When glory broke the enemy
And death itself was foiled
He emerged from that grey tomb
More than just unspoiled,
But transformed with full authority
To show His divine power,
Share with them His victory,
Renew their hope and ours,
In life eternal in that love
That satisfies so deep,
We cannot help but dance for joy
When our souls wake from sleep.
The Devil rested on his laurels
Knowing that he’d won;
He’d arranged for God’s own people
To kill his Only Son.
“His wrath is unavoidable,
He’ll cast them all away,
I’ll drag them down to join my fate,
Despairing all the way.
“The great plan of his creation
Has failed so utterly,
The thought of all those screaming souls
Fills my heart with glee.
“What other torments can I plan
For the fools who followed the Son of Man?
They fled the scene and failed the test
When my time came with his arrest.
“Now they cower, now they hide
In locked rooms fully terrified
Of my next great show of power
As morning breaks this very hour…”
Then the ground shook, the curtain tore,
The stone was rolled from the entrance door,
Angels stood and told the news;
His soul was utterly bemused.
“How can this be? He’s back to life!
And thrown the gates to heaven wide,
So any sinner can approach
The throne of God without reproach!
“He used the scandal and the shame,
Humiliation and the pain
To pay the price for what went wrong,
Instead of where the blame belongs.
“All my scheming, all my work
To drive the human world beserk
Has come to nought, my power’s broke,
How dare he twist my twisted joke
“Into something beautiful and true
That cure’s man’s ills and will renew
His bond with his creator God
So all will call him Saviour, Lord?”
And so the Devil did retreat
Ashamed by his complete defeat,
His mandate over Man revoked
For those who choose to bear Christ’s yoke.
A bitter, last goodbye became the dawn of a new age
When the Lord of Life burst out of death’s unyielding cage,
Flung the gates of hell so wide they let in heaven’s light,
Allowing all the souls trapped there to witness his true might,
Bend the knee and join him in His wondrous kingdom come,
Transform into the holy throng they were made to become,
Inviting all of us on Earth to live a whole new life
Where hope is unavoidable and miracles are rife.
We can be sure of every promise he has ever made;
His resurrection proved to all the price is really paid,
The heaven he described is real, the power he offers, too,
To be with us in every fight for what is good and true.
So courage, now, and boldness, to share His love and care,
And take on every stronghold of the foul Prince of the Air,
Including those within your heart, let Him purify
And cleanse your soul so that in time you’ll never truly die.
On this most superversive of days,
When darkness was swallowed up by light,
When death was overpowered by life,
When despair was torn asunder by dazzling hope,
When guilt was washed away by innocence,
And access to holiness was opened to all,
We can sum it all up in just three words:
He is risen.
On this special day, I’d like to share a brief vision I had a number of years ago, that ties in with and illustrates the message of Romans chapter 6.
In it Jesus was hanging on the cross. I ran over to him and embraced him as he hung there.
A voice behind me said, “You want to identify with this disgrace? Fine.”
A long metal spike was hammered into my back, piercing through my heart, through Christ’s body and into the cross, pinning me there, and we both died.
I woke up in the tomb next to Him, He helped me to my feet and we walked into the sunshine together.
He turned to me and smiled. “You have died with me, you have been raised with me. Now live like it.”
This saddest chore we will fulfill,
We women weak and weary still
From all these awful days have wrought,
We will ebalm him as we ought.
But who will roll the stone away, and what about the guard?
So many things combined to make this day so very hard.
There’s the rich man’s garden, but what happened to the tomb?
My friends nervously approach and peer into the gloom. Continue reading
Given that Easter is upon us, I’d like to do something a little different.
A few months back, one very intelligent man whose opinions I deeply respect on a number of matters (he’s an agnostic, or at least he was at the time, he prefers to keep his beliefs to himself) was asked what single event in history he would choose to witness if he had a time machine. He replied the resurrection, since it would answer a lot of questions.
My response was to recommend the next best thing to such a time machine that I know of, which is the book I am about to review here.
The Resurrection of Jesus: A New Historiographical Approach by Michael R. Licona is the most thorough and balanced treatment of the subject I have ever seen in a single volume. Recommendations for further reading are given, but here is a brief summary of some of the topics covered: Continue reading
The Zwyckyverse 