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Spoiler alert! Jesus rose from the grave with the assurance that all believers will rise bodily with Him on the Last Day. And truth be told, Easter wasn't the first spoiler.
I can't tell you how many times social media has spoiled the ending of a movie for me. To be fair, I don't rush to the theater when a new film comes out, and I certainly don't have the willpower to stop checking my newsfeeds. Mea culpa! But still, finding out the endings to big blockbusters are almost unavoidable.
Here's the thing about spoilers: when you know how a movie ends, it changes how you watch it. Everything you see is viewed through the lens of the end. You're not thrown off by the plot twists. You're not concerned when it looks like the bad guys are winning. You have hope in hopeless situations because you know how it all plays out. Maybe spoilers aren't the worst, after all.
Movies aside, there's at least one spoiler that I absolutely don't mind knowing: the ending of my story. I'm no time traveler, but I can say with certainty what will ultimately happen to me because God has already graciously leaked that information. Easter morning was one big spoiler! One day, the risen Jesus will come back. On the day of His return, He will raise me from the dead, transforming my lowly body to be like His new, glorious, fresh-out-of-the-tomb body (Philippians 3:21). In other words, because Jesus rose from the dead, I will also rise from the dead.
Spoiler alert! Jesus rose from the grave with the assurance that all believers will rise bodily with Him on the Last Day. And truth be told, Easter wasn't the first spoiler. God had leaked the end of the story long before Jesus' resurrection. Thousands of years before the empty tomb, a man named Job declared our Christian hope with remarkable accuracy:
"For I know that my Redeemer lives,
and at the last he will stand upon the earth.
And after my skin has been thus destroyed,
yet in my flesh I shall see God,
whom I shall see for myself,
and my eyes shall behold, and not another.
My heart faints within me!" (Job 19:25-27)
How do we know that death isn't the end of our story? Our assurance rose with Jesus out of the tomb! "We were buried therefore with him by baptism into death, in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too might walk in newness of life. For if we have been united with him in a death like his, we shall certainly be united with him in a resurrection like his" (Romans 6:4-5). I am forever intimately connected to Jesus—what happens to Him, happens to me.
Therefore, we know the end of the story, and knowing the end changes how we view it. Sure, we don't know what awaits us from here to the Last Day, but that's OK. We're not thrown off by the plot twists. We're not concerned when it looks like my sin or the sins of others are winning. We have hope in hopeless situations because we know how it all plays out. We know that Jesus lives, and on the Last Day, He will stand upon the earth. And after our skin has been thus destroyed, yet in our flesh we shall see Him. He is risen! He is risen indeed! Alleluia!
