Jesus died on the cross and was buried, but He didn’t stay there. We celebrate Easter to remind ourselves that Jesus has risen, that He is alive, and that we too can live in His resurrection.
Some people like to accumulate all kinds of trinkets to remember past events. A cup bought in Austria, a little doll bought in Colombia, a Christmas ornament from Ireland, all that to remember past trips. Of course, there is nothing wrong with that: remembering our good memories warms our hearts. Even God encouraged His children to make stone altars to remember the miracles He had done for them and to remind them of the commitments they had made to God. “And said to them, “Go out into the river where the Ark of the Lord your God is. Each of you bring back one rock, one for each tribe of Israel, and carry it on your shoulder. They will be a sign among you. In the future your children will ask you, ‘What do these rocks mean?’ Tell them the water stopped flowing in the Jordan when the Ark of the Agreement with the Lord crossed the river. These rocks will always remind the Israelites of this” (Joshua 4:5-7 NCV).
But some people are so attached to the past that they forget to enjoy the present moment. By keeping their eyes on what was good in the past, they forget that there are good things happening today. Other people instead keep a fixed gaze on their past because they are still hurt by incidents or remarks. They live in reaction to their past instead of enjoying the new freedom they have in Jesus.
Our Saviour, our God, is omnipresent. He can therefore move into our past to come and heal something that has hurt us. We can revisit a painful moment for a few moments so that the life of Christ comes to erase the faults that have been committed against us. It is a precious moment when we receive healing in our hearts from past events. So yes, Christ can visit our past, but He certainly doesn’t want us to stay there.
When Jesus met the disciples on the road to Emmaus, He asked them why they looked sad. “The one named Cleopas answered, “Are you the only visitor in Jerusalem who does not know what just happened there?” (Luke 24:18 NCV). And Jesus said to them: “What? What happened?” As if Jesus had already written off the crucifixion and His death. All that is over, forgotten. Now, let’s move on. The Lord then used passages from the Bible to explain His resurrection, but it was all to invite them to stop crying and start living. The angels who met the women at the tomb told them much the same thing: “Why are you seeking the living One among the dead?” (Luke 24:5b NASB).
The same speech was repeated later, by the apostle Paul. “Brothers and sisters, I do not regard myself as having taken hold of it yet; but one thing I do: forgetting what lies behind and reaching forward to what lies ahead” (Philippians 3:13 NASB). Paul had received a good education, and he also committed sins, but the good as the bad, he chose to forget it to move towards what was ahead. Maybe it’s time for us to stop living with the dead and choose to live with what will live forever. Why look for answers in our past? There are answers in our future! “Why seek the living One among the dead?” Let us enter the next stage: that of life after the resurrection.