Selah Saturday
April 3, 2021
Arise, My Love
The grave no longer has a hold on you.
“Arise, My Love” is one of my favorite Easter-themed songs.
The day between Christ’s death and his resurrection must have been a solemn one. There was mourning and there were feelings of guilt and regret. A wave of sadness flowed over Jesus’ followers that day as they were still processing his horrific death. They didn’t know what tomorrow would hold.
But just when it seemed like death has won and all hope is lost, something spectacular happened. Jesus rose from the dead! He is alive! It’s as though the Father was saying to his beloved Son:
Arise, my love! Arise, my love! The grave no longer has a hold on you. No more death’s sting, no more suffering. Arise, arise, my love.
The thing I love so much about the song “Arise, My Love” is that it’s chorus (above) is not just what God the Father said to his Son on that Resurrection Day, but it’s also what he says to us on the day that we come to faith in Jesus Christ. When we confess with our mouths that Jesus is Lord and believe in our hearts that God raised him from the dead, we will be saved (Romans 10:9). And the day we are saved is the day we are given new life.
Because Jesus rose from the dead, we too have defeated death. It’s like God saying to us, “Arise, my love. Arise, my love. The grave no longer has a hold on you.”
The grave of anxiety.
The grave of depression.
The grave of death.
The grave of sin.
None of these things have a hold on us any longer because of Jesus’ conquering over death.
Then God gives us the sweet promise that because of Jesus’ suffering on our behalf there will be “no more death’s sting, no more suffering.”
If you have been following along with CPC’s Lenten series, you know that we have been talking a lot about suffering as a Christian, our attitudes towards suffering, and what good things can come out of it. All of these lessons bring us to Good Friday, where we recognize the ultimate suffering that Jesus had to go through on the cross. It is only because of that can we look forward to a life where suffering will be no more.
We are also promised a life without death. In John 11:25, Jesus comforts his mourning friends with these words:
I am the resurrection and the life. Whoever believes in me will live even though he dies. And everyone who lives and believes in Me will never die.
When you don’t know what tomorrow is going to hold, when it seems like all hope is gone and sin and death has won, remember that it is not the end. There is hope in Jesus! The suffering that you are going through now, the guilt, the sadness, the sin, whatever it may be, none of it has a hold on you any longer because of what Jesus did for you on the cross. All you need to do is believe.
He is risen! He is risen indeed!
“…he will swallow up death forever. The Sovereign Lord will wipe away the tears from all faces; he will remove his people’s disgrace from all the earth. The Lord has spoken.”
Isaiah 25:8
