Alive and Still Kicking

It was about noon, and the whole land became dark until three o’clock in the afternoon, because the sun did not shine.  The curtain in the temple was torn in two.  Jesus cried out in a loud voice, “Father, I give you my life.”  After Jesus said this, he died.

 

The End

 

What a tragedy, if that was the end.  Where is the hope, where is the peace, where is the power?  Yeah, we all know that there is more.  There’s more to our Savior’s life than his death.  Do you believe it this morning?  We can identify with His suffering.  We can identify with His pain.  Yet we fail to see something more.  I see Christians around me living such defeated, broken lives and living as if there is no hope.  I wonder if we truly believe and fully remember Him.

 

Romans 6:5 – “For if we have been united together in the likeness of His death, certainly we also shall be in the likeness of His resurrection.”

 

It is as if we crawled up on the cross with Christ that day and gave our sins up to death.  However, most of us crawl up there and are alive and still kicking.  Medical accounts of the crucifixion suggests that one would have to lift his entire body up with his legs in order to take a breath.  As time passes on, this becomes harder and harder and your breaths become shorter and shorter until you asphyxiate and die.

 

As the scripture says, “We hope in a living God who is the Savior of all people, especially of those who believe.”  Not only did he die but also He rose again.  Stop pushing up with your legs, gasping for that last breath, trying to serve Him by your own power.  Fully accept the truth that it’s not in the dying that provided the power, it’s in the living.  Jesus Christ put the weight of the world on His shoulders and He willingly died.  They had to break the legs of the two thieves to ensure their deaths, but when they got to Jesus, he had already died.  Are you gasping for that last breath?  Do your legs need to be broken?  Or are you walking in the likeness of His resurrection?