What happened when Jesus died? He was nailed to a cross by cruel, sinful men. His body twisted in agony there for hours. Finally, mercifully, the end came. He breathed his last gasp. His head dropped, His heart stopped, and the blood gushed from that terrible spear thrust in His side.

So He died.  Anyone could see that the life had gone from Him. Rich friends in pity took the forsaken body down from the cross. (All his disciples had fled in fear.) They laid the broken and lacerated body in what they thought would be its last resting place — a borrowed tomb.

But when the first day of the week began to dawn, those women who loved Jesus came early as rosy streaks began to pierce the eastern sky and light the gray garden. In startled surprise they found the stone sealing the sepulcher rolled away and the grave empty. Jesus was gone.

What had happened? God had raised up His Son from the dead and given Him glory. The disciples saw the Risen and Glorified Savior and falling down worshiped him. That’s what happened when Jesus died and went from this world to the next.

But when a man like you or me leaves this world and goes into the other, what essential thing happens? One moment after death — what? Phillips Brooks said: “We see plainly enough the incidental, the accidental, thing that happens: the silver cord is loosed, the golden bowl is broken — we see the deathbed, the vacancy, the grave, the dust that returns to the earth as it was — these are the incidental things to the great change we see so clearly when a man leaves this world and goes to the next — but what is the essential thing that happens?”

“We are sure that it must be — only more solemnly, more awfully, — the same thing that took place when that soul, in this earthly life passed from one stage of its existence to another, — the taking up of what it really is before God, to let Him see if it is fit for entrance on a higher life.” Yes, surely, this is what happens when a man leaves this world and goes to the other — he goes with what he essentially is, into the Presence of God. He takes with him not what he had accumulated, but what he has become.

St. Paul speaks of two resurrections — or seems to: the resurrection after death and another resurrection here in the midst of life. In his Thessalonian letter and in the Corinthian correspondence the Apostle writes at length of a resurrection when the last trump shall sound, and the dead in Christ shall arise and grave shall be swallowed up in victory. . . “I would not have you ignorant, Brethren,” says the great Apostle of that resurrection after death — “I would not have you ignorant, concerning them which are asleep, that ye sorrow not, even as others who have not hope. For if we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so them also which sleep in Jesus will God bring with Him.”

But Paul in Romans clearly speaks of another resurrection — here and now — a resurrection of righteousness, a dying to sin and rising to newness of life in Christ.

Is St. Paul just spiritualizing the resurrection, when he speaks of it in this present life? No, he is actualizing it. There is no resurrection for Christ or any of us, until the new life begins to pulse within us. We are not clothed with immortality all of a sudden after death, at the touch of God, as of a fairy god-mother’s magic wand. If we are ever to be the favored possessors of eternal life, we must make the acquisition in this life — or rather, it must acquire us — while we breathe this air, while this heart yet beats, while this body is yet warm. As Paul puts it, we must be resurrected to a life of righteousness now. We must die to sin, now, in order that we may live to God now and hereafter.

There is a moving story of the early Christian martyrs, who, in an era of imperial persecution, were taken to North Africa and put in mines, there to toil for the remainder of their lives. With their implements of labor, they cut on the walls of the mines these words: “Vita, Vita, Vita” — “Life, Life, Life”. They did not mean life after death; they had discovered a spring and principle of life which made living a thrilling business even in the confinement of the mines.

But how does this resurrection to newness of life now take place? We trace several steps in Paul’s way of explaining it, but always it is an intensifying for each one of us in his personal experience of Christ. Paul speaks only of what he has himself experienced.

It begins here: the old man must be crucified with Christ. The old self-will, the old pride of one’s own accomplishment, the old sensitive spirit that is always getting hurt when others slight you or out-strip you, the old self that wants its own way even to the point of tyrannizing over the lives of others, the old low, lustful, greedy, self must be crucified, destroyed, done away with as surely as Christ was done to death on Calvary. But how? By humbling oneself before God, by confessing our sins, by acknowledging our own bankruptcy.

Several months ago news releases from Japan carried the story of a notorious Japanese criminal, lord of the underworld, who becoming hard-pressed by law enforcement officers and rival gangster chieftains sent out notices of his death and invitations to his funeral. In the midst of the elaborate funeral ceremonies, mourning and proclaiming the death of the deceased, the old criminal leapt up from his casket, proclaiming the old chief dead and himself alive henceforth with a new name and shouted, “On with the party.” But the past is not so summarily dispensed with.

A new name is not enough. The old man with any number of aliases will remain the same corrupt person. It’s not a new name, but a new nature which must be resurrected within us. That can come only after the old self is crucified.

Another Lord must be raised up, and take his place to rule supremely in our hearts — One Lord Jesus Christ.  His will must be done, His service performed, His mind must dwell in us. Then are we raised to newness of life spiritually, at the core and center of our being, the only part of us that is indestructible and eternal. Having been resurrected to righteousness there, at some time and place in this present life, we are clothed with immortality. It is God’s righteousness, not our own, that dwelleth within us, and we are become immortal, not be our own efforts and achievements, but by virtue of the fact that we have given ourselves up to God and His spirit has possessed us.

“Through the goodness of him that is best, I am alive;” said John Bunyan, “yet I cannot boast of my manhood.”

And this newness of life to which we are raised up by grace through faith in Christ — which is eternal life — though it does not miraculously protect us from all harm and danger (Jesus had it, yet he could be crucified) nevertheless so transforms all of life that tragedy is transmuted into triumph. As with our crucified and risen Lord, so is it with us.

On Easter we joyously sing:

Crown Him with many crowns

The Lamb upon His throne.

Rich wounds yet visible above

In beauty glorified.

For us too, there is a striking truth in these words of praise sung to our Savior. The wounds of our earthly struggle, endured with courage and fidelity — become the most beautiful and treasured trophies of heaven. The ugly wounds torn in our hands and side by our grapple with sin, disappointment, or the unfathomable mystery of pain and loss, we are not delivered from by our newness of life in Christ, neither are they obliterated here or in eternity. They are kept on and changed by the alchemy of the eternal into our heavenly crown jewels. That mother whose own son was killed in the last war and is herself now performing a service in Christ’s name for other mothers who suffer similar loss — has not lost her old wounds, but she is experiencing the glorification of that old wound, because of her commitment to Christ.

“If ye then be risen with Christ, seek those things which are above, where Christ sits on the right hand of God. Set your affections on things above, not on things on earth. For ye are dead (to sin) and your life is hid with Christ in God. When Christ, who is our life, shall appear, then shall we also appear with him in glory.” (Colossians 3: 1-4)