Because HE Lives

Because He lives, I can face tomorrow, 
Because He lives, all fear is gone,
Because I know He holds the future, 
And life is worth the living, 
Just because He lives!

This is one of the songs you are sure to hear sung with gusto on Resurrection Sunday, the climax of Holy Week. And what a wonderful truth it represents!

For more than 2,000 years, the truth of Jesus’ resurrection has given people the hope and confidence they need to keep on living in the face of weaknesses, hardships, insults, persecution, and death. Look at the verses of this poem written by Phillis Wheatley, an African girl who was brought to the United States of America as a slave in 1761 at the age of seven or eight.

See him with hands out-stretcht upon the cross;

Immense compassion in his bosom glows;

He hears revilers, nor resents their scorn:

What matchless mercy in the Son of God!

When the whole human race by sin had fall’n,

He deign’d to die that they might rise again,

And share with him in the sublimest skies,

Life without death, and glory without end.

Phillis Wheatley (1753-1784) published her book of poems, Poems of Various Subjects, Religious and Moral, in 1773. This book “is considered the first book of poetry written in English by a person of African descent.”

Despite having a very hard life, Phillis had an unshakeable trust in the goodness of God. Here is how one author described her: “Wrenched from her home and family at seven years old, she endured inconceivable atrocities on the long voyage from Africa to America, arriving naked, half alive, alone, and terrified, to be sold like an animal to strangers in a land where she couldn’t speak a word of the language and knew not a soul. She served as a slave, was considered nothing more than a piece of property, and was forced to defend her intelligence before a group of white men who defined her as an ‘uncultivated barbarian.’ Yet in spite of the profound suffering and humiliation she endured, Phillis Wheatley praised God as good—a God of kindness, mercy, and love” (Michelle DeRusha, 50 Women Every Christian Should Know).

Do you have an unshakeable trust in the goodness of God? The Resurrection of Jesus Christ is all the evidence we need to know that God is worthy of our trust. We can trust Him with our life! He is worthy of our love. He alone is worthy of our praise! Because He lives!