A Living Hope: The Resurrection and What It Means for Chronic Illness

Easter is one of my favorite times of year. While celebrating the birth of Jesus at Christmas brings excitement, awe, and wonder at God becoming man, commemorating the death and resurrection of this same Jesus at Easter brings a thrill, a joy, and a sense of life that no other day offers.

Good Friday carries the weight of Calvary as we reflect on Jesus’ death on the cross: this God-become-human now laid low in the singular experience that separates the human from the divine–death–and then laid in a tomb.

But death isn’t the end of the story. Three days later, on Sunday morning, Jesus rose from the dead with the divine power that no human or spiritual force could overcome. He conquered death itself and sealed our salvation for all eternity.

As we observe this Easter season, let’s open our hearts to four key truths about the resurrection that have enormous impact on us in our chronic illness.

1. Sin Is Vanquished

We all know the gospel promise that sin’s power is broken, that we no longer owe the penalty incurred from our rebellion against God.

Scripture emphasizes that without the resurrection, there would be no gospel.

Paul makes this emphasis in 1 Corinthians 15,

Moreover, brethren, I declare to you the gospel which I preached to you . . . For I delivered to you first of all that which I also received: that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, and that He was buried, and that He rose again the third day according to the Scriptures.

1 Corinthians 15:1, 3-4

A few verses later, he expounds on the foundational importance of Christ’s resurrection:

But if there is no resurrection of the dead, then Christ is not risen. And if Christ is not risen, then our preaching is empty and your faith is also empty. . . . For if the dead do not rise, then Christ is not risen. And if Christ is not risen, your faith is futile; you are still in your sins!

1 Corinthians 15:13-17

(See these other passages for how the resurrection is part and parcel of the gospel message: Romans 4:24-5:2, Romans 10:9, Ephesians 1:19-20, Colossians 2:12, 1 Thessalonians 1:10, 2 Timothy 2:8, 1 Peter 1:21, and 1 Peter 3:21. Also, read the book of Acts and notice how often the disciples’ preaching hinged on Jesus’ resurrection.)

I would be remiss not to quote the verse that, in unparalleled terms, champions the resurrection and what it means for us:

 Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who according to His abundant mercy has begotten us again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead.

1 Peter 1:3

What does this mean for chronic illness?

Your chronic illness is not punishment for your sin.

If you have believed in Jesus and what He accomplished for you–through His death, burial, and resurrection–your salvation is stamped with divine finality. Romans 8:1 says, “There is therefore now no condemnation to those who are in Christ Jesus.”

If you struggle with guilt for past sins or wonder if God is punishing you with your health struggles, rest in Jesus’ finished work of salvation–which rests on His resurrection–and remember that your sins have been forgiven.

2. Death Is Defeated

Read these familiar but oh-so-comforting verses from 1 Corinthians:

For He must reign till He has put all enemies under His feet. The last enemy that will be destroyed is death. . . .

Then shall be brought to pass the saying that is written: “Death is swallowed up in victory.”

“O Death, where is your sting?
O Hades, where is your victory?”

1 Corinthians 15:25-26, 54-55

I love what Paul writes in 2 Timothy 1:10, calling Jesus the Lord “who has abolished death and brought life and immortality to light through the gospel.”

Similarly, Revelation promises, “Blessed and holy is the one who shares in the first resurrection! Over such the second death has no power” (20:6) and “death shall be no more” in God’s presence (21:4).

A few years ago when I read The Silver Chair, one of the last books in C. S. Lewis’s Chronicles of Narnia, I wept (okay, hardcore bawled) at this passage:

“Then Aslan stopped, and the children looked into the stream. And there, on the golden gravel of the bed of the stream, lay King Caspian, dead, with the water flowing over him like liquid glass. His long white beard swayed in it like water-weed. And all three of them stood and wept. Even the Lion wept: great Lion-tears, each tear more precious than the Earth would be if it was a single solid diamond. . . .” 

Aslan tells Eustace to go into a nearby thicket, pluck a thorn, and drive it into his paw. 

Then Eustace set his teeth and drove the thorn into the Lion’s pad. And there came out a great drop of blood, redder than all redness that you have ever seen or imagined. And it splashed into the stream over the dead body of the King. At the same moment the doleful music stopped. And the dead King began to be changed. His white beard turned to gray, and from gray to yellow, and got shorter and vanished altogether; and his sunken cheeks grew round and fresh, and the wrinkles were smoothed, and his eyes opened, and his eyes and lips both laughed, and suddenly he leaped up and stood before them–a very young man, or a boy.”

The Silver Chair, Ch 16, “The Healing of Harms”

This passage powerfully illustrates the comfort of Jesus’ words to Mary after her brother’s death, moments before Jesus raises him back to life in a precursor of His own resurrection:

“I am the resurrection and the life. He who believes in Me, though he may die, he shall live.”

