“Death has been swallowed up in victory. Where, O death, is your victory? Where, O death, is your sting?” (1 Corinthians 15:54-55).
HOPE! What is hope? The dictionary defines it as “a feeling of expectation and desire for a particular thing to happen”.
We all need hope, don’t we? Without it there will be very little to look forward to. However, friends what happens when there is no hope? What happens when everything one has been cleaving to, has died, and one is feeling helpless, hopeless and destitute? There are many things that threaten our hope; circumstances that rob us of the bright outlook that we may have once had: job loss, marital breakdown, ill health or death of a loved one. That’s the greatest “hope-destroyer” right there is it not – death! After all, “While there is life there is hope!” That’s how the saying goes. Death and hope cannot co-exist, surely.
Well, at this point enter the Easter Story, because you see, that’s where things are changed forever! The Easter message is so much more than a “bloke” on the cross on Good Friday! It’s about that same “bloke” (more than a bloke – in fact, the Son of God, God Himself) rising again on the Third Day. If Good Friday was the End of the Story, and Jesus did not rise from the dead, then: “…we are of all people most to be pitied.” (1 Corinthians 15:19).
However, there is an Easter Sunday! There is a day of resurrection! There is a rolled-away stone, declaring to all who will hear: “He is not here! He is risen!”
Prayer:
Restorer of Hope, I give you my hopelessness
Give of Life, take my situations of death
I have no hope, nor life apart from you,
You're my life, my every breath
Amen