What a difference three days can make. On Good Friday, the apostles went home dejected and afraid. Their dreams of God’s kingdom inaugurated, evil vanquished, and peace on earth, bled and died on a wooden cross.
The twisted and marred body of their rabbi was buried in a tomb and placed under guard.
This wasn’t how things were supposed to work out. Jesus had walked on water, gave sight to the blind, healed the deaf, and even raised the dead. If He was not the Messiah, who could it be? Peter, the leader of the fledgling band of disciples, felt worst of all. He had knowingly denied Christ, the man he considered to be the son of God, when Christ needed his support the most.
Peter struggled to sleep that night, knowing that he was a traitor and coward. As much as he wanted there to be a way forward, he could see nothing ahead but bleak darkness.
Little did Peter know that the grave could not stay shut, the guards could not keep their posts, and death could not hold Jesus back. On Sunday morning, Jesus Christ rose from the dead, forever vanquishing sin and death. After enduring the full brutality of a religious and political elite bent on maintaining power at all costs and the weight of sin itself, He rose.
Every day women and men across our nation experience their own “Good Friday” as they face unexpected—or unexpectedly complicated—pregnancies. Abortion activists tell them that their dreams, finances, and life plans are dead if their children live. Our society leads them to believe that abortion is their only option.
However, we know the Resurrection story. We are people of the risen Jesus. You see, because Christ rose from the dead, we know that these women and men can also rise from the darkness of their circumstances and find abundant life in Him. The same power that took the bloodied, broken, body of the Son of God and raised Him from the dead is at work in His people. He can breathe life into any situation or circumstance.
If they hear the news.
Peter and his fellow Apostles woke up Sunday morning knowing nothing of what had transpired at the tomb. The sun may have been shining, but they were still trapped in darkness. It took the message of the women who found the empty tomb to transform their situation with the hope of the resurrection.
That is our job and privilege. We get to run into the darkest corners of our society with the glorious message that the grave is empty, death is defeated, and abundant life is possible.
Here’s the best part. NARAL, Planned Parenthood, and the entire abortion industry have no greater power to prevent our success than the entire Roman empire had to try and keep Jesus in that tomb. Because He won, so will we.
As we contemplate the significance of Easter, my prayer is that we would not simply say those timeless words, “Christ the Lord is risen today,” but that we would truly act like they are true. CHRIST IS RISEN. This means that NO circumstance, NO situation, NO image bearer of God is beyond His reach, or the transforming power of His death and resurrection.
May we be more than “people of the cross.” May we be known as people of the empty tomb. It is here that our hope—and the hope for every woman and man considering abortion—is found.
Roland C. Warren
President & CEO of Care-Net
*Care-Net’s Mission is “