From Tragedy to Triumph: Resurrection

I want to talk about the greatest event ever to happen in the history of the world. And of course I mean Wyatt Hendrickson’s upset of Gable Steveson at last month’s wrestling national championship.

I’m guessing some of you weren’t expecting that. But based on the reaction of the ESPN announcers and everything happening online, you would have thought it genuinely was. People were stunned.

The Upset Nobody Saw Coming

If you have no idea what I’m talking about, that’s fine — you’re with about 90% of America. Nobody follows college wrestling except weirdos like me. So let me set the stage.

Gable Steveson is an Olympic gold medalist and a two-time national champion in college wrestling. Both years he won the national title he also won the Hodge Trophy, which is essentially the Heisman of college wrestling, given to the single best wrestler of the entire year. The man is a beast. Going into that final he had lost only twice in his career, both during his freshman year, both to the same guy. After that he simply dominated. His matches rarely went the full seven minutes — he would get the pin, or a tech fall, which is when you go fifteen points up and they stop the match early so your opponent isn’t embarrassed further.

Wyatt Hendrickson had graduated from the Air Force Academy with one year of eligibility left, so he was allowed to transfer to Oklahoma State for a single season while working on a master’s degree. He returns to the Air Force after this. He was having a phenomenal year and went into that final undefeated — and still, nobody expected him to beat an Olympic champion.

With twenty seconds left in the third period, down by two, Wyatt took Gable down. He held him there for the final twenty seconds and won 5–4 to become a national champion. That arena exploded like it had just witnessed the greatest moment in history.

Why tell you this on Easter Sunday? Because there is something in us that loves a David-and-Goliath story. In a movie, in a memoir, on television — we love watching the underdog pull off the upset and stun the world. (Wyatt Hendrickson is not small, trust me. But you know what I mean.)

If you love those stories, you should love Easter — because Easter is the greatest one ever told. It is where Jesus took down and defeated the Goliath of sin and death, which had been undefeated until that moment. And He won.

For some people Easter is a celebration of spring, or an excuse to dress up, or a good reason to get the family together, or permission to eat chocolate. But for Christians it is the remembrance of Christ not merely going to the cross, but exploding out of the grave alive — doing what no one thought possible.

From Tragedy to Triumph

This is part two of a short series. On Good Friday we looked at part one, the tragedy of the cross. If you follow Jesus, the cross was good — that is why we call it Good Friday, because there your sin was paid for. But for Jesus it was not good. It was absolutely tragic. If you were with us that night you heard what He endured physically, emotionally, and spiritually. It was hard enough simply to sit and listen to. Imagine living it.

Thankfully we do not stop at part one. We get part two. We go from tragedy to triumph — though for Jesus it was not really an upset, because He was always more powerful than death. After that beating, after that brutal execution, He walks out of the grave and defeats sin and death in the process.

This story is not confined to Matthew, Mark, Luke and John. It runs through the whole New Testament, and it is prophesied in the Old. One of those places is 1 Corinthians 15 — an entire chapter about resurrection. Most of it concerns the resurrection of Jesus and how utterly crucial it is. Take the resurrection out and the whole Christian faith crumbles; everything hinges on it. Having made that case, Paul turns to what it means for us.

For this perishable body must put on the imperishable, and this mortal body must put on immortality… then shall come to pass the saying that is written: “Death is swallowed up in victory.” “O death, where is your victory? O death, where is your sting?” The sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the law. But thanks be to God, who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ. — 1 Corinthians 15:53–57 (ESV)

My Failed Outline

Preaching often feels to me like weaving. Not the weaving a running back does, or a speeding car on the interstate — I mean the art form, the building of a tapestry.

When I preach, what I am trying to do is bring you up close to the tapestry of God’s word so you can see its beauty. To help you appreciate the artwork I take you to the individual threads, show you how they are woven together, and hope you end up in awe of the master craftsman. Because He made this masterpiece of Scripture — and according to Ephesians 2:10, He made the masterpiece of you. I want you to know your Creator.

