At the center of the Christian faith are Good Friday and Easter Sunday (following a lunar calendar they are usually celebrated sometime in March or April).

Good Friday remembers that the Jew called Jesus Christ was nailed to a cross in Jerusalem around 2000 years ago. Christianity claims that Jesus, as the son of God, paid with his life for our sins. He took our place on the cross and thus redeems all those who put their trust in him.

Three days later, on Easter Sunday, Jesus rose from the dead. The Christian perspective is that Jesus is the prototype of a risen person with a resurrection body that is perfect and can not decay any more. All those who have put their trust in him will be raised up with the same kind of body at the last day when Christ returns as the judge and savior.

So when Christians die in the Lord, their hope is clearly that one day they will be raised to eternal life in God’s new creation together with all those who are followers of Christ.