The Living Christ — The Risen Lord Who Is Present Now

The Living Christ — The Risen Lord Who Is Present Now

Sunday, April 12, 2026

Year Theme: The Faith of Our Fathers

Month Theme: The Cross, the Tomb, and New Life

Week 3 Theme: Resurrection Power – Lived Reality

Theme: The Living Christ

Scriptures: 1 Corinthians 15:20 | Matthew 28:6 | Acts 2:24 | John 11:25

Introduction — The Voice Not To Be Silenced

In the years after the resurrection, the early believers did not speak of Jesus as though they were preserving the memory of a fallen teacher. They spoke as people gripped by a present reality. Ignatius of Antioch, traveling toward martyrdom, wrote not with the sorrow of one following a dead hero, but with the conviction of one held by a living Lord. The Church endured because it was not merely repeating the teachings of Jesus; it was living in fellowship with Him.

That is the great turning point of Christianity. The gospel is not simply that Jesus once lived, once taught, once died, and once rose. It is that He lives now.

Paul writes, “But Christ has indeed been raised from the dead, the firstfruits of those who have fallen asleep” (1 Corinthians 15:20). The resurrection is not the closing chapter of Christ’s earthly story. It is the unveiling of His unending life.

Athanasius saw this clearly when he argued that Christ’s victory over death is proved not only by the empty tomb but by the continuing power of His life among His people.¹ The One who rose is not absent. He is present, reigning, speaking, and acting.

The Resurrection Is More Than a Memory

The women who came to the tomb on the first Easter morning were still thinking in the categories of death. They came with spices, not songs. They came prepared to honor a body, not to meet a Lord. But the angel announced a reality that shattered all ordinary expectation: “He is not here; He has risen, just as He said” (Matthew 28:6).

Those words do more than declare a miracle. They announce a new order of reality. Death had done its worst, yet could not retain Him. The grave had received Him, but could not keep Him. God overturned the apparent finality of the tomb.

This is why the resurrection can never be reduced to religious inspiration. It is not merely comforting symbolism. It is the decisive act of God in history. N. T. Wright has rightly insisted that the resurrection is not a poetic way of saying that Jesus’ ideas live on; it is the proclamation that Jesus Himself lives on, bodily, victoriously, and eternally.²

The believer, then, does not serve a remembered Christ. The believer walks with a living Christ.

The Living Christ Is the Defeat of Death

Peter’s proclamation in Jerusalem was not cautious or sentimental. He declared with holy boldness that God had raised Jesus, “freeing Him from the agony of death, because it was impossible for death to keep its hold on Him” (Acts 2:24).

That phrase — it was impossible — deserves careful attention. Death was not merely overcome with difficulty; it was fundamentally unable to hold the Author of life. The resurrection does not portray Christ as barely escaping death’s grip. It reveals death as powerless before Him.

In Jewish thought, “death” was never only biological cessation. It carried the sense of separation, corruption, the realm of the grave, and the curse that sin had deepened across human existence. Yet Christ entered that domain and emerged victorious. Gordon D. Fee notes that resurrection is the declaration that the powers of the old age have been decisively broken by the power of the age to come.³

This means the resurrection is not only about Christ’s survival beyond death. It is about His triumph over everything death represents:

• fear

• finality

• corruption

• hopelessness

• estrangement from God

The living Christ stands where death once seemed absolute and declares that its dominion has been shattered.

The Living Christ Is Present, Not Merely Promised

When Jesus said, “I am the resurrection and the life” (John 11:25), He did not speak in the future tense alone. He did not merely say, “I will one day bring resurrection.” He said, “I am the resurrection.” Resurrection is not merely an event attached to Him. It is life resident in His person.

This is one of the most glorious truths of the Christian life: Christ’s presence is the believer’s life. He is not only the giver of life; He is life itself. To know Him is to participate in a life that death cannot master.

This is why this week we rightly shifts from resurrection as event to resurrection as a lived reality. The risen Christ remains active. He is not sealed in the past. He is present in the Church, present by the Spirit, present in the Word, present in power, and present in the life of the believer.

Simon Chan has emphasized that Christian spirituality is rooted in communion with the living Christ, not merely the imitation of a departed figure.⁴ That insight matters deeply. We do not try to preserve Jesus’ legacy by human effort. We live because He lives.

Firstfruits — The Beginning of a Greater Harvest

Paul calls Christ the firstfruits in 1 Corinthians 15:20. This term reaches back into the world of Israel’s worship. The firstfruits were the first portion of the harvest offered to God — not only a thanksgiving for what had come in, but a sign of what was still coming.

That means Christ’s resurrection is not isolated. It is representative. It is the beginning of a greater harvest of life. His resurrection guarantees:

• the resurrection of His people

• the defeat of the grave

• the renewal of creation

• the final triumph of God’s kingdom

But even now, those who belong to Him begin to taste that life inwardly. The future has already broken into the present. The age to come has already cast its light backward into history.

This is why the Christian cannot live as though Christ were still in the tomb. Fear may still whisper, sorrow may still wound, and weakness may still press hard, but the central fact remains unchanged: Christ is alive.

Living in the Awareness of His Presence

The great tragedy for many believers is not disbelief in the resurrection, but practical distance from its reality. We affirm that Christ is alive, yet often live as though we are alone. We know the creed, but not the companionship. We confess the doctrine, but lose the daily awareness of His nearness.

To live in resurrection reality means to cultivate conscious fellowship with the living Christ:

• to pray knowing that He hears now

• to obey knowing that He leads now

• to endure knowing He strengthens now

• to worship knowing He is truly present now

This is not emotionalism. It is faith rooted in truth. The Lord who conquered death is not absent from ordinary life today. He walks with His people in grief, labor, weakness, and mission. He is as living on Monday as He was on Easter morning.

A Quiet Search of the Heart

Do you think of Christ as living truth, or mostly as cherished history? Do you approach Him as One who once acted, or as One who is acting still?

Some burdens remain heavy because they are carried as though Christ were distant. Some fears remain unchallenged because they are faced as though Christ were merely remembered. But the resurrection calls us higher. It calls us to live before the face of the present Lord.

The deepest need of the soul is not simply better religious understanding. It is awakened awareness of the living Christ.

Leadership Reflection for Today

Leadership shaped by the living Christ does not draw its deepest confidence from position, charisma, or strategy. It draws from communion. A leader who knows that Christ is alive does not merely manage pressure; he or she ministers from presence.

The strongest leaders are not those who appear most self-sufficient, but those who have learned to lead in the steady awareness that the risen Lord is still with His people, still building His Church, and still giving life where others see only limitation.

Prayer

Lord Jesus,

You are not only the One who rose; You are the One who lives forever. Awaken my heart to the reality of Your presence. Deliver me from treating resurrection as memory alone. Let me know You as the living Christ — present in my weakness, present in my worship, present in my daily walk.

Where fear has spoken, let Your life answer.

Where weariness has settled, let Your presence strengthen.

Where faith has grown dull, let resurrection reality awaken me again.

Teach me to live each day in conscious fellowship with You, the risen Lord, who was dead and is alive forevermore. Amen.

Endnotes

¹ Athanasius, On the Incarnation, trans. John Behr (Yonkers, NY: St Vladimir’s Seminary Press, 2011), pp. 90–94.

² N. T. Wright, The Resurrection of the Son of God (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2003), pp. 710–718.

³ Gordon D. Fee, Pauline Christology (Peabody, MA: Hendrickson, 2007), pp. 393–397.

⁴ Simon Chan, Spiritual Theology: A Systematic Study of the Christian Life (Downers Grove, IL: IVP Academic, 1998), pp. 83–86.