Easter Sunday

 
If ye then be risen with Christ, seek those things which are above,         
Where Christ sitteth on the right hand of God. Set your affections on 
Things above, not on things on the earth. For ye are dead, and your life
Is hid with Christ in God. 
(Col. 3. 1-3)
       
There is something rather strange about our Easter Epistle, which was addressed by St. Paul to the infant Church at Colossae in a small Phrygian city in Asia Minor, or modern-day Turkey. Easter Sunday is the first of 40 days. Before He ascended back to the Father, during the period of 40 days, Christ appeared to Saints Peter and John, to Saint Mary Magdalene, to the women, to Saint James and all the Apostles, to some five hundred, to Saint Stephen prior to his martyrdom, and later to St. Paul as one born out of due time. (1 Cor. xv. 8)  So why does Mother Church have us reading an Epistle that seems to be all about the spiritual relationship that we have with Christ after Pentecost? In it, St. Paul speaks about our relationship with the hidden God. Your life is hid with Christ in God. (Col. iii. 3) We haven’t even begun our 40 days of getting used to the Resurrected Christ than the Church turns our minds upward and into the Heavenly realm!
        
So what is this business of our lives hid with Christ in God? For St. Paul, something has happened on the Day of Resurrection that forever changes our lives in relation to God the Father. Jesus Christ is not a mere soul or Spirit. Jesus Christ, the God/Man, has risen from the dead. Article IV of the Thirty Nine Articles of Religion states this: 

Christ did truly rise again from death, and took again his body, with flesh, bones, and all things appertaining to the perfection of Man's nature; wherewith he ascended into Heaven, and there sitteth, until he return to judge all Men at the last day.  
 
St. Paul believes that Christ indeed died in a natural body and rose a spiritual body. What he means is that Christ raised up the body through which He lived and died and yet has transfigured it. 

His soul took back his body, and penetrated it through and through making it spiritual…this spiritual body is transparent, obedient to the Spirit, unconstrained and lightsome…the instrument of the Divine Saviour’s soul. (Mouroux, p. 89)
 
The Risen Christ is, then, a glorified unity of body, soul, and spirit. He is the same Lord who died once for all our sins. His Risen Body bears the wounds of His Crucifixion, reminding us that He has borne our sufferings and sin and brought them to death. But the same wounds remind us of His ongoing love for us, as this spiritual Body that He bears will expand and deepen to include us in His new Resurrected life. But even during the 40 days of His Resurrection, He begins to call believers into the new Body that He will share with all who will follow Him. This Body has been raised up with the Father’s Blessing and the Spirit’s power. This spiritual Body is in more than one place at one time. Peter sees Him and then simultaneously so does James. Magdalene has seen Him and so too have the men walking on the Road to Emmaus. Jesus’ Body is already spiritually greater than what our earthly senses can ever comprehend. It is of such a nature that will ensure that our lives [can be] hid with Christ in God. 

Of course, it takes time for the Apostles to realize what is going on. The 40 days of Christ’s Resurrection are necessary. For Man to come to understand timeless Truth, it all takes time. But in that time what they come to realize is that Christ is calling them to become one with Him in a new way. Christ is now ready to share Himself with them in the way that has enabled Him to conquer sin, death, and Satan and to open to them all, simultaneously, the Gates of Everlasting Life.  
         
So how can our lives be hid with Christ in God? St. Paul reminds us in another place that Christ our passover is sacrificed for us; therefore let us keep the feast, not with old leaven, neither with the leaven of malice and wickedness; but with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth. (1 Cor v. 7,8) Christ Jesus our Saviour is Risen from the dead. He invites us into that life that has gained the victory not only over all sin but even over time and place. Just as Christ’s victory is complete, we can live in His victory. Jesus died at the hands of sinful men and their sin. But He died, being dead unto sin. Sin had no claim or power over Him. Christ conquered sin through His obedience to God the Father and because He has always been alive unto God. (Idem) In the Resurrection, Jesus Christ invites us to begin to participate in His obedience to the Father. Christ, even in death, was alive unto God. So now, even as we live and struggle against sin and death, we are invited to seek those things which are above. (Col. iii. 1) Not above and beyond our reach, but above and beyond our wildest expectations, above and beyond what we desire or deserve, above and beyond what Man can do for himself in any age. And yet not above and beyond what God’s love can and will do for us as Heaven reaches down to earth to lift us up back into His loving embrace. Not above and beyond God’s healing touch, His quickening Spirit, His ever-present and all-powerful presence, even here and now. But yes, above and within the heart of Jesus, whose Glorified Body and Being are with the Father pleading our case in all ages. Yes, above and within Jesus Christ Himself, in whom every aspect of our lives can become a new occasion for our rising up and out of ourselves, mortifying [our] members which are upon earth; [up and out of] our uncleanness, inordinate affection, evil concupiscence, and covetousness, which is idolatry…(Col. iii. 5) In our bodies, because in His Risen and Glorified Body, Christ is always in God. In our souls, because in His Risen and Glorified Soul, He (is) in us, and we (are) in Him. Christ is risen from the dead. Sin is finished, death is finished, and Satan is finished, if we shall discover our need for Him even now. Our lives are hid with Christ in God. (Col. iii. 3)

One last point. St. Paul uses the word hid, as related to hidden. Of course, St. Paul does not mean that we should hide our faith, leaving it under a bushel, as a light (St. Matthew v. 15) without function and utility for others. No, rather, we must let the light of our faith shine forth. But what St. Paul means is that the source of our life in Jesus Christ is hid with God securely concealed and invisible to the powers of this world, from most men, and even from the Devil. What this means is that we can be assured that our new life in Jesus Christ is safe and secure from all alarm and any harm with which the world threatens. What St. Paul means is that our true new life is in Heaven, beyond the control of human senses and earthly manipulation. What St. Paul means is that our new life is hidden with Christ, whom we do not see yet truly believe. Faith, knowledge, and love ultimately are hidden virtues that are generated by God’s hidden Grace and power in the human soul that leans on God for meaning and definition. And so, what the world should see are the effects of that hidden operation, whereby we are dying to sin and coming alive to God’s righteousness through the gift of His Grace from Heaven, where He ever liveth to make intercession for us. (Hebrews vii. 25) And it isn’t that the world shouldn’t notice it. But what the world might sense is a way of living in us that is beyond their normal experiences, something urging them on to seek out that hidden power seen in the unusually good habits of our lives that might stir them on to believe and discover God’s hidden work. 

On this Day of our New Life, as creatures Resurrected from sin and death, let us begin to live freely. On this day may true joy fill our hearts. Let us, therefore, thank and praise our Saviour Jesus Christ for dying for us, rising for us, and assuring us that if we believe, our lives are Hid in Him with God. Jesus’ Resurrection from the dead was for the Apostles a process. Slowly but surely, they began to realize that true life has come from God and can return to God because in Jesus Christ nothing on earth, and especially our own sin, need separate us from that love that conquers all for eternal life with unending joy.
Amen.
©wjsmartin