Communion With the Christ:: Easter: Victory Over Death

“Where, O death, is your victory?

Where, O death, is your sting?”

Death and the grave have been the great enemy of all humanity even from the dawn of creation. Each and all who has is or will ever live, will, at some point, confront this great enemy of us all.

Death has stood before us all as the greatest threat which humanity has faced. On our own humanity is powerless against this great consuming enemy. Death and our fear of death has been exploited against humanity down through the centuries.

Death, and all the fruit of a way of living which brings death have and still plague humanity to this very hour. We, of our own-selves are helpless and powerless against it.

God So Loved

The great and eternal God, the Creator of all things, the one who is self-existent and who is himself beyond the grasp and power of death, out of his divine love reached out to humanity so that none ever be held captive to the power of death and the grave.

God himself sent his Son, the second person of the Holy Trinity came and joined us in our humanity all that we might join him and live for all eternity.

St. John wrote of the divine love of God in sending his Son Jesus Christ as one of us.

“For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life. For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him. Whoever believes in him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe stands condemned already because they have not believed in the name of God’s one and only Son” Jhn:3:16-18

The Great God in his divine boundless love came to us in the person of Jesus all so that whosoever will but freely receive him can escape the very grasp of death, and by his grace experience eternal life.

Faced Death

Jesus, God’s Holy perfect sinless Son who lived among us did not exempt himself from death but faced death unflinchingly upon the Cross of Calvary. St. Paul speaks to us regarding the death of Jesus in his Epistle to the Christian Church at Rome.

“He was delivered over to death for our sins” Rm: 4:25a

Jesus willing entered into death itself, and not only conquered death but it’s root cause; sin. In entering into death Jesus has disarmed its power and its claim over humanity. Jesus defeated death and the grave from the inside of death, by entering death and rising out it.

“and was raised to life for our justification”. (25b)

By Jesus entering death itself and coming forth again out of its grasp, Jesus then can lead any who will but follow to the freedom of eternal life.

Jesus has defeated death’s power over us, even when we have succumbed to death. This is why Jesus took on our full humanity that we need not fear death; for through Jesus' death and resurrection he has conquered it, and disempowered Satan, who exploited humanities fear of death for his own advantages.

“Since the children have flesh and blood, he too shared in their humanity so that by his death he might break the power of him who holds the power of death—that is, the devil— and free those who all their lives were held in slavery by their fear of death” Heb:14-15

Jesus’ love was so great that he pursued us even into the depth of death, pursuing us even into the grave, all to rob death and the grave of its spoils, which is each and all of us.

Death could not hold Jesus; its power only took him through his own divine consent and purpose, showing that even death and the grave are subject to the great God.

The Apostolic Church Doctor-Historian-Evangelist St. Luke records the preaching of St. Peter in his account of the work of the Primitive Church regarding the resurrection of Jesus and death’s limited power over Jesus.

“Jesus was handed over by God’s set plan and foreknowledge, and you, by the hands of the lawless, put Him to death by nailing Him to the cross. But God raised him from the dead, freeing him from the agony of death, because it was impossible for death to keep its hold on him.” Acts: 2:23-24

The Victory of Resurrection

The glorious resurrection of Jesus is the eternal declaration of his complete and perfect victory over death and the grave, which became so evident on that first Easter morning when the Disciples found the tomb empty.

“On the first day of the week, very early in the morning, the women took the spices they had prepared and went to the tomb. They found the stone rolled away from the tomb, but when they entered, they did not find the body of the Lord Jesus. While they were wondering about this, suddenly two men in clothes that gleamed like lightning stood beside them. In their fright the women bowed down with their faces to the ground, but the men said to them, “Why do you look for the living among the dead? He is not here; he has risen!” Lk: 24:1-6a

This glorious victory over death Jesus so willing shares with each and all who will but freely receive. Death is a defeated enemy which none need fear.

St. Paul writes to us of death’s defeat and will, in the end, itself will be gone and cast away for eternity to never again hold any in its grasp.

“I declare to you, brothers and sisters, that flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God, nor does the perishable inherit the imperishable. Listen, I tell you a mystery: We will not all sleep, but we will all be changed— in a flash, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet. For the trumpet will sound, the dead will be raised imperishable, and we will be changed. For the perishable must clothe itself with the imperishable, and the mortal with immortality. When the perishable has been clothed with the imperishable, and the mortal with immortality, then the saying that is written will come true: “Death has been swallowed up in victory.”

“Where, O death, is your victory?

Where, O death, is your sting?” 1Cor”15:50-55

The Glory of Easter

The glory of the Easter event is the victory over death which our Lord Jesus has accomplished for us. Jesus pursued us even into death and has come forth out of death and leads each and all who will but follow him into glorious eternal life with our God, the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit.

So great was God’s love for us all that he pursued us even into death, all that we might live. This is the story of Easter, the story of God’s eternal love which pursued us even into death and brought us all forth into eternal life.

Benediction: May each and all ever give glory and thanks to our Lord Jesus who had entered into death and the grave itself and came forth leading any who will but follow him into the glorious eternal life, today, tomorrow and forevermore. Amen.