Unlocked Devotional: EasterSample

DEAD

My skin is cold. Though I can’t know for sure how cold—since corpses can’t feel anything. They can’t do anything at all, really.

If I had the ability to touch, I’d feel the icy, rough dirt that holds my stiff body in place. I’d feel the maggots wriggling their muculent bodies around the tips of my fingers, inside my ears, around my mouth, at the corners of my eyes.

If my sense of smell were working, I’d smell the aroma of rotting things decomposing beneath the earth’s surface.

If my tear ducts worked, I might wail as I thought on the fact that I am among them, my body food for the creatures that never see sunlight.

But I can do none of those things.

Because I am dead.

And when a person is dead, that is all they can do. Nothing.

This is my fate. To do nothing. To be nothing. To know nothing. To love nothing.

Until the moment that it isn’t my fate anymore.

Suddenly, the dirt is being pushed away from my body. Gentle hands are brushing the soil from my face, and I feel the warmth of them as they grasp my hands.

I feel them. As I have never been able to feel anything before!

These warm hands that send a blaze of warmth and life flowing up my arms and throughout my body now pull me upward until I’m above the ground.

I squint in the sunlight with eyes that can see!

When my eyes finally adjust to the bright light, I look into the face of the One who pulled me out. The One who has breathed life into my dead body and saved me from a fate of death and nothing.

The Man who smiles back at me wears white robes, free of blemish or spot. On His head is a crown made of the finest metals and precious stones.

This Man is the King. He cares for me. And He has made me alive.

– Emily Tenter

THINK ABOUT IT

Reread today’s Bible verses. Why is dead the word used to describe us before we know Jesus?

Our sin leads to death (Romans 6:23). Read Romans 8:10-11 and 1 Thessalonians 4:14-17. How does Jesus’s death and resurrection guarantee that He will bring eternal life to those who have put their trust in Him?

Have you experienced being made alive by God? If you still aren’t sure what that means, who is a trusted Christian in your life you can talk to about it? Maybe a pastor, teacher, youth leader, or friend.

KEY VERSE

But God, who is rich in mercy, because of his great love that he had for us, made us alive with Christ even though we were dead in trespasses. You are saved by grace! Ephesians 2:4-5 (CSB)