Resurrection—the Answer to The Six Foot Hole

I read recently about professional golfer Paul Azinger who was diagnosed with cancer at age 33. He had just won a PGA championship and had ten tournament victories to his credit. He wrote, "A genuine feeling of fear came over me. I could die from cancer. Then another reality hit me even harder. I’m going to die eventually anyway, whether from cancer or something else. It’s just a question of when. Everything I had accomplished in golf became meaningless to me. All I wanted to do was live.” Then he remembered something that Larry Moody, who teaches a Bible study on the tour, had said to him. "Zinger, we’re not in the land of the living going to the land of the dying. We’re in the land of the dying trying to get to the land of the living." Azinger recovered with chemotherapy returned to the PGA tour and did well. He spent almost 300 weeks in the top-10 of the Official World Golf Ranking between 1988 and 1994 earning nearly $14.5 million in his career. But that bout with cancer deepened his perspective. He wrote, "I’ve made a lot of money since I’ve been on the tour, and I’ve won a lot of tournaments, but that happiness is always temporary. The only way you will ever have true contentment is in a personal relationship with Jesus Christ. I’m not saying that nothing ever bothers me and I don’t have problems, but I feel like I’ve found the answer to the six-foot hole." Is that not the truth Jesus was trying to convey to Mary and Martha at the tomb of Lazarus? His declaration of being the resurrection and the life provided the answer for the death of his beloved friend as well as for all of humanity. That’s why we feel encouraged during Easter. This day is not one of mourning but of celebration because we know that death may hound us but it will never hold us.  Because He lives we live also. In Him alone we find the answer to the “six foot hole.”