"Now is Christ risen from the dead, and become the firstfruits of them that slept" (1 Corinthians 15:20).

On the day that Jesus arose, the firstfruit sheaf of the barley harvest was being waved by the High Priest in the Temple, as the representative of the myriads that stood stacked amid the stubble of the fields. It was the specimen sheaf—the representative, pattern, and pledge of all the rest. The risen Christ is the pattern and pledge of what His people will be when their bodies shall be fashioned anew in the likeness of His resurrection.

—F.B. Meyer