This morning’s Easter Monday devotion comes from today’s Almost Daily Devotional by the Rev Paul Walker:

The magnitude of what God has done in raising Christ from the dead continues to unfold in my mind and heart with each passing Easter. Perhaps this year, especially, as the reports of deaths are in the daily paper more than usual. That God defeated death by His own death is the final victory.

Without a resurrected Jesus – a bodily resurrected Jesus – we are abandoned to nothingness in eternity and nihilism in the here and now. Indeed, St. Paul says, “If in Christ we have hope in this life only, we are of all people most to be pitied”  (1 Corinthians 15:19). Christ is raised not just metaphorically, not just as an idea, but bodily, physically, out of the grave, for us, so that we might also be bodily raised. It is the best hope there is.

Just like re-watching Tiger Woods’ victory at the Masters last year, we know the outcome! Death has lost its sting — the Dawn has broken for one and for all.

“Almighty God, who through your only-begotten Son Jesus Christ overcame death and opened to us the gate of everlasting life: Grant that we, who celebrate with joy the day of the Lord’s resurrection, may be raised from the death of sin by your life-giving Spirit; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever. Amen.” (Book of Common Prayer, Collect for Easter)

---

COMMENTS

---