Why is my neighbor washing her truck...

when thirty minutes later it will be covered with a centimeter of pollen? Probably for the same reason that I decided to lay out in our backyard and get a little sun--just a simple pleasure. Keeping it simple is something that brings the greatest joy. Sometimes simplicity turns on you, though, whenever you consider a thought or an act like salvation. It becomes more than simply grace. Because of grace, I am what I am, Paul said. Simple, huh? He goes on to say that "his grace toward me was not in vain" (1 Cor. 15:10). This grace was given and a transformation took place, and no it wasn't in vain seeing as Paul arguably worked harder than any other apostle spreading the news about Christ's resurrection.

My favorite sermon on an Easter Sunday was actually the evening service that only about 75 old people and a handful of young'ins go to. Bro. Bill preached out of 1 Corinthians 15. This chapter is honest, cutting, explanatory, and evocative. Paul talks about Christ's resurrection and its eternal consequences; how it relates to all of mankind. Speaking of eternal life, Paul says, "When the perishable puts on the imperishable, and the mortal puts on immortality, then shall come to pass the saying that is written,

'Death is swallowed up in victory.'

'O death, where is your victory?

O death, where is your sting?'

The sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the law But thanks be to God, who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ" (1Cor. 15:54-57).

Now, I love the imagery of death being SWALLOWED UP in victory! A complete envelopment. It's holistic and all encompassing. For now, we are men of dust (as Paul says earlier in this chapter), made in the image of Adam, but we have the resurrection of the dead. Something that allows us (men of dust) to bear the image of the man of heaven, Jesus Christ. Simply beautiful. Or beautifully simple. Whichever way you want to look at it.

Laying out in the backyard, listening to the Avett Brothers does remind me of the "man of dust" part of myself. The part we like to call human nature. A song called "Ill with Want" says we have "a need for somethin' but not more medicine." And why do we have this need? A lot of people wonder what's missing and pursue more and more "medicine" in the form of many things. Then, the singer admits,"Somethin' has me. Oh! Somethin' has me. Somethin' has me actin' like someone who I know isn't me. Somethin' has me actin' like someone I don't want to be. Ill with want and poisoned by this ugly greed." Thankfully, in Christ, we have no want because he has the victory.