So this week I did what I always do, and I had a lovely simple two-point outline ready: first, Jesus triumphed over death; second, Jesus triumphed over sin. Except every time I worked on point one I bumped into point two, and every time I went to point two I bumped straight back into point one.

Eventually I realized why. There aren’t two points. There is one. Look at the first phrase of verse 56: the sting of death is sin. The two are welded together — two sides of one coin. You cannot separate them.

Where Sin and Death Were Joined

In Genesis, God gives Adam a tour of the garden and tells him he may eat from any tree except one. People ask why God would place a forbidden tree there at all. But think about it — there is exactly one command. Complete freedom otherwise. One thing off limits does not strike me as unfair.

You know the story. Eve is deceived and eats, then hands the fruit to Adam, and he sinks his teeth in. And God had warned him: if you eat of it, you will die.

The moment that fruit crossed his lips, Adam died. Not physically — he was designed to live forever, and his physical death came much later. But notice something in Genesis 3: when Adam and Eve are sent out of the garden, they are wearing clothing made of animal skins. Something did die that day. Blood was shed, and in mercy God allowed the penalty to be transferred onto an animal — exactly as He later allows our unrighteousness to be transferred onto Jesus, who becomes the sacrifice, so that we can be clothed in His righteousness.

What Adam suffered immediately was spiritual death. Genesis 1 tells us God made him in His own image — a complete, unified, intimate relationship between God and man. When Adam sinned, that image was torn. Not eliminated, not erased. Still there. But scratched through. Jesus sees the scratching, and He still sees the image, and He loves us and comes for us.

For Adam, though, the moment the image tore, his relationship with the Creator and sustainer of life was broken, and he became spiritually dead. Ephesians 2:5 tells us that everyone born physically alive is born spiritually dead — and in need of resurrection.

So from the very beginning, sin and death are two threads wound so tightly that you cannot pull them apart.

Why That Is Actually Good News

This will sound strange, but the inseparability of sin and death is good news — at least for anyone who knows Jesus died and rose again. Let me show you why.

The phrase at the end of verse 54, “Death is swallowed up in victory,” is a quotation from Isaiah 25. Here is the context:

On this mountain the Lord of hosts will make for all peoples a feast of rich food, a feast of well-aged wine… And he will swallow up on this mountain the covering that is cast over all peoples, the veil that is spread over all nations. He will swallow up death forever; and the Lord God will wipe away tears from all faces, and the reproach of his people he will take away from all the earth… — Isaiah 25:6–8 (ESV)

Writing under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, Isaiah is describing the Easter story — most likely without knowing it. Watch the threads.

On a mountain, probably Mount Zion though it isn’t named, God spreads a feast for all people. And while they sit enjoying rich food and aged wine, God Himself is swallowing something. What? Verse 7 says the covering cast over all peoples, the veil spread over all nations — some translations render it a shroud. And the next phrase names it outright: He will swallow up death forever.

Death is what has covered humanity since Adam ate that fruit. It is the shroud over every nation, and no one has escaped it. Even the handful of resurrections recorded in Scripture ended with those people dying again — until Jesus. He alone has truly defeated death and lives to this day. He swallowed it up forever.

And what follows? God wipes away every tear — no more anguish, pain, or sorrow. And He removes the reproach of His people. Other translations render that word as disgrace, shame, or scorn. Some commentators take it as the scorn of surrounding nations toward Israel, and that may be part of it. But reading it, I cannot help thinking the reproach is our sin — that God has taken away our shame, our offense against Him, and removed it as far as the east is from the west.

And the result of all that is praise: “Behold, this is our God; we have waited for him, that he might save us… let us be glad and rejoice in his salvation.”

