Easter Monday Living

When I survey the cross of Jesus, not just glancing at it, I'm undone. Jesus experienced betrayal, denial, flogging, abandonment, mocking, brutality, and rejection to name a few. His people not only left him, but turned on Him. Jesus, Son of God treated this way! When I allow myself to wonder what Jesus must have felt, it just crushes me. The pain and agony He endured because of love. It’s beyond me.

Can you relate to Jesus? Does your heart know what a betrayal feels like? Have you experienced a rejection that hurt like crazy? Perhaps, you get what it’s like when your own people turn on you?

Then came Sunday. Thankfully, we have the luxury of seeing the whole story. Three days later, on Sunday, Jesus rose from the dead! Even that seems hard to comprehend.

Really, how does this happen? How can someone be raised from the dead? Why would He do this? 

Imagine Mary seeing Him first in the garden! How in the world would his disciples respond when they saw Jesus in person that evening?  And then doubting Thomas? Poor guy is forever tagged as “doubting” Thomas! He didn’t get to see the resurrected Lord and doubted the reports that He was alive. So later in the week, Jesus comes back to the disciples and shows Himself in the flesh to Thomas. Thomas sees his wounds and put his fingers on them…. and believed!

Today is Easter Monday. We don’t have to live defeated by the pain, rejection and betrayals of the past. Jesus promises a new life! The resurrection brought us a Substitute, the lamb of God! It is HE that we trust.  It is HE that will never, no never, abandon us. It is HE that forgives us of all our sins!

So, Easter should stir in us Easter Monday Living! A life of belief and hope in the reality of Easter. A new perspective on suffering, knowing that God is with us. A commitment to trust the Lord with all of our heart and not lean on our own understanding. A sense of enormous gratitude for the cross. How about walking with a spring in your step today? Why? He is risen!

“Jesus said to her, ‘I am the resurrection and the life. The one who believes in me will live, even though they die; and whoever lives by believing in me will never die. Do you believe this?’” John 11:25-26

"There is no greater love than to lay down one's life for one's friends." John 15:13

Nancy Abbott is the Chaplain for the YMCA of Greater San Antonio.