In my faith tradition, we excise the word “Alleluia” from our vocabulary during Lent. Why? Because it’s important to save the celebratory exclamations for the appropriate time so that we might more deeply enter those 40 days in the desert with Jesus, to face our human weakness and propensity to sin.
Only when we acknowledge our failings and seek repentance can we start anew and accept the reality of the Resurrection and the freedom that God wants for us all.
But today, it’s Easter! So, if you happen to catch me repeating “Alleluias!” ad nauseam, you’ll know why! Christians rightly and enthusiastically rejoice today, and for the coming weeks, because after our Lord’s grueling last days — upon which we intensely reflected during Holy Week — we delight in recalling his glorious triumph over the grave by slipping past the stone that was deemed impossible to remove!
God wants to offer us a resurrected life as well; not just existence, but abundance; not just getting through, but discovering our deepest purpose and moving toward an eternal indwelling with love.
Today, I turn to one of my favorite Scripture passages, 1 Cor. 15:55: “Where, O death is your victory? Where, O death is your sting?” If ever there was a moment to gloat with a good intention, this is it. For the gloating is not at the expense of any person but death itself!
In practical applications, this means that whatever has caused sorrow in our hearts, if we accept God’s offering of life, it cannot remain a weight forever. The divisiveness in our world and families, the addiction and destruction, the hate and hurts — all of these will be cleansed and healed. I imagine Satan becoming like a little cockroach, scuttling away into the darkness to lick his wounds forever; wounds manifest through pride and envy towards God.
This is good news — the best — not just for Christians but every human on the planet. The offering is for all.
Death was not in God’s original plan. In the YouTube video “ Dead to Sin ,” Peter Herbeck explains that death came about from humanity’s fallen belief that we don’t need God. This belief brought sin, but Jesus changed the power of sin over us, setting us free from “the death-directed destiny, the eternal separation from God, that sin and sin’s power is leading us into.”
God destroyed sin, Herbeck says, so we could share in his life of freedom. “Jesus had to fight this fight for us … by making himself a perfect offering of love to the Father.”
He continues, “But if we have died with Christ, we believe that we shall also live with him,” (Romans 6:8), noting that because of Jesus, death ultimately has no hold, for the very spirit that raised him from the dead will also raise us from the dead.
If we seek repentance and return to God, we, too, can be set free. It’s up to us. Thanks be to God, we now have a way.
Alleluia! Alleluia! Alleluia!
[For the sake of having a repository for my newspaper columns and articles, I reprint them here, with permission, a week after their run date. The preceding ran in The Forum newspaper on March 31, 2024.]
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