Jo Ann Bast- 2016

What gives a widow courage as she stands beside a fresh grave? What is the ultimate hope of the handicapped, the abused, and the burn victim? What is the final answer to pain, mourning, senility, insanity, terminal diseases, sudden calamities and fatal accidents?

The answer to each of these question is the same: The hope of bodily resurrection: We draw strength from this single truth almost every day of our lives more than we realize. It becomes the mental glue that holds our otherwise shattered thoughts together. Impossible though it may be for us to understand the details of how God is going to pull it off, we hang our hopes on fragile, threadlike thoughts that say, “Someday, He will make it right,” and “Thank God, all this will change,” and “When we’re with Him, we shall be like Him.”

More than a few times a year I look into red, swollen eyes and remind the despairing and the grieving that “there’s a land that is fairer than day” where, as John promised in Revelation, “He shall wipe away every tear... there shall no longer be any curse... and night... because the Lord God shall illumine them; and they shall reign forever and ever. (21:4; 22:3, 5). Hooray for such wondrous Hope! Just imagine... those who are physically disabled today will one day leap in ecstatic joy. Those who spend their lives absorbed in total darkness, will see every color in the spectrum of light. In fact, the very first face they will see will be the One who gives them sight!

There’s nothing like the hope of the resurrection to lift the agonizing spirits of the heavy hearted. But how can we know for sure, some ask. What gives us such assurance, such unshakable confidence? Those questions have all the same answer: the fact of Christ’s resurrection. Because He has been raised, we too shall rise! No wonder we get so excited every Easter! No wonder we hold nothing back as we smile and sing and celebrate His miraculous resurrection from the grave! Jesus Himself promised: “I am the resurrection and the life; he who believes in Me will live even if he dies” (John 11:25). Easter is a double-barreled celebration: His triumphant hurrah over agony and our ultimate hooray of ecstasy.