Isn’t it interesting how, over the course of years, one little date on the calendar can take on great import?
Today is April 21, a day that has come to signify life to me. First of all, it was my grandmother’s birthday, so even when I was a small child I associated this day with the celebration of a life. Then, when I was 10 years old, I was baptized on this day. My grandmother was with us at church that Sunday, and I remember how proud she was that I was being baptized on her birthday. And I particularly remember the voice of the minister as he read from Romans 6 in his King James Version Bible: “Know ye not, that so many of us as were baptized into Jesus Christ were baptized into his death? Therefore we are buried with him by baptism into death: that like as Christ was raised up from the dead by the glory of the Father, even so we also should walk in newness of life.” On that spring Sunday morning, walking in newness of life sounded like the greatest thing ever, full of nothing but possibility.
Many years later, another April 21 held more life-significance to me. April 21, 2008 fell on a Monday, and on that day my 14-year-old son had to undergo major open-heart surgery. I don’t suppose I’ll ever forget how I felt when the surgeon’s assistant told his dad and me that the incision had been made and our son had been placed on the heart-lung bypass machine — or how I felt when they told us later that he he’d been taken off the bypass machine and his heart was again beating on its own. On that April 21, the idea of newness of life sounded better than ever.
Here we are again on April 21, this year just a few days into Eastertide. As we celebrate the Resurrection of Jesus Christ, we celebrate the life that is available to everyone who trusts and obeys Him. We draw our life from Him. “I am come that they may have life, and have it abundantly,” Jesus says of Himself in John 10.
That abundant life is what Jesus describes to Nicodemus in John 3. Dallas Willard writes, “Jesus was trying to convey to Nicodemus how God’s Spirit works — how the Spirit comes and moves in the life of an individual. People see the results but they can’t see what causes the results. This is abundant life in its fullest sense: life lived from hidden sources that come into the soul from God and His kingdom. Such abundant life is possible no matter where you are or what you happen to be doing.”1
For the disciple of Jesus, every day has life-significance. No matter where we are or what we happen to be doing, every day offers an opportunity to rejoice in the abundant life made available to us.
I will extol you, my God and King,
and bless your name forever and ever.
Every day I will bless you,
and praise your name forever and ever (Psalm 145:1 – 2).
