THE ROOT AND THE FRUIT
Bishop T.D Jakes once said, “Salvation is the root and the resurrection is the fruit.” In saying that, he referred to the root as a source or an origin of something, and in terms of salvation, it is where we begin our faith journey with Jesus. The fruit, on the other hand, points to Christ’s resurrection from the grave. The word ‘fruit’ also points to a life that has undergone transformation, attained growth over time, and developed some degree of maturity.
Looking at the root and the fruit as symbols of Easter significantly changes how we could live as believers every day. When we see that resurrection is not a standalone historical event on the church calendar but an unquenchable and irrepressible power that we have access to, it means everyone can have a purposeful and vibrant life. We can also say that our faith journey does not begin or end at our salvation but it is a life that displays the power of Christ’s resurrection. This is why the resurrection of Jesus matters and why our lives matter - right here, right now.
In 1 Corinthians 15:1-11, the apostle Paul unpacked the Good News and the events surrounding Easter Sunday that are fundamental to understanding the Christian faith. They reveal three critical principles undergirding Christ’s resurrection.
STAND RESOLUTE
‘Because of the increase of wickedness, the love of most will grow cold, but the one who stands firm to the end will be saved.’ (Matthew 24:12-13). Isn’t it amazing that the Bible talked about a ‘VUCA’ world long before academics coined the term to describe a world that would be increasingly volatile, uncertain, complex and ambiguous?
Paul’s prescription for facing today’s VUCA realities is this: believe in the message of the good news, remain firm, resolute and unwavering in it. ‘We are sure of this because Christ was raised from the dead, and He will never die again. Death no longer has any power over Him.’ (Romans 6:9 NLT).
What this means is that because Jesus is the Living Word, we have the power to overcome private sins, personal weaknesses and unleash our God-given destiny even in a VUCA world. In fact, there is no better time than now for believers to demonstrate that the Word of God cannot be chained by any variants of virus or by an economy bludgeoned by a global pandemic (2 Timothy 2:9).
FORGIVENESS & RESTORATION
As soon as Jesus was resurrected, He wasted no time to reconnect with a few people for the very purpose of setting them free of any ambivalence towards Him. Invariably, this means they needed His forgiveness and restoration. To forgive is to release someone from an offence, and to restore is to return to a person something that was lost, given up or given away.
Jesus’s first order of business was with Peter – the one who took the lead in vowing to die with Jesus rather than deny Him (Matthew 26:35). Imagine how you’d feel reconnecting after having turned your back on a friend in a time of need. But Jesus was not going to let human misjudgment rob Peter of his God-given destiny because earlier, He had told Peter, ‘Now I say to you that you are Peter (which means ‘rock’), and upon this rock I will build my church’ (Matthew 16:18a). Jesus was going to complete His plan for Peter’s destiny.
Then, there were the twelve apostles who were quick to make an exit when the risks of being associated with Jesus became increasingly dangerous and threatened their livelihood. Besotted with great anxiety and doubt in the midst of confusion, Jesus spoke words to them that restored peace of mind as well as their God given destiny: “Peace be with you! As the Father has sent me, I am sending you.’ (John 20:19, 21).
The Lord also appeared to his brother, James. The encounter turned him from being a skeptic (John 7:5) to becoming a full-fledged apostle proclaiming himself as ‘a slave of God and of the Lord Jesus Christ’ (James 1:1).
It is interesting that Jesus also appeared to a big group – in fact, 500 of His followers. Whether they were detached onlookers, self-serving followers or committed disciples, now they would all know that crucifixion was not the finale of God’s salvation plan.
Today, we too can experience God’s forgiveness and restoration in big and small ways. We can let God set us free from deeply-embedded fears that cause us to live in a frozen state, unable to process anxieties in a healthy way. We can ask the Holy Spirit to take us on a journey towards better emotional and relational outcomes so that His forgiveness and restoration can be fully manifested in our lives.
FAVOUR AND GRACE
Call it an edge, an advantage or a leg up, God’s favour and grace is His power and positioning that give us far better outcomes than is logically possible. We could be short on resources yet end up sufficiently supplied. We may not have a team of winners but end up the winning team. It’s the second chance we never thought we deserved. It’s the open door we could never achieve on our own merit.
We experience God’s favour and grace when what we receive is ‘immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to His power that is at work within us’ (Ephesians 3:20).
The apostle Paul powerfully summed up his experience of God’s favour and grace this way (1 Cor 15:9-10): ‘For I am the least of all the apostles. In fact, I’m not even worthy to be called an apostle after the way I persecuted God’s church. But whatever I am now, it is all because God poured out His special favour on me - and not without results. For I have worked harder than any of the other apostles; yet it was not I but God who was working through me by His grace.’
God’s grace enabled the apostle Paul to keep going in undesirable circumstances but emerged with good results. Indeed, Paul showed us that those who have access to God’s favour and grace ought to have ‘results’ to show for.
We see the same thing in Acts 5:12-20 when the apostles were arrested and thrown into jail because they were healing multitudes, drawing crowds and performing signs and wonders. Then, in the night, a gung-ho angel released them and told them to go back out there to ‘tell the people all about this new life.’ (v20). Pay attention that they were not instructed to lie low or run into hiding but go back out there again – connect with people, share the Good News!
If we say we do not like to draw attention to ourselves, we have missed the point of living in God’s favour and grace. Paul wrote in 2 Timothy 1:7 ‘For God has not given us a spirit of fear and timidity, but of power, love, and self-discipline.’ Instead of watering down Christ’s resurrection power, we ought to live with a FOMO (fear of missing out) mindset towards our God-given destiny!
This is a summary and reflection based on a virtual BIR Session held on 16 April 2022.