John 11:25

What does this mean for chronic illness?

What’s the worst chronic illness can do? In blunt terms, kill us.

But this worst-case scenario of chronic illness ain’t got nothing on Jesus and the resurrection. Even if our chronic illness eventually ends our lives, we’ll be “absent from the body” and “present with the Lord” (2 Cor. 5:8). We lose little and gain everything.

If you’re swamped by fear, ask yourself what you’re afraid of. Then remind yourself that Jesus’s resurrection has removed the sting from death.

3. Our Lives Have Higher Purpose

Paul deals with this idea of purpose in 1 Corinthians 15, asking the rhetorical question that if Jesus never rose from the dead, why are he and so many other of Jesus’ disciples placing their lives in such danger for the sake of the gospel? He writes,

And why do we stand in jeopardy every hour? I affirm, by the boasting in you which I have in Christ Jesus our Lord, I die daily. If, in the manner of men, I have fought with beasts at Ephesus, what advantage is it to me? If the dead do not rise, “Let us eat and drink, for tomorrow we die!”

1 Corinthians 15:30-32

Paul makes his point strongly: If there is a resurrection, this life is NOT all there is.

This truth carries profound ramifications for us Christians. How we live as believers–with our focus on Christ (Heb. 12:2) and heavenly things (Col. 3:1) and investing in God’s Kingdom rather than in this world (Matt. 6:33)–is one of the greatest and most visible ways we distinguish ourselves from non-believers.

If Jesus didn’t rise from the dead, not only would we be without salvation and without hope after death, but we would also be without real purpose during our time on earth. Jesus’ resurrection undergirds the gospel, cements our identity as God’s children, and confirms our calling to work that is truly, spiritually, and eternally worthwhile.

Paul writes (emphasis added),

Therefore we were buried with Him through baptism into death, that just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, even so we also should walk in newness of life.

Romans 6:4

Therefore, my brethren, you also have become dead to the law through the body of Christ, that you may be married to another—to Him who was raised from the dead, that we should bear fruit to God.

Romans 7:4

[after the resurrection promises] Therefore, my beloved brethren, be steadfast, immovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, knowing that your labor is not in vain in the Lord.

1 Corinthians 15:58

Recounting his sufferings, Paul explains that he counted all his “gains” as nothing, “that I may know Him and the power of His resurrection, and the fellowship of His sufferings, being conformed to His death, if, by any means, I may attain to the resurrection from the dead” (Phil. 3:10-11).

Because of Jesus’ resurrection, we are called to a higher purpose than the life of this world.

What does this mean for chronic illness?

Are you so focused on earthly, visible things–like your failing body–that you forget the glorious, invisible reality you’re living? Even with the limitations of your health, are you investing in God’s Kingdom? Despite the sorrows of your pain and brokenness, are you embracing the joy of your higher calling?

When you’re discouraged by your chronic illness, remember that your imperfect body is just part of this imperfect world that will someday pass away (Rev. 21:1). Rejoice in the abundant, more-than-this life Jesus has given you (Jn. 10:10). And rest in the promise that God is using your chronic illness for a higher purpose (Ro. 8:28).

4. We Will Get New Bodies

Along with showing us the importance of the resurrection, 1 Corinthians 15 is one of Scripture’s most encouraging passages for us with chronic illness:

The body is sown in corruption, it is raised in incorruption. It is sown in dishonor, it is raised in glory. It is sown in weakness, it is raised in power. It is sown a natural body, it is raised a spiritual body. . . . And as we have borne the image of the man of dust, we shall also bear the image of the heavenly Man. . . .

For the trumpet will sound, and the dead will be raised incorruptible, and we shall be changed. For this corruptible must put on incorruption, and this mortal must put on immortality. 

1 Corinthians 15:42-44, 49, 52-53

In his sequel letter to the Corinthians, Paul uses the imagery of tents (temporary dwellings) and houses (permanent habitations) to communicate the promise that waits for us:

For we know that if our earthly house, this tent, is destroyed, we have a building from God, a house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens. For in this we groan, earnestly desiring to be clothed with our habitation which is from heaven, if indeed, having been clothed, we shall not be found naked. For we who are in this tent groan, being burdened, not because we want to be unclothed, but further clothed, that mortality may be swallowed up by life.

2 Corinthians 5:1-4

The last book of the Bible gives us a preview of the beautiful proclamation God will give from His throne at the end–and the beginning–of all things:

“Behold, I make all things new.”

Revelation 21:5

All things–including our bodies. Amen!

What does this mean for chronic illness?

Your broken, failing body is not meant to last forever. Someday God will provide perfect healing and grant you a new, incorruptible body just like Jesus’ glorified, resurrected body.

Hold on to this hope and let it carry you through the hard days.