He has risen indeed!

“Christ is risen.  He has risen indeed!”  Many of you will say that at church this week . . . and, how blessed are we to go to church two thousand years after the resurrection and celebrate what took place on that Sunday so long ago?!

We will consider Luke’s account:  “On the first day of the week, at early dawn, they [the women] went to the tomb, taking the spices they had prepared.  And they found the stone rolled away from the tomb, but when they went in they did not find the body of the Lord Jesus.  While they were perplexed about this, behold, two men stood by them in dazzling apparel.  And as they were frightened and bowed their faces to the ground, the men said to them, "Why do you seek the living among the dead?  He is not here, but has risen.  'Remember how he told you, while he was in Galilee, that the Son of Man must be delivered into the hands of sinful men and be crucified and on the third day arise."  And they remembered his words, and returning from the tomb, they told all these things to the eleven, and to all the rest.  Now it was Mary Magdalene and Joanna, and Mary, the mother of James, and the other women with them who told these things to the apostles, but these words seemed to them an idle tale, and they did not believe them.  But Peter rose and ran to the tomb; stooping and looking in, he saw the linen cloths by themselves; and he went home marveling at what had happened.” Luke 24

As the women arrived at the tomb at first morning's light, they brought along burial spices to finish caring for Jesus' body.  Amazingly, though, the gigantic stone had been rolled away from the entrance of the tomb, and even more amazingly, Jesus was not there.  They were shocked.  They were worried and frightened.  They turned in haste to go and told the disciples that the Lord had done what he had said he was going to do--he rose from the dead.  Miraculously, he defeated the grave and triumphed over sin in doing so.

Before we go on, I would like to interview you about the Resurrection - Do you believe that Jesus was resurrected from the dead? Why, why not?

Why is it so vital to the Christian faith? 

What do you say to skeptics who do not believe that Jesus rose from the dead?  These are questions for which you should have answers.

Paul said, "If Christ has not been raised, your faith is futile; you are still in your sins." 1 Corinthians 15.17 - What did Paul mean by that, and why is it true?

"In a profound sense, Christianity without the resurrection is not simply Christianity without its final chapter. It is not Christianity at all."  Gerald O'Collins, theologian

Last weekend, I showed Mel Gibson’s “The Passion of the Christ” to the high school students I lead—have you seen it?  It is very well done, quite true to the Scripture, but also very difficult to watch, as our Lord suffered so tremendously.  How glorious that I could come back this week and teach ‘the rest of the story’ – through the wonder of the Gospel of John on DVD format!  Then we broke into groups and students took turns reading for themselves John’s account in the twentieth chapter.  It was wonderful to close my eyes for a minute, and listen to young voices throughout the room, reading aloud God’s Word to each other.   (I am sure that Jesus loved it too!)

Besides being good news, Christianity is a faith that is defensible.  There is a systematic case for the historical fact of the resurrection of Jesus Christ of Nazareth.  Actually, tomorrow we will look at the evidence, as well as some analysis by the premier apologists of our day.  In addition, we will consider why the resurrection is critical to our faith in God, and why, if we really believe it, each day should be affected by our knowledge of a risen Lord.

From death to life . . . our Redeemer lives.  Nothing matters more than that.

Grace and Peace,

Christine

PastorWoman.com