Resurrection Storm

“…that I may know Him and the power of His resurrection, and may share His sufferings, becoming like Him in His death, that by any means possible I may attain the resurrection from the dead.”—Philippians 3:10-11

Thunderstorms in the spring—the sky darkens, the temperature grows cool, and the wind prepares the way for the approaching power of spring rain. Thunderstorms display God’s great power—the booming thunder echoing for miles around, and lightning able to light up the entire sky for all eyes to see. As thunderstorms carry life-giving rain across the land, breaking up the hard ground of winter so that the seeds of life might come into full bloom, I am reminded of Christ’s resurrection. The resurrection is an all too neglected subject within Christian circles, but since we will spend eternity in resurrected, glorified bodies, it should compel us to study this subject more carefully.

In our passage for today, Paul talks about “knowing Him” and the “power of His resurrection.” “Knowing” denotes an intimate knowledge that only comes with proximity. I may know about the President of the United States from what I have read, studied him on television, read his books, and even met people who know him, but I don’t know him—I only know of him. Paul is writing about an experiential knowledge of knowing someone closely, intimately, a friend known well. But, he wants not only to know Him more intimately, but to know the “power of His resurrection.”

The resurrection of Jesus Christ is the single greatest event in the history of the universe. It’s more powerful than a thunderstorm and brings more life than a spring rain. A spring rain immerses the land and awakens millions of seeds of life. Christ’s death and resurrection constitute the cloud that enables the grace of God’s rain to be released on the earth. We seek to understand the power of His resurrection echoing throughout the seedbeds of countless lives—breaking open the seeds of these old bodies so that the real life might spring forth.

 The reason we don’t delight in the resurrection is simply because we don’t understand it. Like a child holding a seed who can’t see what is to come from it, so we look at our earthly lives and bodies. But, the wise farmer sees and knows what comes from the little seed. It must be broken by the power of the spring rain and the warm earth—and then touched by the life-giving hand of God; only when the seed is broken does life spring forth. Paul looked forward to “sharing in Christ’s sufferings,” knowing that it was the grace born of suffering that weans us off of the breast of this world so that the shells of these earthly tents might be stripped away—waiting for the new life to come—our resurrection from the dead.

Paul longed for that time when the seed of his life might be cracked open by sharing in Christ’s sufferings so that he might attain to the resurrection that Christ possessed. He had been an eyewitness to Christ’s resurrected body on the road to Damascus and he longed for that same resurrection. The seed of Christ was broken open by His suffering and death on the cross. And the fruit that sprang forth from the tomb was greater than anything the world had ever seen. Paul had seen the fruit and longed that similar suffering might break his own seed so that he might experience the same resurrection.

I pray that each of us might be able to echo the yearning of Paul’s heart. We do not live for the seeds of this world, but the fruit of the world to come, knowing it’s that much greater and that much better than anything this world has to offer. May God grant us hearts that long for it. Amen.