Dear Friends:

If Christ has not been raised, your faith is futile and you are still in your sins. Then those who have also died in Christ have perished. If for this life only we have hoped in Christ, we are of all people most to be pitied. (1 Cor 15:17-18).

I grew up where it rained a fair bit, enough to raise the redwoods to towering heights in the coastal canyons where the creeks ran year around.

It was astonishing to see the pictures of the Sonoran Desert in the Arizona Highways magazine that made it to our living room coffee table every other month during my childhood. The cactus and the red rock formations could have been from another planet so different were they from the rolling central California countryside and beaches.

There were also photographs of wildflowers stretching to the horizon and flowing streams springing out of canyon walls. Patricia moved to Arizona with her family when she was eight. The first time that I went home with her from college, I was surprised that the desert looked like . . . well, a hot, dry, brown desert.

Patricia told me, somewhat cynically, that those pictures were probably taken on the one day of the year, perhaps the one week, that the desert bloomed. This raised visions of Josef and David Muench, the father-son team who seemed to take every picture in the magazine, racing all over the state furiously clicking their Leica cameras from dawn in the White Mountains to sunset over the Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument.

Those pictures also proved that there was life in the desert which seems to be the main point of Arizona Highways. What a marvelous grace that is! It is a testimony that there is cause for hope.

The Apostle Paul told the Corinthian believers that Jesus’ death would have been an empty desert without the resurrection. Whatever your intentions in going into those sun-blasted wastelands, as starkly beautiful as they may be, the reward is coming out of there alive and renewed.

Wounded and drained, Jesus asked the Friday afternoon question, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” (Mark 15:34). His dying thought was that everything was stripped away from him including the comfort of the Father’s love. The Son of Man was left with the mere belief that he had a God even though he seemed absent in that moment.

It is the Father’s glory to bring life to the desert and raise his Son from the grave and us with him (Ps 104:29-30; Rom 6:4). In His power and love, even death points to life (Jn 12:24-26). That is the message of the cross and the resurrection. It is the same power of the Creator that brings a tulip surging out of frozen ground and gives the cactus wren a home in inhospitable places.

God’s first word to us speaks our life into existence. However we mishandle that gift on this earth, our Lord never quits on his desire that we live eternally at his side (1 Pet 3:8-13). That desire is the expression of the true love which is the very nature of our heavenly Father.

Love comes to life in the response of the beloved. Our faith that the Father’s love for us exceeds the fatal limitations of our sin is what brings us to eternal life in and with Jesus Christ. He led the way for us with his belief that the Father would come through for us even when any justification for hope seemed erased (Rom 6:5-11).

The cross proved that our holy God loves us enough to live and die as one of us (Rom 5:1-11). The resurrection proved that God’s love is limitless (Rom 8:38-39). The power of death, the curse of sin, is broken. We have the freedom of eternal life with God.

We need not fear that our dry seasons, desert passages, and dark nights will be interminable. Our Lord Jesus Christ is risen and his life is stronger than death for those who believe. That is the message and power of the resurrection. Therefore —

The wilderness and the dry land shall be glad,

   the desert shall rejoice and blossom;

like the crocus it shall blossom abundantly,

   and rejoice with joy and singing.

The glory of Lebanon shall be given to it,

   the majesty of Carmel and Sharon.

They shall see the glory of the Lord,

   the majesty of our God.

(Isaiah 35:1-2)

“O taste and see that the Lord is good. Happy are those who take refuge in him (Ps 34:8).

Under the mercy of Christ,

Kent

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Please note that the content and viewpoints of Mr. Hansen are his own and are not necessarily those of the C.S. Lewis Foundation. We have not edited his writing in any substantial way and have permission from him to post his content.

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Kent Hansen is a Christian attorney, author and speaker. He practices corporate law and is the managing attorney of the firm of Clayson, Mann, Yaeger & Hansen in Corona, California. Kent also serves as the general counsel of Loma Linda University and Medical Center in Loma Linda, California.

Finding God’s grace revealed in the ordinary experiences of life, spiritual renewal in Christ and prayer are Kent’s passions. He has written two books, Grace at 30,000 Feet and Other Unexpected Places published by Review & Herald in 2002 and Cleansing Fire, Healing Streams: Experiencing God’s Love Through Prayer, published by Pacific Press in spring 2007. Many of his stories and essays about God’s encompassing love have been published in magazines and journals. Kent is often found on the hiking trails of the southern California mountains, following major league baseball, playing the piano or writing his weekly email devotional, “A Word of Grace for Your Monday” that is read by men and women from Alaska to Zimbabwe.