We read how it happened – how the Romans, experts in execution, made absolutely sure Jesus really was dead, piercing his body as it hung on the cross, letting out his separated blood, and how his body lay sealed in the tomb until the third day. Then, as he had predicted, he lived again. And we just can’t take it in – the disciples struggled to believe it even when the risen Jesus walked into the room.
Why? Because our imaginations can’t stretch that far – it’s beyond our experience.
A parallel situation cropped up just this week. A beautiful new baby boy was born, Thomas Matthew, a grandson for a couple in our church. Not surprisingly, Thomas was not born with any prior knowledge or experience of what the big new world he had just been pushed into was going to be like. He’d been snuggled up inside his mother all his life, and then whoosh! He’s in a whole new life. It’s like that for us and resurrection. Jesus conquered death, and lived again in a new way, never to die again, no longer subject to natural laws. When we become spiritually united with Jesus Christ, that’s our future too. We can’t imagine it, but we will live again with him after death.