New Creation Breaking Through
We now enter into the Season of Easter; those forty days between Resurrection Sunday and Ascension Day when Jesus physically walked the earth before returning to the right hand of the Father. In that time, He prepared His followers to receive the Holy Spirit and the Great Commission to proclaim the Good News of His Kingdom come over all the earth. It is a reminder that Christ is equipping and empowering us to live out His purposes with joy and hope through faith.
Because of Jesus’ resurrection, the New Creation has already begun to break in. When we receive the New Life in Christ and are Born Again, we become a part of that New Creation. As the Apostle Paul writes in 2 Corinthians 5:17, “Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creature.” With each life renewed by the blood of Christ through faith, New Creation breaks in more and more. While we await the full and complete transformation of this world at Christ’s second coming, we do not back down from the bold declaration that “It is finished,” His redeeming work has been accomplished, and the victory is already absolute.
It can be hard, when we look with human eyes, to see such a reality in the midst of continued suffering and pain. A world still burdened by sin and death seems to mock the Resurrection. But God will not be mocked. The Vision of Easter, the Vision of the Resurrected Christ, is a promise and a guarantee of the Hope in which we live. And when we do, we become the Hope of the world. The Church is God’s plan to reach this world with Christ. Christ’s Presence is given to us, and we are to take Him to the world. Abide in Him, and He in us. We don’t do this in our own power, but by the same power that raised Jesus from the dead, living in us. That is Living Hope.