I have a vivid memory of visiting a graveyard with my family when I was about eight years old. I don’t recall the exact occasion, only that we were visiting the gravesite of a relative. I got bored, so I wandered off from the rest to look at some of the gravestones. The memory of this stands out, because I came upon one that memorialized a boy who was about my age. There was a photo of him on the stone behind a plastic shield. I got in close to take a good look at it; I couldn’t take my eyes off of it. I was suddenly taken with the thought, “that could be me!” It was the first time I recall being confronted with my own mortality, and it was an unsettling thought. I’m sure I had heard about the resurrection of the dead or, more abstractly, life after death. But such thoughts seemed very distant to me at that moment. It was my death that seemed much closer at hand, so close in fact that I felt its threat deep within my soul.
I am made to wonder how many adults can relate to this story. Death is all around us. We hear about rising numbers of covid-related deaths. Our hearts and prayers go out to those who are grieving and, in the process, we are constantly reminded of our own mortality.
But what about our future resurrection? How deeply do we feel that? How profoundly have we awakened to that reality? Next to the threat of our mortality, does resurrection seem like a distant dream? If so, how can we change that?
The resurrection from the dead is the great hope of the Bible, because resurrection takes us up into the victory of God’s Spirit, in both soul and body. I don’t deny that our souls return to God at death. But it is not until resurrection that we are saved in soul and body. So, even life after death is not yet the grand fulfillment of our life with God! This hope of resurrection is introduced in the Old Testament. For example, Isaiah 26:19 says,
But your dead will live, Lord; their bodies will rise— let those who dwell in the dust wake up and shout for joy— your dew is like the dew of the morning; the earth will give birth to her dead.
When Adam and Eve fell into sin, they were told that from dust they were taken and to the dust they shall return (Genesis 3:19). But the above text from Isaiah says poetically that those who have returned to dust will wake up and shout for joy! How will this happen?
Christ came to change our condition of separation from God and our captivity to mortality. He took upon himself the judgment for our sin on the cross and overcame it, because he was the sinless, faithful Son of God. Death could not hold him, had no valid claim on him (Acts 2:24). In rising from death, he reconciled us to God, imparted the Spirit to us, and opened a path for us to rise too through faith in him. The dead body of Jesus did not witness decay (Acts 13:35). His body was flesh like Adam’s, having its source in the dust like his, but Jesus did not return to the dust! He was raised from the dead by the Spirit of God to life immortal (Romans 1:4). All those who have faith in Christ are granted the promise of future resurrection. The scripture promises that upon Christ’s return, this will happen: “For the trumpet will sound, the dead will be raised imperishable, and we will be changed” (1 Corinthians 15:42).
A distant dream? It doesn’t have to be. God gives us the Holy Spirit that raised Jesus from the dead the moment we yield to the Spirit’s work by placing our faith in Christ and submitting to his Lordship. The Bible refers to the gift of the Holy Spirit given to us as the “down payment” of the spiritually rich life that will be granted to us in the resurrection, when we are “swallowed up in life” (2 Corinthians 5:4-5)! The Spirit in us now awakens us to this reality of resurrection, allows us to feel its liberty, sanctity, and energy down in the marrow of our bones!
I know that we currently feel the reality of dying too. Our bodies grow old. We groan within for the liberty of resurrection. The down payment of the Holy Spirit grants us a foretaste of this reality of resurrection, the reality opened up to us by the risen Christ and his impartation of the Spirit to us. The more we yield to the Spirit in life, obey the Spirit’s witness to the way of Christ in the world, avail ourselves of prayer, praise, and scripture meditation, the less resurrection will seem like a distant dream. Leaning into the risen life, we may even get to the point where we can’t imagine our lives culminating in any other way than this: “Let those who dwell in the dust wake up and shout for joy!”