Preparing for Christmas #22: The Resurrection

  How does a butterfly come to be a butterfly?  Was it born that way?  No, it goes through different phases, beginning as an egg, then a caterpillar, and then a chrysalis.  If you found a chrysalis somewhere, you would think it was dead.  Even so, when the time is right, a living butterfly comes from that dead-looking case.

   The birth of a butterfly can help us understand the big word resurrection.  In resurrection, a person does not just seem dead, he or she really is dead.  And then, the person is made alive again.  Jesus called himself “the resurrection and the life” just before he raised his friend Lazarus from the dead (John 11:25).

   Three days after Jesus died, God made him alive again, and he walked, talked, ate, and spoke again.  For forty days he showed people he was alive until he went up to heaven behind a cloud.

   Jesus promises that if we trust in him, he can and will do the same for us some day.  He gives us everlasting life that begins now and will continue even when our body is put in the grave.  It may sound unbelievable, but it is true!

“Hark! The Herald Angels Sing” verse 3

            Hail the heaven-born Prince of Peace

            Hail the Sun of Righteousness!

            Light and life to all he brings

            Risen with healing in his wings.

            Mild, he lays his glory by,

            Born that man no more may die,

            Born to raise the lost on earth,

            Born to give them second birth.

            Hark! The herald angels sing,

            “Glory to the new-born king.”