Sharing in the Victory

It is a beautiful image: the opening of the Garden Tomb in Jerusalem. Even the stone is gone. Colourful flowers surround the entrance – or should we say, the exit? – of the tomb.

The longer I look at it, the blacker the gaping hole becomes. A grave belongs to the realm of death, but in this grave, there is only emptiness.

Even in death, the Lord Jesus believed that it would be like this: the Father would not leave Him alone. If He would glorify God by loving His own to the end, He would see the light of a new tomorrow and be clothed with glory. For a life of such love, death is not the end.

In Romans 8, Paul calls Jesus – the Firstborn among many brothers and sisters. Jesus Himself testifies that He lives – and that He has the keys to death. Jesus has overcome, and we get to share in that victory. The dark door no longer locks.

Paul also writes about more things in this chapter. He speaks about the sighing of creation.

He mentions Psalm 44 and talks about sheep being slaughtered. But what prevails is victory. Death does pretend to have the last word: we remember the bitter night of the Shoah, the Holocaust. Meanwhile, we live in a confusing time when foreign powers dictate world affairs.

But the tomb is empty; the tomb of Christ is empty. That is so decisive. What follows is not death but the fulfilment of all God’s promises, the coming of the Kingdom and the resurrection. We are more than victors. Hold on to that.

But in all this, we are more than conquerors through Him who loved us. Romans 8:37