Now see how it lands on Easter. Two thousand years ago Jesus walked up a hill to die. He told people His body is true food and His blood true drink, instituting communion — He is what we feast upon, what satisfies us spiritually. And when we feed on Him, God swallows up our death and our sin and removes them from us. Then He begins wiping away the tears, the sorrow, the anguish. And He gives us Himself, so that we can look at Christ on the cross, see Him come out of the tomb, and say: This is our God. We have been waiting for Him, and He has saved us.

What staggers me is that Isaiah is writing this six or seven hundred years before it happens. That is how great this moment is.

Paul Talks Trash

Which is why, back in verse 55, Paul starts taunting: “O death, where is your victory? O death, where is your sting?”

He knows death has lost its fangs. The poison is gone. It cannot inflict what it once did, because in Christ we are free of sin’s devastation. That is worth celebrating — we can genuinely laugh at death.

Do not misunderstand: Paul is not saying believers will never die physically. In verses 53 and 54 he argues the opposite. We still live in a sin-stained world with perishable, mortal bodies, and for us to put on the imperishable those bodies must change. Earlier in the chapter he uses the picture of a weak kernel that has to die before something new can come up. Our old bodies must die so the new resurrected body — a body like the risen Christ’s — can live forever.

So when you put your faith in Jesus you are born spiritually alive, raised out of the grave. One day this body will pass, and you will be given a new one to live in the new heaven and new earth with God forever.

He Hands You the Medal

Jesus triumphed over sin and death. But He did something more — He shares the victory with you. Verse 57: “Thanks be to God, who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.”

Sit with that. Scripture teaches that the penalty of sin is death. Scripture also teaches that Jesus is the only human ever to live completely sinless. So Jesus did not need to die to pay for anything of His own — which is precisely what qualified Him to die in our place. And He laid His life down willingly so we could be forgiven and never have to pay a penalty that is already paid.

Which means that when Jesus defeated sin and death, He was not doing it for Himself. The victory was never for Him. It was for you.

This past February the Philadelphia Eagles won the Super Bowl, and afterward some of the players said in interviews, “We wanted to do this for the fans.” That sounds wonderful, and fans eat it up. But be honest — they did not do it for the fans. It is the players whose names go in the record books, not the fans’. The players get the ring. The players get the bonus. The fans had to spend money to be there. Fans can cheer and bask in the glory, but the victory belongs to the players, the coaches, the organization.

That is not how Jesus shares His victory. This is not a nice-sounding platitude, because Jesus had no need to win anything for Himself. He won it for you, because He loves you. It is as if He won the gold medal, took it off, and said: This isn’t mine. You won this. It’s yours. And it was His honor to win it for you. The image of God is in you, and sin has tried to distort it and scratch it out — and He came to redeem and restore it, so you could be His again.

Accepting a Victory You Did Not Win

But to share in that victory, you have to accept His triumph on your behalf. You cannot sit there pretending you will slay the Goliath of sin and death with the sling of your own good works. A spiritually dead person cannot raise himself out of the grave. Someone else has to do it for you.

If you realize you have never given your life to Christ — never put your faith and your identity in this Easter story — I invite you to accept His triumph on your behalf today.

Most people, when they grasp that what Jesus did on the cross was for them, end up praying something simple. They talk to God and admit: I know I’m a sinner. I have been trying to do this on my own, and now I see that Jesus died to pay for that sin, so I don’t have to offset it with my good works — He has done everything. And out of that humility they say: Because Jesus gave His life for me, I now want to give my life fully to you.

If you have never prayed anything like that, let today be your spiritual birthday.

And if you already know this story — you grew up in church, or came at Christmas and Easter, and at some point decided you believed it was true — but you look honestly at your life and see that you are not living fully for God, that you know it as a piece of information without letting it become part of you, then this is your moment too. Some would call it rededication: recognizing that Jesus defeated sin and death, and admitting you have not been living as though that is true.

We do not want this to be only a moment. We want it to become a life — carried into tomorrow, and the rest of the week, and the rest of our lives, so that we grow into Christlikeness and find great joy in it. So that we become the people of Isaiah 25, feasting on His goodness, looking up and saying: This is our God.