John 14:19 – “Because I live, you shall live also!”
Surrounded by His disciples in the Upper Room, on the night before His arrest and passion, the Lord Jesus cared more about the anxieties and fears of others, than He cared about Himself! Although the Calvary was just a few hours away, Jesus took the time and encouraged His frightened followers: “Let not your hearts be troubled. Believe in God; believe also in Me.” (John 14:1, ESV)
While His human soul was heavy and troubled, the Prophetic Spirit enabled Him to see beyond the Cross and the Grave … The Incarnated God foreknew that soon He would be sentenced to death by Pilate’s court, where the ultimate mockery of justice was to take place! Jesus knew the agony that He would face in the Garden of Gethsemane as the burden of all of humanity’s sins would be laid upon Him – the Lamb of God. But Jesus also knew that He would rise again in three days. The Cross and His gruesome death was the only path for mankind’s salvation and there was no other way… it was “the will of the Lord to crush Him; He has put Him to grief; [but] when His soul makes an offering for guilt, He shall see His offspring!” (Isaiah 53:10, ESV)
After “an angel from heaven, strengthened Him” in the Garden (Luke 22:43), Jesus faced His Cross invigorated, knowing that His ultimate sacrifice would give birth to a new race of people, “born from above,” born from His pain, suffering, and death: “Out of the anguish of His soul He shall seeand be satisfied; by His knowledge shall the righteous One, My servant, make many to be accounted righteous, and He shall bear their iniquities.” (Isaiah 53:11, ESV)
Evil men could kill His flesh, but they couldn’t kill the Eternal God who dwelled within His humanity! Jesus was the “grain of wheat” that came to the Earth to die for all of us… and He Himself, prophesied, that, “if it dies, it bears much fruit.” (John 12:24)
Because Jesus conquered death, “death was swallowed up in victory” (1 Cor. 15:54) and death no longer has dominion over us: Because He Lives, we will also live eternally! At His Second Coming, all who have fallen asleep (died) in Christ will rise again and all of us who will be alive, will be transformed in a blink of an eye (1 Cor. 15:52), and we will be like Him (1 John 3:2)
Jesus, the Word, was in the beginning with God and He was God, but He chose to put on flesh in order to dwell among us (John 1:1; 14); He emptied Himself of His glory (Philippians 2:7) and came into our fallen world as the perfect and sinless man to atone for our sins and to redeem us from the eternal damnation.
By His resurrection from the dead, Jesus became “the first fruits of those who have fallen asleep” (1 Cor. 15:20, ESV). Hebrews 2:10-11 tells us that the Heavenly Father desired to “bring many sons to glory,” and His only begotten Son, Jesus, by tasting death, became “the founder of their salvation through suffering… That is why He is not ashamed to call them brothers!” What an amazing privilege and honor: All of us who were born again through our faith in Jesus, we were also adopted into Divine Family: “For all who are led by the Spirit of God are sons of God… you have received the Spirit of adoption as sons, by whom we cry, “Abba! Father!” (Romans 8:14-15, ESV)
That’s why on the evening of the First Easter Sunday, the Resurrected Christ appeared in the midst of His disciples and said to them, “‘Peace be with you. As the Father has sent Me, even so I am sending you.’And when He had said this, He breathed on them and said to them, ‘Receive the Holy Spirit’.” (John 20:21-22) The Heavenly Father sent Jesus on the Planet Earth to be the Missionary of Heaven to a lost humanity. Just as the Father sent Jesus, the Savior has sent us, His followers, with the same mandate: “The Son of Man came to seek and to save the lost.” (Luke 19:10)
On this Easter Season, when Christians celebrate the Resurrection of Jesus, we are reminded that the same mandate that the Father has given to Jesus – the One who trampled death under His feet – He charged His followers with the same mandate given unto Him by the Father! We are to be missionaries and ambassadors of His Resurrection and proclaimers of the Good News! Empowered by His Spirit, we are to take the Gospel of Jesus to our own Jerusalem, to Judea, to Samaria, and to ends of the Earth! (Acts 1:8)
Romeo PELE
Pastor