No 4: To Achieve His Own Resurrection from the Dead

I hope you are enjoying my beautified blog.  My son Anthony has been round to show me how to make it as good as his.  If you are struck by the picture on the left, let me explain where we saw it.  On Sunday we went to the exhibition in the British Library 'Royal Manuscripts, the Genius of Illumination', and spent two hours feasting upon one astonishing, precious illustrated manuscript after another.  Because they were protected inside books, their colours have remained as fresh as the day they were painted.  I was deeply moved to be so close to these wondrous creations by Christians who lived so long ago.  I worshipped God for my place in His communion of saints, and I felt humbled by my brief appearance in time, and by the passion and devotion expressed in these images.  This picture of the Creator forming the universe dates from 1411, and is to be found in a copy of the Grande Bible historiale completée, a French translation of the Bible by Guyart de Moulins done in 1295.  Yesterday morning I placed the exhibition catalogue open at this image, to inspire my imagination at prayer.

This morning's reason turns for the first time to the resurrection.  You know, I am struck how swiftly the first apostles always got to this great announcement, which was clearly always uppermost in their minds, burned upon their hearts from their recent encounters with the risen Christ.  They almost rush past the facts of His death.  But of course, even in the brief time-span of Acts and the epistles, we see the understanding of the Cross grow.  Nevertheless, I need to keep examining my heart, in case Good Friday is eclipsing Easter Sunday.

I believe that the resurrection was the greatest work of faith ever witnessed.  I often meditate upon this truth.  We know how the story ended on that first Easter morning, and that can make it difficult to appreciate that the only certainty Jesus had when He carried His cross to Golgotha was His faith that His Father would raise Him up.  He was walking in noone else's footsteps, to get encouragement from their example.  He had testified to His faith very publically in the Temple (John 10:18).  While He lived, demons submitted, wind and waves obeyed Him, legions of angels were at His command - but when He went to His death as just a mortal man, what would happen?

The reason why it is so important to meditate upon Jesus' faith, is that this is how a "like, precious faith" becomes imparted into us.  In Galatians 2:20, St Paul reaches down into the deepest, mystical reaches of spiritual experience.  In one sentence of it we have been poorly served by the NIV translators, and better by those of King James: "This life which I now live in the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God."  Not 'faith in', but 'the faith of'.  It is God's delight to transfer His faith into us - He has never expected us to muster it up through our own efforts.