The Women See the Resurrected Christ

BY Raechel Myers

Last year, in the final days of winter, the beloved patriarch of our family died. We gathered a few days later to lay his body in the ground. It was the second day of spring. 

The Bible offers words of comfort about what happens to believers when they die—promises of eternal life secured by Jesus’s own life, death, and resurrection. I know these words are true in every season, but standing at my grandpa’s graveside that day, the significance of the timing brought a special kind of solace. At the church I reminded Grandpa’s family and friends of Paul’s words from 1 Corinthians 15: Our earthly bodies are but seeds of what our heavenly bodies will become. “What you sow does not come to life unless it dies,” and we “are not sowing the body that will be, but only a seed” (vv. 36–37).

Grandpa died in winter, and we were burying his body at the beginning of spring, like a seed of promise planted in the ground. The act of placing a body in the ground was an act of faith and defiance, declaring, “This is not the end. This is only the beginning.” Because of Jesus, the resting place of every believer is the site of a future resurrection. 

Jesus, the firstfruits from among the dead, invites us to share in His resurrected life (1Corinthians 15:20). His resurrection both shapes and secures our hope—not only in death, but also right now, in this life! “Because of his great mercy he has given us new birth into a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead and into an inheritance that is imperishable, undefiled, and unfading, kept in heaven for you” (1Peter 1:3–4). Christ’s resurrection changes how we understand death, but it also changes how we view life in Christ even now. 

Over the next three weeks, we’ll take a closer look at Jesus’s life from the time of His resurrection to His ascension, reading about the encounters He had with His disciples and others after He was raised from the dead. We’ll look to Scripture to learn how Christ’s resurrection changes everything for those who put their faith in Him. May the truth of God’s Word capture your heart with the reality of the resurrected Jesus. He is our living hope.