Seven Scriptures on the Resurrection
Good Friday Morning,
Last night we faced the shadows in a Tenebrae service at church…. As we served the elements, the Body of Christ broken and the Blood of Christ poured out we remembered Jesus. We remembered the last meal through all the events that led to the last breath on the cross. The experience opened our hearts and minds to relive the pain and the hope of victory which is to become the doorway to life. As the shadows encroached on the sanctuary, as the acolyte attempted and failed multiple time to extinguish the Christ Candle until finally it too became a shadow, I could not help but think that our future begins with Jesus and though it is uncomfortable we need to trace it back to his death on the cross before we can fully experience Easter. Friends, if there is a reason for God, it is a reason beyond Jesus dying to pay our debts. The reason for this season is found in the resurrection of Jesus Christ. Prepare yourselves to rejoice and prepare to strengthen what you believe as you meditate on these Seven Scriptures on the Resurrection.
Scripture: The tombs also were opened, and many bodies of the saints who had fallen asleep were raised. After his resurrection they came out of the tombs and entered the holy city and appeared to many. Now when the centurion and those with him, who were keeping watch over Jesus, saw the earthquake and what took place, they were terrified and said, “Truly this man was God’s Son!”
Matthew 27:52-54 (NRSV)
At the crack of dawn on Sunday, the women came to the tomb carrying the burial spices they had prepared. They found the entrance stone rolled back from the tomb, so they walked in. But once inside, they couldn’t find the body of the Master Jesus.
Luke 24:2-3 (MSG)
Now if Christ is proclaimed as raised from the dead, how can some of you say there is no resurrection of the dead? If there is no resurrection of the dead, then Christ has not been raised; and if Christ has not been raised, then our proclamation has been in vain and your faith has been in vain. We are even found to be misrepresenting God, because we testified of God that he raised Christ—whom he did not raise if it is true that the dead are not raised. For if the dead are not raised, then Christ has not been raised. If Christ has not been raised, your faith is futile and you are still in your sins. Then those also who have died in Christ have perished. If for this life only we have hoped in Christ, we are of all people most to be pitied.
1 Corinthians 15:12-19 (NRSV)
Jesus said to her, “I am the resurrection and the life. Those who believe in me, even though they die, will live, and everyone who lives and believes in me will never die. Do you believe this?”
John 11:25-26 (NRSV)
Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! In his great mercy he has given us new birth into a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, and into an inheritance that can never perish, spoil or fade. This inheritance is kept in heaven for you,
1 Peter 1:3-4 (NIV)
“The only thing they have on me is that one sentence I shouted out in the council: ‘It’s because I believe in the resurrection that I’ve been hauled into this court!’ Does that sound to you like grounds for a criminal case?”
Acts 24:21 (MSG)
Message: Perhaps you have been in a courtroom filled with the anxiety of a verdict. Perhaps you have been to the tomb of Christ and discovered that it is famous for what is does not contain. Friends, the Resurrection is either a heartless hoax or the most fantastic fact of history. There is no middle ground here. Whether in the courtroom, on the cross or in the grave the experience is indeed empty but for the promise of Jesus. And the judgment is clear. For there to be resurrection there has to be death. It is more than symbolic language of the death of an old way and the birth of another. Though it is that. It is more than the written promise of resurrection or the leafing out of new growth in springtime. Though it is that also. It is nothing less than the most powerful belief in Christianity, and here it stands alone, as the one thing upon which all other things must rest. It is the core of the Gospel and the only hope and love that satisfies. Friends, no matter the struggles and disappointments you have, no matter the emotional and physical pain you face, no matter the demons that stalk you and those you love… the truth of the Cross and Resurrection are the only things that continue to bring comfort and inspiration. That those who testified that they had seen Jesus raised from the dead would proclaim this despite years of suffering torture and prison, all for a lie is absolutely impossible. Believe, the darkness never has and never will overcome the Light.
Pray that our hearts are rebuilt from hope and now resurrect dreams once killed by hate. Pray that in this resurrection we discover the beginning of God acting to repopulate the earth with heavenly creatures began with Christ. Pray this resurrection power is not just a metaphorical leap forward but a fulfillment revealed in the human life and death of Jesus Christ incarnate. Pray that we too would be convicted as believing. Pray our old assumptions about how the world works are buried as we await new assumptions that are not yet fully operational in the Kingdom. Pray we accept the invitation to belong to something special now even as we embrace a commitment that the best is yet to come.. Pray we in awe and worship in the presence of Christ see all the shadows be cast out by Christ’s eternal Light.
Blessings,
John Lawson
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