1 Corinthians 15:3-4
For I delivered unto you first of all that which I also received, how 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:

This is the amazing truth that we must hold fast to.  This is the root of our faith that must never get old to us.  It must never lose its power and wonder just to think of it in our hearts.  Someone came specifically to die for every one of our sins.  And it wasn’t just anyone, but it was Christ Himself.  When we deserved nothing good, He gave His life for us.  When we stood defying Him, He bowed Himself to the Father’s will.  When only darkness dwelt within us, He brought His glorious light.  And now we are forgiven in Him.  Those sins are gone.  Those ropes that bound our hands and feet, that weight upon us, those thorns stuck in us are all gone because of Jesus.

And He was buried in that tomb.  He was dead in the earth.  And at first it seemed like our hope really was gone.  But He didn’t stay there; He rose again.  And so we, in turn, don’t have to stay in our dead places, but we, too, can rise up again with Him and only because of Him.  Life is more powerful than death, and within Him is life itself, and that life is imparted to us.  So though our bodies may die, when we have Christ, our souls will live with Him forever.  There is no end to the life that He gives us.

And while these things may seem too good to be true, we can believe them and trust them wholeheartedly because God said it would happen long before it did.  His Word anticipated Jesus before He was ever born.  Men of God foretold His life, His work, His death, and His resurrection long before it occurred.  And now we have the Gospels and we have the completed Word of God, and we can stand upon it with certainty that everything in it about Jesus is wonderfully and blessedly true.

And cannot that sure knowledge carry us into our days and weeks and years with joy, with some new life, a new vision and perhaps even a new purpose?  Christ came for us.  He set us free from sin and from hell and the grave, and He gave us life, that wonderful hope, and the chance to live for Him here day by day.  Let us never forget that Jesus went as it was written of Him.  Everything happened as God always said it would.  And now with Christ dwelling within us, He writes out our story for us that He had planned long before we were ever even born.