"Death Is Swallowed Up In Victory"

"By this Gospel you are saved, if you hold firmly to the word....Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, and that He was buried, and that He rose again the third day according to the Scriptures....After that He was seen by over five hundred brethren at once....If in this life only we have hope in Christ, we are of all men the most pitiable....Death is swallowed up in victory."  (1 Corinthians 15, NIV & NKJV)

"It's "resurrection time."  It comes a little earlier because of my new "schedule," but it is always a wonderful reminder for the reason you and I have hope. 

I want to point out, first of all, that when Paul said that, "we are of all men most pitiable," it had nothing to do with, "O, how wearisome this life would be if we didn't have Heaven," or, "This Christian walk is something I have to put up with until I get to Heaven," or whatever negative connotation anyone places on his remark.  It was a simple yet powerful statement which declared that without the Resurrection of our Lord Jesus Christ, there would be no, "Gospel," viz., no salvation, no deliverance, no healing, and no, "peace which passes all understanding."  It would have been literally "over before it started."  In other words, it would be an illusory religion, one with no eternal basis or power.

What makes what the Bible calls, "The Faith of Jesus," literally "stand alone" against the myriads of religions?-- the Resurrection.  If Jesus had not risen from the dead, then on what we call "Easter Sunday," the women would have found a body ready for the anointing.  Disillusioned, depressed, hopeless fishermen would have gone back to the life they had lived just about 4 years earlier, laughed at, mocked.  But can I get a, "HALLELUJAH?"  The women found an empty tomb, and so did Peter and John when they raced there and entered that empty tomb. 

You and I and all humanity can walk in the forgiveness of sin, life everlasting, names written in, "the Lamb's Book of Life," only because of the empty tomb.  Indeed, that empty tomb was the fulfillment of, "But [in fact] He has borne our griefs, and He has carried our sorrows and pains; Yet we [ignorantly] assumed that He was stricken, struck down by God and degraded and humiliated [by Him].  But He was wounded for our transgressions, He was crushed for our...sin; the punishment [required] for our well-being (peace) fell on Him, and by His stripes...we are healed."  This, my friend, is the reason Paul said that without the resurrection victory of Jesus, we would be, "most miserable."  The effect of the empty tomb, however, is, "most to be envied," the glorious RESURRECTION POWER, the fulfillment of all which the law and the prophets wrote.

Father, in Jesus' Name, I glory in the Cross of Jesus and the empty tomb of Jesus.  I just stand in awe of You.  Amen.

When Peter, an 18 year old Norwegian, "heard the call to evangelize China, on that day he not only emptied his wallet into the collection plate, but included a small note with the words, 'and my life.'"

Hebrews 12:2