Sing to the Lord, for He has done glorious things; let this be known to all the world. Shout aloud, and sing for joy, people of Zion, for great is the Holy One of Israel. ( Isaiah 12:5-6)

These words of the prophet Isaiah are fulfilled in our own generation every time we sing the hymns of praise in church and in our hearts wherever we may be. The resurrection of Jesus we celebrate today fulfills Old Testament prophesy as well as the yearning of all human hearts for loving connection that holds no fear of ending: Dear friends, now we are children of God, and what we will be has not yet been made known. But we know that when Christ comes, we will be like him, for we shall see him as he is. (1 John, 3:2)

Those closest to Jesus knew at the resurrection of Jesus, that the world would never be the same. A new life and a hope had been injected into the human condition, and as its origin was from our eternal God, that life and that hope in us would share eternity with our brother Jesus. No ordinary human could have accomplished this salvation of human beings, but our Father God chose to make a difference in the universe in order that we, his children, could be re-united with Him. It is love from beginning to end, and in this case, the love does not have an end.

That we will some day be like Jesus doesn’t mean that we will each lose our own identity, but that the truths that we have read coming from Jesus will be our truths, and that his Holy Spirit will be our companion as He is Jesus’ companion. It means more than we can understand today, but much that we can perceive in reading his Book: They found the stone rolled away from the tomb, but when they entered, they did not find the body of the Lord Jesus… Suddenly two men in clothes that gleamed like lightening stood beside them. In their fright the women bowed down with their faces to the ground, but the men said to them, “Why do you look for the living among the dead? He is not here; he is risen.”

There is mystery in all of life, but the joy about which Isaiah leads us to shout and sing, is ours, expressed even more fully in the empty tomb which we remember today: “Sing to the Lord, for he has done glorious things.” “He is not in the tomb, for He is risen!”

Happy, Happy Easter!

Love in Him,

Prue