Easter Sunday
“But I Will See You Again, and Your Heart Will Rejoice – One Heart of Enduring Joy!”
We should have seen it coming. On the third day of creation, God created beautiful living things that come up out of the ground. They buried Jesus in a garden.
In the Exodus, it was the third day after the Passover, that the Egyptian army was finally washed away, and the Israelites could see the death of their enemy. The “last enemy,” death, would receive its mortal blow on Easter, and the author of Hebrews would say that Christ set us free from the slavery of the final fear of death.
The same day of the destruction of the Egyptian army in the “baptism” of the Red Sea – the day after the Sabbath after the Passover – would be renamed “the Day of Firstfruits.…” The apostles would call Jesus “the Firstfruits of the resurrection.”
It was after three days that Jonah was set free from the bowels of darkness…. Jesus would call attention to Jonah’s third day expulsion from the belly of the sea monster as a picture of His own resurrection on the third day, from the belly of the earth.
For the Resurrection to be such a wonderful joyful event, it had to be at least somewhat of a surprise. But the Lord had given plenty of notice in the Old Testament, and Jesus clearly told His friends the disciples that it would be on the third day that He would rise from the dead.
As He approached the Garden of Gethsemane with His disciples that long day called Good Friday, Jesus said the words of our title above. Those words were preceded by these: “Now is your time of grief…” And then the verse ends with these words “and no one will take away your joy.” (John 16:22)
The words of Jesus are a curious construction in that verse. All the pronouns are plural, but the word “heart” is singular. On this day, all of the baptized believers in Christ – who have already died and risen again in their baptismal waters and have received the anointing of the firstfruits of the Resurrection by the “washing and regeneration of the Holy Spirit” – all of us will be gathered together with one heart bursting forth with joy. It is a heart – “after the Lord.” He came first out of the grave; we will follow after.
Endless unified joy!
Prayer: Like Job, we “know our Redeemer lives,” and we have a heart that “yearns within us” to fully experience the joy of the final death of our enemy, death. The shadow of death lurks in many corners of our life. But we have enduring joy because on this day You are the “sun of righteous that arises with healing in Your wings” from the shadow of death. As new creations, we bear the fruit of joy now. May we remember that no one will take away our joy. Make our heart one in that joy. In Your Risen Name we pray! Amen.