That choice gave death the opening to say to God, "You claim to be God? I'll show you. If they worship themselves, then they cut themselves off from you, and if they are out there on their own, then they are mine and I'll kill your image in the world you ordered." So, the Bible tells us, Jesus came into the world to destroy death—to make it clear that God is God. Or, to put it another way, Easter is not just about the fact that you and I are not going to die. First and more importantly, it's about the fact that God's image in you and me is not going to die.
In the first version of the Gospel story, God is a bit player in a story all about us, the one who sweeps in to get us out of a jam. In the second version of the story, God is the central figure and gets us out of a jam because we put God's claim to be God at risk by worshipping ourselves.
The second version, however, is actually better news than the version of the story we tell so often. You and I are living proof that God is God. We are the bearers of God's image. And on this Resurrection feast, the last enemy of that claim --- which is death—is defeated.
That's good news because if we are made in the image of God, then we are something glorious, something deserving of God's love—not just an object of pity, sympathy, or sentimentalism. That is also an understanding of the Resurrection with life-changing spiritual consequences. On those consequences, more next week.
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