Easter is God’s great affirmation of the earth and all it contains. The day when the Father says Yes to chocolate eggs and white bunnies, little girls’ pretty dresses and elaborate family dinners, trumpeting lilies and bodies of flesh and blood.
Easter is the day when God says, “This is my soil. This is my creation. Not only is it still good, but I will make it even better.”
The religion of Jesus is focused on this world, not some ethereal realm where souls string hammocks between clouds. It is a religion of skin and bones, mountains and trees.
When Jesus rose from the dead on Easter, the Father was saying, “Now everything is done. Humanity’s wrongs are paid for. Their souls and bodies are redeemed. Indeed, all creation is redeemed.”
The religion of Jesus is focused on this world, not some ethereal realm where souls string hammocks between clouds. It is a religion of skin and bones, mountains and trees.
When the time is right, our Father will transform this old creation into a new one, fully purged of all evil, where—as Tolkien said—everything sad will come untrue.
We wait now in the parenthesis between Easter and the Last Day. But it won’t last forever. This earth awaits its re-genesis by God. On this renewed, spinning globe we will live unto ages of ages—not in heaven, not as bodiless spirits, but here as people with breathing lungs and beating hearts.
As surely as the resurrected Jesus stood, feet in the dirt, fully human, eating fish, and talking with his friends on the seashore, so we shall stand on the day of final resurrection as fully human, on a perfect earth, feasting and talking with our friends.
He didn’t simply vacate the tomb to end death. He brought up from that grave the seeds of a brand new start at life. Genesis 1 all over again, with no chance of Genesis 3.
In this new creation, the wolf and the lamb shall graze together, and a nursing child will play by the den of a cobra (Isaiah 11:6-9). We will wine and dine on the lavish mountaintop banquet prepared by God (25:6-12).
And God will smile and laugh with his creation, even as he smiles and laughs this Easter. Jesus left the tomb to embrace the earth. He came forth to say Yes to this world, to our bodies, to wine and chocolate and Bach and Michelangelo.
He didn’t simply vacate the tomb to end death. He brought up from that grave the seeds of a brand new start at life. Genesis 1 all over again, with no chance of Genesis 3.
Easter is the Father’s Earth day, this world’s chance to party with the God who made it, to feast on the promise of the good life to come when “according to his promise, we are looking for a new heavens and a new earth, in which righteousness dwells,” (2 Peter 3:13).
So this Easter season enjoy your chocolate. Enjoy this world. Kiss the earth. For this world, in a remade and renewed state, will be our home for all eternity. We will stand upon it in bodies that mirror our Lord’s. All because of Easter. All because the Creator who died came to life again, that all may have life in him.
Chad Bird is a Scholar in Residence at 1517. He will be the dean at Camp Arcadia’s family week 9, August 21 – 27. He has served as a pastor, professor, and guest lecturer in Old Testament and Hebrew. He holds master’s degrees from Concordia Theological Seminary and Hebrew Union College. He has contributed articles to Christianity Today, The Gospel Coalition, Modern Reformation, The Federalist, Lutheran Forum, and other journals and websites. He is also the author of several books, including Night Driving: Notes from a Prodigal Soul, Your God Is Too Glorious.
