Jesus promised life in fullness, but he was himself brutally executed. It seemed like death had the last word. However, death is not the end of the Jesus story. For by the Spirit, the Father raised Jesus from death declaring him to be Son of God in power.

The risen Jesus was exalted to his Father’s right hand with all authority in heaven and earth. He also received from his Father the promised Spirit to be poured out on his own. From that moment, Jesus’ disciples lived in the presence and power of the risen one. As they looked back at the cross, through the living presence of risen one, they saw that the old order had ended and a new one had begun. And so, the resurrection completely changed how they now saw the cross. They once reflected on the cross as the sad end to all their hopes, but now, they saw the cross as the beginning of a great turnaround. Yes, they now saw that something had happened during that dark hour that had changed the world. They saw that Jesus died to defeat the dark powers that have dominion over us. And they saw that God brought into being his new creation with the resurrection of Jesus. The world was now a different place, for the dying and rising of Jesus marked the end of one era and the start of another.

As we now survey the wondrous cross and the resurrection that followed, the Spirit opens to us a new vision of the God who has rescued us from the dominion of darkness and transferred us into the kingdom of the Son he loves.