Devotion Booklets for Seasons of the Church Year Lent 2018 | Page 56

No Death Today
Sunday, April 1st
1 Corinthians 15:3-8
A teenager rises up in bed, rubbing her bleary eyes. She’s reluctantly waking up to a new week of
school. The thought of it exhausts her. She slumps grumpily back into her pillow. She knows one thing
for sure:
Not much to look forward to today.
That’s the kind of morning that is dawning over a hillside park near Jerusalem. Light, reluctantly rising
up over the eastern hilltops. Olive trees, lifting gnarled branches in the early hours like sleepy arms
stretching for a new day. But as sunrise arrives on Easter dawn, Jesus’ friends felt one thing for sure:
Not much to look forward to today.
Today was funeral day for their friend. He had died earlier that weekend. He wasn’t yet properly laid
to rest. Because they loved him they wondered: How do we show honor to a body so shamefully
abused and pierced and discarded? Their only task on this third day after death would be to wrap his
remains in pleasant smelling spices. Love - and the pressing schedule of death’s decay - made them do
it.
But the day was about to take a new direction.
No lifting limbs and wrapping legs as if making a mummy. Instead, a bright and cheerful greeting from
a bright and heavenly being: “He is not here. He is risen!” There was no dead body, just a living,
breathing Lord! Jesus was alive! No death today!
This resurrection news made the day new. In fact, it makes the world new! Jesus’ friends give up any
expectation of doing death work. Life and its daily schedule changes as first Mary, leader of the funeral
crew, meets Jesus, alive again! Then Peter, then the Twelve. Alive again! Then a crowd of five-hundred
wide-eyed onlookers. Alive again! Then James, then Paul!
These Easter eyewitness want us to know: death is done. Jesus, and those who know him by faith will
not be abandoned in a grave. There is no fact more important for you to remember each morning. Just
as you awake from sleep each morning, so also will you awake from death someday.
On our own Resurrection Morning, we’ll sit up, stretch out our arms and grin, knowing one thing for
sure… There’s lots to look forward to today!
Prayer: Jesus, thank you for replacing death with life. Remind me that because you live eternally in
heaven, I will too. Let this good news brighten my day today. Amen.
Activity: Imagine waking up on your first day in heaven. Write a list (or draw a picture of) three things
you hope to feel or do on your first day in paradise. Share your hopes with each other.
56