The Cross or the Grave, or Both?

Is it a semantic thing to combine the crucifixion and resurrection of Jesus rather than to focus on the crucifixion?  I find myself very alone on this issue.  Here, I’m the one appealing to my buddy Paul.  He seems to focus on the resurrection with the cross rather than the cross alone.  The passage in 1 Peter mentions that Jesus took our sins to the “wood”, and does not mention the resurrection.  The context is about Jesus suffering and using that as an example for our daily conduct.  But I call the day approaching, Resurrection Day rather than Easter.

In my way of thinking, to focus solely on the event of the crucifixion is like half-baptizing.  If the resurrection is not an equal component, then leave people under the water.  I was “raised to walk”, out of water, but also out of my dead ways.  Here is my divergence with a lot of “cross theology”":  I believe that Jesus did not overcome sin on the cross, but rather in resurrection.  Sin brings death, and He suffered that on the cross, but He went beyond the penalty into life, and it is that life I experience instead of death.

Is this semantics?  I don’t think so.  It could be though, because I am fairly lonely in my view.  Most seem to believe that Jesus paid it all on the cross and because of that we have life.  I only pause at the cross, and then, when it is finished, keep walking for an entire lonely Saturday, and wait by a guarded grave.  It is here I believe I will witness the conquering of the penalty I have worked so hard to earn.  Had I stopped at the event of the crucifixion, I would have witnessed the physical death of a man.  But having witnessed the crucifixion, I can then in the resurrection witness the re-united Triune God wildly overcoming my circumstances.  Again the ground, terra-firma, is shaken.  The shocked and grieving creation is again shocked, but the grief is shattered in joy as the One through Whom all things were made once again emerges into all those things.  Angels, guards, stone rolled away, and an empty tomb are all setting for this second of impossible events.  They fade into gray as the light of the Son shines forth from what was once dark.  Here I sit, here I worship, here I am undone as God wins my war.  The cross is where my salvation starts, but I must follow through to the empty grave, where it is finished.

Oswald Chambers' "My Utmost For His Highest": April 6th.