality that the same power that raised Jesus from the dead can be resident in you and in me; here and now.  May we step into our God-ordained role to re-present Christ on earth and participate in the reconciliation of all things.

May we have ears to hear the sound only God can make as He moves through our garden. And may we have eyes to see the new creation bursting forth amid this one, no matter how dark things may seem.

Look!  I am making all things new!

~ Jesus