If Jesus appeared today and dictated a letter to your church, what would you want that letter to say? I’m going to go out on a limb and guess that you would not be hoping for anything like this:
Do not be afraid of what you are about to suffer. I tell you, the devil will put some of you in prison to test you, and you will suffer persecution for ten days. Be faithful, even to the point of death, and I will give you life as your victor’s crown (Revelation 2:10).
Without getting into the question of whether or not the “ten days” should be understood literally, Jesus’ statement that the coming persecution will only be for a limited time must surely have been good news to the recipients of this letter, but the fact that they were going to suffer in the first place would not have been so pleasant. Nor would it have been good news that some of them were going to be imprisoned. And the call to remain faithful, “even to the point of death” ominously suggests that this fate awaited some of them as well.
This letter was sent to the church in Smyrna, warning them that the devil wanted to “test” them; that is, to see whether or not they could be broken. Christ’s message to them is to stand firm, even if being faithful meant that they would be murdered, because Jesus himself had already shown them that he is stronger than death. Those believers who remained faithful even to the death would receive “life as your victor’s crown” from the one who rules both life and death. That’s the message for us, too, because if God allowed the devil to test that church, he will allow you and me to be tested as well.
The glorious truth about Easter isn’t only that Jesus rose from the dead, but that we who believe in him will rise as well. In Christ we don’t just win the war, we have defeated death itself. Those who endure all the way to the end have won. Centuries before Christ, the prophet Daniel was told:
Multitudes who sleep in the dust of the earth will awake: some to everlasting life, others to shame and everlasting contempt (Daniel 12:2).
Jesus is the firstfruits of that resurrection (1 Corinthians 15:22-24). When we celebrate Easter we need to recognize that the resurrection of the dead is no longer a future event, it’s already started. There’s no doubt about it happening; we’re just waiting for our turn.
We quite rightly celebrate Easter as the day Christ rose from the dead, but the application of that truth is not limited to one day. The Apostle Paul wrote:
Now if we died with Christ, we believe that we will also live with him (Romans 6:8).
Following Jesus, truly following him, means following him to the cross and to the grave. There’s no way to sugarcoat this. For some of us, that will mean physically dying as a witness to the truth. For all of us, it means giving up our lives as a sacrifice to God (Romans 12:1). But Easter is the proof that when we do follow Jesus all the way to the grave, we’ll also follow him out of it.
The message for this Easter, then, is to not be afraid to die. Christ has promised to rescue us even from the grave. Easter is the demonstration that he was telling the truth.
For the trumpet will sound, the dead will be raised imperishable, and we will be changed. For the perishable must clothe itself with the imperishable, and the mortal with immortality. When the perishable has been clothed with the imperishable, and the mortal with immortality, then the saying that is written will come true: “Death has been swallowed up in victory.” (1 Corinthians 15:52-54).