Easter Sunday is a pretty popular and fashionable time for church worship, especially for those who only occasionally attend church. But if you haven’t been exposed to Passion Week, then attending Easter Sunday worship is like coming in on the last scene of a movie, or reading only the final chapter of a novel: it’s hard to appreciate the emotional payoff without being involved in the whole story as it unfolds. If you were here on Good Friday, you likely wept (literally) with Mary as she grieved. And if you did, then you can truly experience the power and the joy of the ending: the Resurrection of her precious Son Jesus!
The Resurrection really is the conclusion of a long story line that begins, well, at the beginning of Creation! Here is the problem: without knowing how the story develops from the beginning, the resurrection episode sometimes becomes a puzzle. There is a lot that takes place leading up to Resurrection Sunday, but it is what happens on the last two days that makes Christianity meaningful. Let us imagine that Jesus failed to rise from the dead. (Might be difficult, but please allow yourself). Would Christianity really be worth believing? The answer is no. The resurrection of Jesus Christ is absolutely central to our faith.
In 1 Corinthians Chapter 15, Paul gives us in-depth insight into the whole design of the Resurrection. See some people in the church were declaring that there is no resurrection of the body (v. 12). They rejected that Jesus was raised from the dead and that those who believe in him will also be raised. Paul explains in plain words that if Jesus had not been raised from the dead, a believer’s faith is completely useless! And so is preaching! There’d be no Good News to proclaim and we’d all be rotting away in our sins apart from a relationship with God. In verse 19, Paul pounds the final nail in the coffin when he tells us we’d be pitied by men for believing a lie!
Back to Good Friday: Mary’s heart was ablaze with grief as she watched her precious boy Jesus die. She shed agonizing tears and wailed in unbearable pain. Two days later, her world was brand new! Her Jesus was alive! And like childbirth, the unbearable pain had vanished. Remember John chapter 16? Jesus makes a direct link between childbirth and death. They are similar in more ways than we imagine. It’s the power of Life that caused the unbearable pain to vanish. It’s that same power that brought Jesus back from the dead and the same power that works within those who belong to Him. So the resurrection is not only the culmination of the most dramatic story ever told, but an ongoing one too. Paul put it this way:
The Resurrection really is the conclusion of a long story line that begins, well, at the beginning of Creation! Here is the problem: without knowing how the story develops from the beginning, the resurrection episode sometimes becomes a puzzle. There is a lot that takes place leading up to Resurrection Sunday, but it is what happens on the last two days that makes Christianity meaningful. Let us imagine that Jesus failed to rise from the dead. (Might be difficult, but please allow yourself). Would Christianity really be worth believing? The answer is no. The resurrection of Jesus Christ is absolutely central to our faith.
In 1 Corinthians Chapter 15, Paul gives us in-depth insight into the whole design of the Resurrection. See some people in the church were declaring that there is no resurrection of the body (v. 12). They rejected that Jesus was raised from the dead and that those who believe in him will also be raised. Paul explains in plain words that if Jesus had not been raised from the dead, a believer’s faith is completely useless! And so is preaching! There’d be no Good News to proclaim and we’d all be rotting away in our sins apart from a relationship with God. In verse 19, Paul pounds the final nail in the coffin when he tells us we’d be pitied by men for believing a lie!
Back to Good Friday: Mary’s heart was ablaze with grief as she watched her precious boy Jesus die. She shed agonizing tears and wailed in unbearable pain. Two days later, her world was brand new! Her Jesus was alive! And like childbirth, the unbearable pain had vanished. Remember John chapter 16? Jesus makes a direct link between childbirth and death. They are similar in more ways than we imagine. It’s the power of Life that caused the unbearable pain to vanish. It’s that same power that brought Jesus back from the dead and the same power that works within those who belong to Him. So the resurrection is not only the culmination of the most dramatic story ever told, but an ongoing one too. Paul put it this way:
“It stands to reason, doesn’t it, that if the alive-and-present God who raised Jesus from the dead moves into your life, he’ll do the same thing in you that he did in Jesus…? When God lives and breathes in you (and he does, as surely as he did in Jesus), you are delivered from that dead life. With his Spirit living in you, your body will be as alive as Christ’s!” (Romans 8: 10-11 The Message)
-Pastor Mark
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