Imagine Easter Now

Some people like to imagine what their lives will be like in the future. It’s good to have goals and to work toward them. But for many years, I’ve done something a little different. From time to time, I like to travel backward in my imagination—to when I was nineteen, a confused college sophomore trying to figure out life. Once I’m fully settled into that younger version of myself, I open my eyes, look around the room, and pretend I’ve time‑traveled forward into the present.

I see pictures of my family and think, “Hmm, I married a pretty girl.” I look at the house and think, “Well, I must have a decent job, because this place is nice.” I might even grin when I notice a Martin guitar hanging on the wall. From this vantage point, I can see reasons for sadness over losses, but also reasons for peace and joy—evidence that I’ve made it this far. I let myself linger in that moment for a minute or two before snapping out of it and going on with my day.

It may sound odd, but it comforts me. Maybe it’s because I remember that nineteen‑year‑old kid—caught between adolescence and adulthood, overwhelmed by life and the unknown.

The truth is, none of us can know the details of our future. We don’t get many guarantees, and the ones we do get aren’t exactly uplifting. Taxes will keep coming, and one day we will die. Total buzzkill. But there is something about the future worth holding onto: God knows yours. He has a plan for your life, and He wants you to trust Him with it.

Trusting Christ as Lord and Savior gives us peace and assurance about our eternal future. Yet some Christians misunderstand the gospel and reduce salvation to a free ticket to heaven—or simply an escape from hell. That view is both tragic and misleading. Misleading because it shrinks salvation into something small and shallow. Tragic because it often leads people to live as practical atheists.

Scripture never gives us permission to think of salvation that way. In fact, it contradicts the very idea of following Christ. We are called to follow Him. We are saved—justified, made righteous—by grace through faith in Christ. We become part of the new creation: “Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away; behold, the new has come” (2 Cor. 5:17 ESV). As new creatures, a transformation begins within us. The Spirit bears fruit through us, and that work will be completed when our earthly journey ends.

Trusting Him makes the difficult stretches of life more bearable. Shutting Him out makes every bump hit harder. Trusting God means accepting your present and your future, acknowledging that He knows best. It means confessing your sins and believing that Christ has made a way for forgiveness. It means saying, “Lord, be merciful to me, a sinner,” and then trusting His promise that you are forgiven (1 John 1:7–10). And trusting that you are forgiven means living out the new life Christ has begun in you.

You may be wondering what any of this has to do with my strange habit of imagining my past self stepping into my present. I suppose it’s because I wish future me could go back and tell past me a few things—offer some assurance, maybe some advice.

So here’s my challenge to you: imagine Easter now.

As a believer, you are in Christ. And if you are in the risen Christ, then your future is already known. Your future self is perfect. The new creation that began in you by faith will one day be complete. You will one day be like Christ, and you will know Him as you are known—seeing Him as He is, in His resurrected body (1 Cor. 13:12; 2 Cor. 3:18; 1 John 3:2).

That first Easter from the ancient past impacts not only your future, but your present more than you probably know. Yes, your future is bright. That truth alone can help you endure whatever lies ahead. The resurrection should loosen the grip of that stubborn anxiety or emotional darkness that sometimes cripples us. In fact, our perspective on all human suffering should dramatically shift in light of the suffering of Christ, the resurrection, and the future redemption of creation. But redemption doesn’t just affect sin and suffering. Consider N. T. Wright’s words, “All that we do in faith, hope, and love in the present, in obedience to our ascended Lord and in the power of his Spirit, will be enhanced and transformed at his appearing.”[1]

For those who know Christ, His resurrection is transformative on every level. What will one day be a physical reality can bring emotional and spiritual peace now. Knowing the hope of the risen Christ can motivate you to share that hope with others as you serve Him by serving them. Furthermore, the same power that raised Jesus from the dead is in you according to Paul (Eph. 1:19, 20; Phil. 3:10). Meditate on that just a bit.

There will be setbacks and disappointments. The apostle Paul had them too (Rom. 7). We won’t always live in light of the resurrection, but we should. We cannot change the past. However, trusting Jesus as Lord and Savior of both our present as well as our future changes the trajectory of our future and our perspectives of the present. The new creation has already been birthed within us. Imagine how believing in Easter at work in you now can bring change in and through you.

“And I am sure of this, that he who began a good work in you will bring it to completion at the day of Jesus Christ” (Phil 1:6 ESV).

[1] N. T. Wright, Surprised by Hope, HarperOne, 2008, p. 143.