Post Resurrection Paradigm Shift

UV 1374/10,000 Post Resurrection Paradigm Shift
He is not here: for he is risen, as he said. Come, see the place where the Lord lay.

Matthew 28 v 6

Jesus had proclaimed that He is the Resurrection and the life. He knew with godly foreknowledge that He would be put to death but He also knew that even as He voluntarily submitted Himself meekly to death, He had the authority to take His life back, to be resurrected. But for the resurrection, Jesus would have been another great man who lived in the past. He overcame sin by not yielding to temptations all His life and leading a sinless life in continuous fellowship with God the Father and the Holy Spirit. But He overcame the penalty of sin- death by resurrecting Himself from death. His resurrection was proven by the fact that the Roman centurion made sure He was dead before lowering Him from the cross, by the empty tomb that had been securely sealed and guarded all the while His body lay there, by witnesses of the empty tomb on the third day and by the 11 disciples, several women, the two men on the road to Emmaus, by the sceptical Thomas who had placed his fingers in His wounds and by 500 others to whom the resurrected Christ had appeared.
It is His resurrection and the fact that He who had authority to raise Himself from the dead also had power and authority to raise us from the dead that gives us eternal hope. Though He had often taught about the events that were to unfold after His death on the cross, the disciples had least expected it to happen. They were amazed as any normal human being would be that He was certainly alive even though He was certainly dead. It is the witness of His resurrected body and the post resurrection teachings and empowerment by the Holy Spirit that transformed them from just being fickle followers to determined apostles, willing to stake their lives for the Lord. The word “ Lord” to my mind means “ Love that rises above death.”

His risen power or resurrection power is now at work in each of us who believes in His work and in His words to accomplish that which we cannot think of, imagine or ask for. No other teacher of humanity, no other leader claimed the ability to rise above death, to be able to return from a state of being dead, to have authority to deliver people from death. No other person was seen or heard who had risen from such a certain death. It became clear to His contemporaries that this was nothing but the power of God. It became clear that this risen Lord is the doorway to salvation. His words were the key to the gates of heaven. The grave could not hold Him prisoner. The purpose of sacrifice had been paid. Now the glory of God had to be seen in His resurrection. Till Jesus rose from the dead, it was believed that dead men tell no tales and that anything about a dead man rising from death is nothing but a tale. Now it became possible for the children of mortal men to live forever, to taste of eternity, to be immortal. Death which was till then a full stop, had become a mere comma in each of our individual stories as well as in our collective history. We see a paradigm shift in the commitment, clarity of vision, unity of mission and impact of the apostles hereafter. When we experience the resurrection power of Jesus, there is a paradigm shift in our commitment, our passion, our clarity of vision, our priorities and our impact.

Prateep V Philip