Celebrate Life

Life is _________________. Fill in the blank. Life is breathing. Everyone experiencing life is breathing. Depending on the individual there are many words that we could write in the blank. For the coach, life is instruction. For the preacher like me, life is preaching. For the businessman who spends half of his time on an airplane, life is traveling. There are many positive words that could go in the blank such as love and laughter. On the other hand, there are many negative words that inevitably go into the blank for all of us such as pain and sorrow. I'm thinking of a family right now that is wrestling with pain and sorrow because of the sudden, unexpected death of a loved one.

The ultimate negatively construed word that will ultimately be written in the blank for all of us in life is death. "And as it is appointed unto man once to die, but after this the judgment" (Hebrews 9:27). Thank God this verse is not the Bible's final word. You don't have to look any further than the next verse. Hebrews 9:28 says, "So Christ was once offered to bear the sins of many; and unto them that look for Him shall He appear a second time without sin unto salvation."

I'm writing this blog on the day before Palm Sunday. The next Sunday will be Easter. Easter is the ultimate celebration of life. Death is a part of the Easter story, but it is swallowed up by resurrection. On Good Friday Jesus died, but early on Sunday morning He arose. Hallelujah, He arose! Up from the grave, He arose, victorious over His foes. Death, the inescapable fact of life, has been defeated and ultimately destroyed.

"Oh death, where is thy sting? Oh grave, where is thy victory? The sting of death is sin, and the strength of sin is the law. But thanks be to God, who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ" (1 Corinthians 15:55-57).

The resurrection life of Jesus Christ is not just a resumption of the old life. Jesus died on the cross. His physical life as a man came to an end. When He was resurrected, He did not simply take up where His physical life ended on the cross. His resurrection was not a resumption of the old. Jesus' ability to appear and disappear from a room without entering or walking out of a room is one dramatic difference in the life of Jesus before He was crucified and His resurrection life. "Then their eyes were opened and they knew Him; and He vanished from their sight" (Luke 24:31).

Our hope of resurrection is not that one day we will resume the life that we lay down when we die. When believers are raised as the Bible assures us that one day we will be, it will not be business as usual. It will be greater than we can now imagine or comprehend. "Beloved, now we are children of God; and it has not yet been revealed what we shall be, but we know that when He is revealed, we shall be like Him, for we shall see Him as He is" (12 John 3:2).

I am thankful that our annual celebration of the death and resurrection of Christ takes place in the spring of the year. While life should be celebrated at all times, spring is a natural time to celebrate life. In fact, one would have to either be blind or extremely indifferent not to celebrate life in the spring of the year. Spring is an explosion of life as buds, greenery, blossoms and flowers burst forth producing beauty and fragrance. The plant life and flowers are just one of many displays of life that appear every spring.

Life is worthy of celebration but never more so than during the beauty and vibrancy of spring.

Spring is not the creation of life because only God can create life. In spring life unfolds as God created and designed it to unfold. The life that He created emerges from the dormant, unseen state of winter into the visible, celebratory and enthralling beauty state of spring.

I grew up on a farm. So, I am very familiar with the planting rituals of spring. We transplanted tobacco plants in a field, sowed cotton and corn seeds into the ground and prepared gardens that literally provided at least 90% of the food we ate. Nothing we did involve the creation of life. Rather, it was a process of taking what God created and allowing the growth process which God also created to produce a harvest. "Now may He who supplies seed to the sower, and bread for food, supply and multiply the seed you have sown and increase the fruits of your righteousness" (2 Corinthians 9:10).

A lot of hard work went into the farming operation, and it was years ago when much of the work was done by hand and with animals. It was definitely labor intensive. The joy of the harvest which was really a celebration of life made it all worthwhile.

All of life points to God our Creator who is Lord of life and Lord of all. Without God it would be impossible to celebrate life with any genuine substance. The humanist can crown himself as the creator, architect and sustainer of life but what hope does he have beyond himself? The atheist can cling to his evolutionary chance and fate that life deals him, but he had better hope that he gets the luck of the draw because he has no hope of any real power to affect or change anything.

Praise God, there is a better way. It is the way of faith. It is the way of celebration. It is the way of Jesus, the One who is the way, the truth and the life.

"And this is the testimony: that God has given us eternal life, and this life is in His Son. He who has the Son has life; he who does not have the Son of God does not have life" (1 John 5:11,12).

As we celebrate the ultimate life that God has given us through our crucified, resurrected Savior and also celebrate the vitality of life on display before our very eyes, we can allow our lives to be an expression of life by bearing spiritual fruit. This is what God saves us to do. In 2 Corinthians 9:10, one of the verses quoted above, the Bible speaks of God increasing "...the fruits of your righteousness." According to John 15:8, we glorify our heavenly Father by bearing spiritual fruit, "By this My Father is glorified, that you bear much fruit; so you will be My disciples."

Fruit bearing in the lives of believers is an expression of discipleship.

The visible unveiling of life that we embrace in the spring should raise our appreciation of and reverence for life. Human life is the only reality in the universe that manifest the image of God. His power and wisdom are on display in multiple places and ways throughout the universe. The image of God is only seen in man. We know what God is like by looking at man more than we do by looking at stars.

Do we honor, reverence and appreciate human life today? Has human life become a cheap, worthless commodity to be bought and sold for the purposes of human and sexual trafficking? Is the onslaught of violence where strangers kill strangers for no apparent reason and political victories are deemed more valuable than any number of human lives a revelation of how much we value human life? I fervently pray that this spring will elevate our love, appreciation and reverence for life closer to the place that God created it to possess.

CELEBRATE LIFE!

Celebrate life at all times and in all places. If hope springs eternal, life certainly is on display in the spring. For the believer in Jesus Christ, it goes beyond the beauty of nature. It rests squarely on the reality of the living Christ who has conquer death, hell and the grave. Hallelujah! Celebrate life!