Does resurrection mean revival?
Resurrection Sunday is always a big time for the Christian! After the depression and sorrow of a phony trial, evil people with selfish and sinful motives, and the crucifixion of a perfectly (yes perfectly) innocent man, the resurrection brings happiness, victory, and vindication. Jesus lives!
But there might be a resurrection in our personal lives as well. No, we were not and didn’t need to be literally raised from a physical death, but we might have been in some sort of a spiritual coma that required the intervention of our own Prince Charming. I wasn’t “50 in the 50’s, but I was 15 in 1960, and I remember seemingly everybody turning out for church on Easter Sunday. In 1962, after straying away from my years of Sunday School attendance, I was moved to return to church, and the starting point of that was Resurrection Sunday 1962. Resurrection Sunday came late that year, April 22nd according to my computer search, and it must have been a nice day when I drove my parent’s light green Simca down to the Sixth Street Congregational Church in Auburn, Maine.
I know God was trying to reach me, and my mother was shocked when I bounced downstairs again the next Sunday to head back for another sermon. Easter was one thing, but going again? No, this was not to be a “new birth time” for yours truly. There was college on the near horizon, the United States Air Force in the distance, and infiltrating all of that was The World. But much later I did get saved, on June 9, 1974 under the preaching of the great Buddy Frankland. It should have been sooner, but I’m glad it wasn’t later – or not at all!
Everybody showed up on Resurrection Sunday in their best duds, with smiles all around and just a wonderful feeling of happiness and goodness. It was a special day! The standards were all on the musical docket, and when I got back home, my Dad, (The original Buzz Mitchell) asked if we had sung “Christ the LORD is Risen Today, A-a-a-a-le-luuuuuu-ia” and of course the answer was “yes.” There was something very special, very touching, and possibly life-changing about that Resurrection Day.
But the reality (and there is a reality to its impact) goes so far beyond smiles and good feelings that we must add on “reality of eternal life.” Jesus really was murdered, horrendously so, but He accepted it and somehow even embraced it because He was unlike any other person who ever lived or ever will live. This was God manifest in the flesh (1 Tim 3:16) and He died that death to pay for our sins, and then He rose again, showing that the payment was accepted, that His word was true, and removing all doubt concerning His deity! What a blessed Saviour! It is the Gospel Story, it never gets old, and truly, Resurrection Day for the Christian brings its own revival, and this year, somewhere, someone is going to hop into their Simca, start it up, and head out for the Old Rugged Cross!
For some, Resurrection Sunday is a revival, and for the man who never trusted Christ and does, it is a spiritual resurrection. Either way, it’s a wonderful day to begin a new day, in Christ.
Love to all,
Pastor