The Victory That Has Overcome the World

Easter this year was hard. You may have seen the email I sent out several weeks ago before Holy Week, in which I was feeling pretty hopeful. That hope didn’t necessarily die for me. I felt like I was able to mentally and spiritually follow Jesus’ journey to the Cross and the Resurrection as well as I could from home.

On Saturday night, right before Easter, there was a moment when I felt utterly crushed about the situation the virus has created in the world. The next day was Easter Sunday, undoubtedly the most joyful day of the year for Christians, and the world was in darkness. As much as I wished it, part of me knew that I wouldn’t wake up the next morning and hear that the virus was gone, everyone was cured, and all the churches were opening.

I thought that something was wrong about that. Why wouldn’t God work a great miracle on the day we celebrated His Resurrection? Wasn’t that possible? Wasn’t that logical? God certainly does not work in our ways and on our timing, yet I couldn’t shake the sense that something to improve the whole situation should happen on Easter Sunday.

Spoiler: nothing did happen. At least, nothing I could tangibly grasp and notice. But I did wake up with an odd and rather obvious question in my head: why did Jesus rise from the dead? His dying had already saved us from sin and death, right? Why the Resurrection? Especially since people clearly still sin and clearly still die. What did the Resurrection do for us?

I received a whole slew of answers from my memory of books, bible verses, things I’ve been told, etc. (In case you’re concerned, I DO know why the Resurrection happened 😉 )

After I remembered everything, my thought process went a bit like this: “So… death can no longer separate us from God… and Christ proved love is stronger than death… and if WE as Christians have Him with us… we can turn to His grace when we’re tempted to avoid sin, and when we’ve sinned to be forgiven… and if suffering can be redemptive now when united with Christ… what reason do we have to still be afraid of anything?”

I’d known this before in a way, but somehow it struck me anew as the days after Easter went by. Our sins can now be erased by God. We now have, through God’s grace, the ability to overcome our faults and sinful habits. We do not have to fear death because, again with God’s grace, death will lead to life everlasting. And—what struck me most strongly—was that we don’t have to fear suffering, because now it could be united to Christ’s suffering and could make us more like Him. Suffering can now be used to overcome faults. All our crosses and little burdens are now a treasure trove of opportunities to draw closer to Christ.

Could Jesus have crushed Satan more than this? Sin, death, suffering—all powerless because Christ died and rose and has given us access to His grace. Let that sink in for a moment.

There was my Easter miracle. The Resurrection was the Miracle that we remember at Easter. It is still the Miracle today, especially in the virus, because it renders all evil powerless.

I’m not denying that people are suffering and dying, are out of work or ill with worry. It hurts to think about people suffering even as we are all affected in various ways by what is happening in the world. Being sorrowful is good and right and not a sin (did not Jesus even weep?). Trying to end the evil and pain that are happening is good and right as well. Yet neither of those should involve admitting that evil has won here.

Right now, suffering has not won. It never will. Even now we can raise our prayers to our Father whom we know will hear us in His great mercy. We can pray for the souls of the dying, that they will accept that mercy. We can pray for the healing of the sick. We can pray for the strength of those working to stop this virus. And those prayers count.

What’s more, is that that faith counts. People may say they don’t know when things will go back to normal and if life will ever be good again. Here, we can offer something: a certainty that even if things don’t go back to how they were, that goodness will prevail. Joy will return. We have hope to offer the world in the form of the Resurrection: sin and suffering and death do not have the last word over goodness and life and grace.

 

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Several nights ago, I peeked out my window at the stars before going to bed. I found myself drawn to sit and gaze at them for a while and thought how dark the sky would be without the stars. They certainly do not entirely pierce the darkness. Only the sun can do that. But, in the dark, they did something. They were a reminder of light, of a greater light that would come with the dawn.

We are those stars. We may not, by prayers and by faith, be able to ignite the whole world and entirely drive back the darkness. But we can drive back the little bit around us. We may not be able to ensure that all the stars around us keep burning as they should, but we can try our best to make sure we keep burning.

It is not our duty to entirely drive back the suffering of the world by ourselves. Just what is around us. Just the friend we can send a text of encouragement to, someone we heard is sick that we can pray for, a member of our own family we can smile at. Our faithful duty to what is before us right now. We need not collapse on the floor and bemoan that we alone cannot fix the world. We cannot, and we never could. But we can fix our world, whatever is immediately around us. We can reflect the light in our own place.

Dear reader, there is so much grace available to us right now! Let us not despair of how little we can do—God asks us to do what we can. Let us not despair of our isolation from church—God can still find ways to come to us. Let us not despair because nothing is going our way—even here, even when it is hard, we can turn our eyes to Christ crucified and risen and see how He transforms our pain into grace. Dear reader, God has so much to give right now!

I wish I could add a billion exclamation points to all of this! There is hope. There is grace. Now especially, we must not and need not lose heart.

“In the world you will have tribulation. But take heart; I have overcome the world.” (Jn 16:33)

 

“And this is the victory that has overcome the world–our faith.” (1 Jn 5:4)

 

“…for the joy of the Lord is your strength.” (Ne 8:10)

Let us turn to Him always and completely during these times! God is still good!

Blessings,

K.M.