Everything has changed!

It's funny that on this Monday after Easter I come to 1 Corinthians 15 in my reading. This is a wonderful chapter about what we celebrated yesterday, the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead. As I read it I thought about the impact of that first Easter morning. When Christ rose from the dead that morning he changed everything!

With his resurrection he defeated death once and for all. Now there is hope, now there is new life, now there is promise, now there is salvation. We often miss the impact of this day...all that happened when Christ rose, but in this chapter Paul writes a little about what happened on that amazing day....

1Co 15:19-28- If all we get out of Christ is a little inspiration for a few short years, we're a pretty sorry lot. But the truth is that Christ has been raised up, the first in a long legacy of those who are going to leave the cemeteries. There is a nice symmetry in this: Death initially came by a man, and resurrection from death came by a man. Everybody dies in Adam; everybody comes alive in Christ. But we have to wait our turn: Christ is first, then those with him at his Coming, the grand consummation when, after crushing the opposition, he hands over his kingdom to God the Father. He won't let up until the last enemy is down-- and the very last enemy is death! As the psalmist said, "He laid them low, one and all; he walked all over them." When Scripture says that "he walked all over them," it's obvious that he couldn't at the same time be walked on. When everything and everyone is finally under God's rule, the Son will step down, taking his place with everyone else, showing that God's rule is absolutely comprehensive--a perfect ending!
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A perfect ending indeed! On that first Easter, as the son rose, everything changed for us.....now the bright light of eternity ahead brings us hope and joy instead of fear and dread. A perfect ending indeed.....or should I say what a wonderful beginning to eternity....