PLEASE READ THIS FIRST: Matthew 20:17-19
What do you sense the Lord saying to you in this passage?
“On the third day he will be raised to life!” (Matthew 20:19)
Jesus throws in the idea of resurrection as if it were normal.
Like an average day: ‘get out of bed, have a coffee, get killed, then be alive again!’
Do you live as if life after death were normal?
Or are we more fixated on death, than on life after death?
(The NIV calls this section ‘Jesus Predicts his Death’, what about his being raised?)
In the picture above, what do you see?
A hole prepared for a casket… or a hole where a casket was removed?
Does this image describe the end of life, or the end of death?
My suspicion (based on how I am) is that we see death more than life after death.
“Because I live, you also will live.” (John 14:19)
This is life-transforming… death is no longer the last word!
We may be going through death-shadowed valley, but we “will be raised to life!”
This is not to deny suffering and hardship now – Jesus experienced them too.
But no matter what happens, he knew, and we can too… ‘the best is yet to come!’
PRAYER
Lord, your grave is empty, and so will mine. Help me to see the grave not as a conclusion, but as a transition into LIFE after life!
Jesus told the twelve of His death and resurrection. Did they understand? They did eventually. I will too, eventually. We look forward of what is to come but our focus is most likely on the here and now. I need to live every day as a day of my Saviour and not my own. I remember the take of a women who was being viewed with a fork in her hand. Why was the question? Like dessert after a meal, the best is yet to come.
Alive alive alive forevermore
My Jesus is alive
Alive forevermore
Alive alive alive forevermore
My Jesus is alive
Sing hallelujah, sing hallelujah
My Jesus is alive forevermore
Sing hallelujah, sing hallelujah
My Jesus is alive