...He was raised the third day...

And while they abode in Galilee, Jesus said to them, "The Son of man is about to be delivered up into the hands of men, and they shall kill him; and the third day he shall be raised up." And they were greatly grieved. - Matt 17:22

Everytime the Lord mentioned His death to His disciples, He almost definitely would follow it up with the mention of His resurrection. The disciples somehow managed to always miss the point though. Here they were grieved? But why? Didn't He end with mention of Him being raised up? They were stuck with the thought of His death. Sadly, little has changed.

There's a lack of emphasis on the resurrection of Christ these days. We stop short of His death and are grieved that such should happen to the Beloved of Heaven. We mourn that it's because of us that He went through such agony. We sing weekly of His sufferings but hymns about His resurrection are only sung once a year. We forget that the work is done, finished! The victory is won. We forget the power through the resurrection. We forget what the resurrection tells us about Christ Himself. Paul longed to know Him and immediately mentions the power of His resurrection first (Phil 3:10).

Christ resurrection marked Him out to be the Son of God in power (Rom 1:4). The resurrection points to Christ as the firstfruit (1 Cor 15:20,23). In the observing of the feasts, the Israelites were not to eat of the harvest from the land until they've offered up the firstfruit offering (Lev 23:14). We had no place in enjoying the blessing of our heavenly land until and unless the Lord Jesus is raised up as the perfect One, truly the Author and Perfecter of our faith. The resurrection sets the Lord as the Chiefest among ten thousand, conspicuous and important, the firstborn among the dead, having the first place in all things, preeminent (Col 1:18)! He's the only one to be raised from the dead by His own power through a perfect life, triumphing over all His enemies and ours, proving His omnipotence (Heb 2:14-15).

If in His resurrection alone we see such a display of power and might, imagine the display when all who have put their trust in Him are raised to join Him at His coming!