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By Prof. Scott Hafemann
Happy Easter from your brothers and sisters at Mission: Chad! It is a real joy to be able to send out this greeting. The past weeks have been hard; the realities of destruction and death, the consequences of our rebellion against God, have been very present to our brothers and sisters in Chad, and to us who pray and seek to help them. We have felt the need for God's resurrection power in many ways. So as we celebrate Easter this week, let's celebrate Easter! Let's celebrate that the last word in our world will not be death but resurrection! That the victory has already been won! That everything done for Christ in Christ's name will not be in vain! Because of Easter, our future is secure; because of Easter, our lives count for more than merely a passing pleasure. For Christ and for his disciples, the cross is the pathway to the glory of the final rule and reign of God. Christ is risen, he is risen indeed! And one day we will rise with him into the new heavens and earth, in which his righteousness, not our sin, will reign (2 Peter 3:13).
The apostle Paul therefore wanted to remind the Corinthians of just this reality. In the midst of the adversity and discouragements and suffering and death of our fallen world, he did not want them to give up their hope, so that they would not give up their faith-filled work for God's kingdom. Remember his conclusion to his great chapter on the certainty of the resurrection:
"O death, where is thy victory? O death, where is thy sting?"
The sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the law.
But thanks be to God, who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.
Therefore, my beloved brethren, be steadfast, immovable, always abounding
in the work of the Lord, knowing that in the Lord your labor is not in vain
(1 Cor. 15:55-58).
Happy Easter! Thank you for "your labor in the Lord" for Chad; it is not in vain. Let's celebrate Easter in worship, but let us also celebrate with our ongoing perseverance in faith, hope, and love, a celebration that Easter is real, for us, and for the world.
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