Resurrection Power and the Redemption of Our Sexuality

The resurrection of Jesus Christ is not merely a historical claim or a theological cornerstone; it is the beating heart of the Christian faith—a triumphant declaration that death does not have the final word. As we celebrate Easter, we remember not only that Christ is risen, but that in His rising, He has inaugurated a new creation. This new creation reaches into every broken corner of our humanity, including our sexual lives. The good news of Easter is that no part of us—no shameful past, no current struggle, no distorted desire—is beyond the redemptive reach of the risen Lord.

From the very beginning, God created sexuality as something good and purposeful. Genesis 2 reveals a vision of human sexuality rooted in relational harmony, gender complementarity, and covenantal intimacy. But Genesis 3 tells us what we already feel in our bones—something has gone terribly wrong. Our desires have become disordered. Our identities have become confused. Our relationships have been marred by shame, lust, abuse, and fear. The world offers us affirmation without transformation, telling us that healing comes from self-expression. But Scripture tells a different story: healing comes through death and resurrection.

Easter is the climax of that story. In His death, Christ bore the full weight of our sexual brokenness—our guilt, our secrets, our compulsions, and our confusion. He was wounded for our transgressions, including the ones we carry with trembling hands and downcast eyes. He was crushed for our iniquities, including those that no one else sees. But in His resurrection, Christ rose with healing in His wings. He did not rise merely to forgive our past, but to inaugurate a new humanity—one that reflects His purity, His wholeness, and His holy love.

This means that no matter where we find ourselves—whether addicted to pornography, marked by the wounds of abuse, caught in cycles of lust, or wrestling with same-sex attraction or gender dysphoria—we are not alone, and we are not without hope. Christ is not only the Savior of our souls but the Redeemer of our bodies. The power that raised Jesus from the dead is the same power that now works in us to bring about sanctification and healing (Romans 8:11). Easter tells us that the grave cannot hold us captive—not even the graves we’ve dug with our own sin.

Yet, this redemption is not instantaneous. It is a journey—a daily dying and rising with Christ. As Paul says in Colossians 3, we are called to “put to death” what is earthly in us, including “sexual immorality, impurity, passion, evil desire.” But we do not do this alone. We are “raised with Christ,” and now our lives are “hidden with Christ in God.” The church, then, must be a community where such transformation is both expected and nurtured. A place where grace and truth walk hand in hand, where confession is met with compassion, and where discipline is guided by love.

To proclaim the resurrection while ignoring the hope it offers to those struggling with sexual sin is to preach a truncated gospel. Christ did not rise simply to offer us a place in heaven, but to begin the restoration of heaven on earth—starting with us. Easter reminds us that the tomb is empty, and so are the false promises of the world’s sexual ideologies. In Christ, there is a better way—a holy way—a way that leads to life.

This Easter, let us look to the risen Christ not only as the One who saves us from sin, but as the One who restores our dignity, renews our minds, and reorders our desires. Let us lay down the fig leaves we have sewn for ourselves and come out of hiding. Let us bring our wounds and our weariness, our longings and our failures, to the foot of the cross—and from there, rise with Christ into newness of life.

In the end, resurrection is not just a doctrine to be believed but a reality to be lived. And nowhere is that reality more powerful than in the places we once believed were too far gone. Thanks be to God that Christ is risen indeed. He has conquered death, and with it, every distortion, every shame, every sin that sought to destroy us. Because He lives, we too can be made whole.