The Second Day: Reflections on The Richness of Christ

Easter comes and goes every year. I do feel this year is particularly different for most; maybe because we are fighting a pandemic and people desperately need hope now more than ever. Even at work this week, there seemed to be a greater awareness and focus on talking about Holy Week more than I expected. It was a bit easier to talk more about the hope of Jesus Christ in everyday conversation. My educated guess is people are tender towards spiritual things right now because of all the craziness going on in this world. I am thankful people are a little more aware than usual, it means the Holy Spirit is drawing people to Himself. I love watching Him work.

My purpose today is not to dive deep in to all that Easter means for the sinner, the Church, and the world. That would take me hours to even begin to unpack all the thoughts I have on Easter. No, today is the day I want to focus on the in-between space. Today, is the day we wait. We memorialize and remember the bloody, brutal crucifixion on Good Friday. We know what happens on the third day, resurrection (which we celebrate to be Sunday). But where do we focus on the second day?

A day we seem to gloss over is this day in between the death and the resurrection. At this moment in history, we have the luxury of looking back on the second day knowing the third has come to pass. I want to offer up the thought of turning our focus to the Richness of Jesus Christ as we wait on this second day. Jesus Christ died and rose for our sins, but He bought so much more for us in the process. I love to take the second day to reflect on the fullness of all which was bought, sold, exchanged, and unlocked because of Jesus Christ of Nazareth.

Firstly, the second day reminds me we get to experience the fullness and richness of all that Jesus Christ is in His death. The death is crucial. Without Jesus’ death on the cross, sin could still live on. With the death of Jesus Christ, He literally bought death of sin/evil. There is no sin that God has not killed or died for on the cross that continues to hold power over us. I Peter chapter 2 reminds us Christ is truly rich in His death on the cross because death to sin bought the righteousness we now get to live for. Our identity is no longer in sin but in the death he brought to it. Christ’s death is more than a substitute for the death we justly deserve for our rebellion. His death offers us the full richness of right standing with God while granting us everlasting life in heaven with Him.

Death to sin is not the only thing His richness won. His richness won us. He bought us. Jesus Christ paid for us, the debt we owed to God the Father because of our sin. Jesus Christ bought our lives back from sin. Nobody else could pay the high price to do this. Jesus Christ is the full richness of all that we owed God as payment for our sin. The richness of Christ for us in His death is so deeply convicting because it not only purchases the defeat of sin/evil – it absolves us our debt we owed. Let’s never forget we owed God a debt we could not pay and no longer have to pay because Jesus Christ was rich in His death.

Secondly, Jesus Christ was rich in His humanity and divinity together. The Son of God is a person who is fully God and fully man. In both His humanity and divinity He proves the worth of His richness to us. Jesus Christ showed us we can fully experience the fruits of the Kingdom of Heaven while living here on earth as humans. Throughout Jesus’ earthly ministry we see how the fruits of holiness and righteousness are available to us. Jesus Christ’s holiness, peace, love, self-control, discipline, focus, sympathy, compassion, and service can be real for us to live out because of His life. Righteous and fruitful living in a broken world is now reality. Sharing in the kingdom of heaven (God’s home) is available to us because of Christ. Our being able to live our lives completely whole in Christ – while still being broken people in a broken place – is available because of Christ’s Spirit living in us. Jesus perfects every portion of our weaknesses and even strengthens the areas of our lives we may be naturally gifted in. This is Christ’s fullness in us.

Probably the richest portion of Jesus’ humanity and divinity is how he bought for us unrestricted fellowship with God the Father. Jesus Christ is our intercessor in prayer to The Father. He is also our access. Let’s never lose focus of this reminder as we go about our lives. Jesus Christ is the righteous standing we do not have on our own. This grants us fellowship with God Himself. Take a moment to read the High Priestly prayer in the Garden in John 17. If any of us may require proof of Jesus’ richness to us as God and man, I offer up this portion of His prayer:

The glory that you have given me I have given to them, that they may be one even as we are one, I in them and you in me, that they may become perfectly one, so that the world may know that you sent me and loved them even as you loved me.

Gospel of the Apostle John, chapter 17 – verse 22 & 23

Thirdly and lastly, Jesus Christ is rich in His Lordship. Jesus Christ is seated at the right hand of the Father until the end of the age and forever more. Being Lord over all things is rich. Lordship lays to rest any doubts, fears, anxieties, or depressions we will experience in this fallen earth. Lordship produces peace in His promises and authority. The richness of His Lordship over all confirms to us He is in control of all things. Our circumstances do not challenge His Lordship nor do they detract from it in any way. Jesus Christ’s Lordship is victory and hope for us that everything He says will come to pass. No word leaving the mouth of our Lord will return void. It accomplishes every purpose of which it was sent forth. The richness of Jesus Christ being Lord over our life means we are held firm, protected, and are sustained in our calling as we are obedient to His will.

One of the most fascinating things I love about Jesus as our Lord is the inheritance He shared with us. We are children of God because we are sharing in the inheritance of Jesus Christ. This is a rich statement from God. Jesus’s obedience produced two things. It lifted His name to Lordship status forever more and it produced a sharing with us the inheritance He was due. It seems that God the Father places a very high emphasis on obedience to the will of God. Jesus’s obedience is the perfect picture of how God bless us, others, and Himself when we are obedient to Him. This should compel us to let the Lordship of Christ govern our lives fully. He will richly bless and extend His purpose/healing to others out of our submission. Above all, He extends glory to Himself.

This is why I love the second day every year during Holy weekend. God continually reminds me and pulls me deeper into the richness of everything His son – Jesus Christ – is for me. Without Him, we would have no hope in the midst of some of our darkest hours. Without Him, we would be lost and living our life as slaves to unrighteousness. Without Him, we would be wandering without purpose in a broken world.

Jesus Christ is the in between solution God our Father gave us so we would never have to live without the richness of the Kingdom of heaven. Christ gives us the rich power of the Kingdom of Heaven so God can fulfill and sustain His purpose(s) through us.

Passing us from death and entering us into the rich fullness of all that is the life of Jesus Christ – this is the power of the second day.