The resurrection means your ultimate problem is no longer ahead of you. The grave is not waiting for you. It is behind you.
Easter morning often feels like standing on the sidelines of someone else’s victory. We celebrate it, but it doesn’t always feel like it’s ours.
We rejoice at the empty tomb, sing of Christ’s triumph, and remember the moment death was defeated. But the New Testament speaks more boldly than our celebrations sometimes dare. It does not present the resurrection merely as something that happened to Jesus long ago. It proclaims that through baptism, his death became your death and his resurrection became your life.
Easter is not only an event you remember. It is a reality into which God has already brought you.
“Having been buried with him in baptism, in which you were also raised with him through faith in the powerful working of God, who raised him from the dead” (Col. 2:12).
Notice the past tense: Buried. Raised. What Christ experienced Easter morning has already been given to you.
The resurrection is not something to admire. It is something to participate in. And that participation begins in baptism. This means that Easter is more than a date on the calendar. Easter is an identity given by God.
You Were There with Jesus
Faith can quietly become remembrance. The work of Christ sits in the past—events we know happened, but sometimes wonder if they matter to us today. But the gospel is not just history. It is good news in the past, present, and for the future.
Christianity is messy, real, and down to earth. When Jesus died, you died. When he was buried, you were buried. When he rose, you were raised.
Baptism is how Scripture speaks about this union. God does not merely inform you about salvation; he joins you to it. You were not standing outside the tomb as a spectator. In Christ, you were brought into it—and raised with him.
Christianity is not about becoming a better version of yourself. It is about receiving life from outside yourself. Losing yourself and receiving Christ’s life as your own.
And that matters, because most of us are exhausted from trying to fix ourselves. We promise change. We start over. We try harder. We fail again, quietly or spectacularly. We carry private shame and wonder if real change is even possible.
On Easter, you hear the proclamation that God has not asked you to resurrect yourself because he has already joined you to the One who rose.
The Grave Is Behind You
Paul calls baptism a burial. If this sounds severe, it’s because it is: death must precede resurrection.
In baptism, God declares the end of all your self-led projects. When God combines his Word with water, he puts to death the self that chases worth through success, approval, control, and comparison. We assume the Christian life means climbing out of who we used to be. But resurrection does not come from improvement. It comes from death and new life.
Which is why the Easter proclamation speaks to real lives: the man replaying conversations he can’t undo; the woman carrying resentment she cannot release; the parent haunted by mistakes they can’t do over; the believer worn down by the same returning sins.
The resurrection means your ultimate problem is no longer ahead of you. The grave is not waiting for you. It is behind you. You are living from a life already given rather than one you must achieve yourself.
The Power That Raised Jesus Is Already at Work
Paul says this happens through “the powerful working of God, who raised him from the dead.” That same power is for you. We expect resurrection power to look dramatic, but most of the time, it’s quiet and even hidden.
The addict makes it through one more day. Someone offers forgiveness without first receiving an apology. You get out of bed when grief says don’t. The world may call that coping, but Scripture calls it life breaking through death. The risen Christ is present now, forgiving your sin, sustaining faith, and creating hope in the midst of despair.
“We were buried therefore with him by baptism into death, in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too might walk in newness of life” (Rom. 6:4).
Easter Changes How You See Yourself
We spend our lives essentially trying to answer one question: Who am I? We look inward: at success and failure, to wounds, and fears. But baptism relocates identity entirely. Your truest story is not found within. It is spoken over you, from the outside:
You are crucified with Christ. Buried with Christ. Raised with Christ. Alive with Christ.
This proclamation does not fluctuate with your performance, your past, or your consistency. Easter means your life is defined not by your worst moments or your moments of strength, but by Christ’s finished work. And God does not take back what he has declared.
So Christians don’t just remember resurrection; we live from it.
The empty tomb means that while suffering is real, it is not ultimate. It declares to you that while your sin is serious, it no longer defines you. It assures you that while physical death is certain, it is no longer final because Christ is risen.
Today, on this Easter, hear the message not as distant history, but as present truth. Guilt and shame will try to convince you that your past still owns you, but in Christ they are put to death. Fear will tell you that death has the final word, but Christ’s resurrection gives you assurance that you have overcome the grave. Your weakness will make you question whether you're accepted by God, but the same power that raised Jesus is yours. And the same promise given to Jesus at his baptism was given to you at yours: “this is my beloved Son in whom I am well pleased” (Matt. 3:17). Hear that promise anew today, you are well-pleasing to God! You can’t work your way into that, you simply receive that standing because Christ has done for you what you could never do for yourself.
Christ is risen. He is risen indeed. And because he lives, your story is no longer ruled by sin, fear, or death—but by a promise stronger than the grave. In him, you are alive.
