"They say, 'Our bones are dried up and our hope is gone; we are cut off.' Therefore prophesy and say to them: 'This is what the Sovereign Lord says: O my people, I am going to open your graves and bring you up from them; I will bring you back to the land of Israel. Then you, my people, will know that I am the Lord, when I open your graves and bring you up from them I will put my Spirit in you and you will live...." (Ezekiel 37:11-14).

While belief in God may be challenged by skeptics, this message reminds us that life is eternal, love is immortal and death is only an horizon, and an horizon is nothing save the limit of our sight. The Sovereign Lord of the universe, who gives life to all, from whom, and through whom and to him are all things, can open graves and put his Spirit in us and raise us to a new life. This is the message of Easter and of the whole Bible. Jesus was raised from the dead to give us the proof of this truth. If this is true, then what relevance does it have for us today?

1. Death does not have the final say. 'Our hope is gone; we are cut off', is not the final word concerning our destiny. What physical and biological science cannot admit, the resurrection of Jesus demonstrates. With God all things are possible. Just as God caused life to begin in the first place, he can make life to begin again. The impossible becomes possible. "Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. In his great mercy he has given us a new birth into a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, and into an inheritance that can never perish, spoil or fade - kept in heaven for you." (1 Peter 1:3,4)

"Death, be not proud, though some have called thee Mighty and dreadful, for thou art not so ... One short sleep past, we wake eternally, And death shall be no more; Death, thou shalt die." (John Donne)

We need this hope when we are facing our final illness or the dying of a loved one. The Lord does not want us to believe that death is the end it pretends to be. "Death be not proud." Death is not final or fearful. Jesus said of Jairus's daughter, "She is not dead but asleep." (Luke 8:52) St. Paul wrote, "We don't want you to be ignorant about those who fall asleep, or to grieve like the rest of men, who have no hope. We believe that Jesus died and rose again, and so we believe that God will bring with Jesus those who have fallen asleep in him." (1 Thess.4:13,14) "He will wipe every tear from their eyes. There will be no more death or mourning or crying or pain, for the old order of things has passed away." (Revelation 21:4)

2. The Lord will open our graves and bring us to a new life of the Spirit. Billy Graham has written, "Some day you will read that Billy Graham is dead. Don't you believe a word of it. I shall be more alive than I am now. I will just have changed my address. I will have gone into the presence of God." Over the magnificent mausoleum of Queen Victoria and Prince Albert at Frogmore House in the grounds of Windsor Castle are inscribed the words, "Here at last I will rest with thee, and with thee in Christ, I shall also rise again." For believers in Christ our final resting place is not here in a grave or a columbarium, but in the new heavens and the new earth of the Lord's new creation. "I will put my Spirit in you and you will live, and I will settle you in your own land. Then you will know that I the Lord have spoken, and I have done it, declares the Lord." (Ezekiel 37:14)

3. Our lives belong to the Lord. "...whether we live or die, we belong to the Lord. For this very reason, Christ died and returned to life so that he might be the Lord of both the dead and the living." (Romans 14:9) 'Jesus is Lord' is the earliest Christian confession of faith. By undergoing death for our salvation Jesus has claims over us which cannot be destroyed by death, and by rising again, he has received our whole life as his. We belong to him. When we acknowledge him as our Lord we become citizens of the kingdom of heaven. We owe both our earthly and our eternal life to him. He is the author and fulfillment of our lives. He calls us to follow him and to serve him. Only by doing so can we find life in all its wholeness. "You are not your own; you have been bought at a price. Therefore honor God with your body." (1 Cor. 6:20)

4. Jesus is the Lord who has the key to death. "I am the First and the Last. I am the Living One; I was dead, and behold I am alive for ever and ever. And I hold the keys of death and Hades." (Rev.1:17,18) The key is the answer to the riddle of death. It opens the lock of the door of death and Hades which seems to deny the reality and meaning of life. Why should the grave and gate of death have the final word in God's world? The Sphinx in Greek Mythology had the body of a lion and the head of a man. It posed a riddle to anyone who wished to pass by. Failure to give the right answer resulted in death. When the right answer was given the Sphinx destroyed itself. Death is the Sphinx. Ever since the world began death has been propounding this tremendous riddle, "If a man die, shall he live again? Can these bones live?" Many philosophers have tried and failed to discover the secret and to explain the riddle. Death remained an inscrutable Sphinx. But Jesus came, died and returned to life, and holds the keys of death and Hades. Death is a secret no longer, an inscrutable mystery no longer. He has the key. Death has been robbed of its mystery and of its terror by the resurrection of Jesus.

We are called to confess Jesus as Lord and to believe in our heart that God raised him from the dead. "If you confess with your mouth, 'Jesus is Lord,' and believe in your heart that God has raised him from the dead, you will be saved." (Romans 10:9)

Do you? Do you believe in your heart, in the center of your being what I have been saying to you? I do. I stake my life on it. Do you believe that through the grave and gate of death you can pass with Jesus to your joyful resurrection? If you do, your whole life takes on new meaning and purpose.

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