last Lord's Day, one of our pastors preached about the first observance of the passover. as she spoke, i tried to place myself in the shoes of an israelite slave in ancient egypt. during the passover meal, i would be sitting with my family, hastily chewing my food in our miserable shack with lamb's blood smeared on the door frame. i would be fully dressed with my walking stick in one hand as i ate with the other hand. i would be ready to leave at a moment's notice. how excited i would be to think that i am almost free of the cruel slavery that has been my lot since birth!
then i began to think of the resurrection. shouldn't i be just as excited to think of the freedom that Jesus showed us is ours? for many generations, human beings feared the finality of death. with Jesus' resurrection, we are free from that fear. we are free to live life, relishing every moment of this life and, all the while, we can look forward to the transition that death brings to another life.
what sort of life will that new life be? we can't know until we experience it. maybe we will be born again to experience life in a different body and to have another chance to make right some of the wrongs we did in this life. maybe we will be in another place where we no longer experience the trials and sufferings of this life. whatever happens after death, Jesus demonstrated that we can be free of the fear of death. death is not the end of our existence.
my prayer today is that we live our lives mindfully, experiencing each moment as fully as we can, because we need not fear the future. we are free of that fear.
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