Dear Family at Christ Community,

     This Easter Sunday we will celebrate the now and not yet resurrected reality that was accomplished in the person and work of Christ through His death and resurrection! Through Isaiah 61, we will praise the Anointed Servant Jesus who has delivered to us the good news of our freedom and calling in Him to be architects and ambassadors of reconciliation. We will also rejoice in the Lord of grace and justice who has exchanged the tattered garments of death for the glorious festal garments of eternal life to be put on in the resurrection feast to come. As part of this Lord’s Day Sabbath celebration, we will partake of the Lord’s Table as a present nourishment of our faith and glorious foretaste of what is promised to come in Christ.

     While many of us will be dressed up in some of our closet’s finest offerings, there may be a different reality going on in our hearts. There often exists a gap (or for some a chasm) between our present experience of the resurrection and the longed for promises and descriptions of the resurrected life in Isaiah 61. Andrew Peterson captures this heart rending paradox in his song “Hosanna” on Resurrection Letters, Volume 2. Consider his descriptions of the present struggle as he cries out for deliverance:

I have struggled to remove this raiment,
Tried to hide every shimmering strand.
I contend with these ghosts and these hosts of bright angels.
Hosanna!

I have cursed the man that you have made me.
I have nursed the beast that bays for my blood.
Oh, I have run from the one who would save me.
Save me, Hosanna! Hosanna!

Yet, this proves not to be the only description of our reality. There is another that is true at the same time but not yet complete. This truth we both celebrate now and long for as promised but not yet. Again, Peterson’s words beautifully describe this:

You have crushed beneath your heel the vile serpent.
You have carried to the grave the black stain.
You have torn apart the temple's holy curtain.
You have beaten Death at Death's own game.
Hosanna!

O Hosanna!
Oh, hail the long awaited king,
Come to set his people free.
We cry O Hosanna!
Won't you tear this temple down,
Raise it up on holy ground.
O Hosanna!
I will lift my voice and sing:
you have come and washed me clean.

Pray for the Holy Spirit to nourish your faith in the reality of your resurrected life now so that you may serve as an architect and ambassador of reconciliation. Praise God for being gracious and just so that we will one day dwell in the new Heavens and Earth. Extend forgiveness to others as a witness of your glorious forgiveness!

In Christ,

Cameron