Lord Jesus, we mark this day as the day you rose from death. I am looking at that promise of Victory over death with a deeper desperation than on any Easter morning before this. I know with good evidence that there is a deadly affliction at work in my body. And even if not soon, certainly someday death will take me.
Your rising was not just for you. It was for me also, and so it shows me that death, my death, all death, is not ultimate, is not final. I want to put my hope in that Truth. But hope wavers. Come close to me and hold me, so that I can find rest in the hope you have won for me.
I know too that your Victory over death is therefore also a Victory over all the deadly things that currently ravage this fallen world, my life in it, and the lives of all humanity from the first man and woman down to this very moment.
That Victory is not yet complete. The thorns and trials of this troubled life make that all too apparent. Patience is hard. My heart laments, “How long, O Lord? How long?”
I have heard of and even seen miraculous raids and incursions of the New Life to come, breaking into this world of death—fireworks eruptions and quiet infiltrations of your Victory over death and deadly things. You know, better than I, the deadly things that afflict my life. In my own body, in my own life, may I have an in-breaking of your Easter Victory over death?
You are risen! May I also be raised with you! Amen.
© Gary A. Chorpenning 2026
Related Posts:
Pastor Note #95: A Declaration of Easter
Pastor Note #128: The Resurrection–A Devotional
Pastor Note #109: Living as Hopeful People in Fearful Times
Pastor Note #139: Learning to Live without Chains in Christ’s Victory
Bible Note #53: Colossians 3 Series–Raised with Christ
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