Approaching Easter - That Historic Morning

Then the disciples went back to their homes, but Mary stood outside the tomb crying.

As she wept, she bent over to look into the tomb and saw two angels in white, seated where Jesus' body had been, one at the head and the other at the foot.

They asked her, "Woman, why are you crying?"

"They have taken my Lord away," she said, "and I don't know where they have put him."

At this, she turned around and saw Jesus standing there, but she did not realize that it was Jesus.

"Woman," he said, "who is it you are looking for?

Thinking he was the gardener, she said, "Sir, if you have carried him away, tell me where you have put him and I will get him."

Jesus said to her, "Mary."

She turned toward him and cried out in Aramaic, "Rabboni!" (which means 'Teacher').

Jesus said, "Do not hold on to me, for I have not yet returned to the Father. Go instead to my brothers and tell them, "I am returned to my Father and your Father, to my God and your God."

Mary Magdalene went to the disciples with the news: "I have seen the Lord!" And she told them that he had said these things to her.

On the evening of the first day of the week, when the disciples were together, with the doors locked for fear of the Jews, Jesus came and stood among them and said, "Peace be with you!"

After he said this, he showed them his hands and side. The disciples were overjoyed when they saw the Lord.
                      -- John 20

Approaching Easter - His last Days - Philip Yancey

How Christ spent His last weeks on earth:

Holy Week - Crucifixion - Resurrection - 40 days - His ascension back to eternal glory


This excerpt is from Philip Yancey's message at the memorial service for victims of the Virginia Tech shootings -- April, 2007


We gather here as Christians, and as such aspire to follow One who came from God two thousand years ago.

Read through the Gospels and you'll find only one scene in which someone addresses Jesus directly as God: "My Lord and my God."

It was 'doubting Thomas,' the disciple stuck in sadness, the last holdout against believing the incredible news of the resurrection.

Jesus appeared to Thomas in His newly transformed body, obliterating Thomas' doubts.

What prompted that outburst of belief, however -- "My Lord and my God" -- was the presence of scars. Feel my hands, Jesus told him. Touch my side. Finger my scars.

In a flash of revelation Thomas saw the wonder of Almighty God, the Lord of the universe, stooping to take on our pain, to complete the union with humanity.

Not even God remained exempt from pain. God joined us and fully shared our human condition, including its distress. Thomas recognized in that pattern the most foundational truth of the universe: that God is love.

To love means to hurt, to grieve.

Pain manifests life.

Approaching Easter - The Women

As the cross approached, the role of women in the band of disciples became more prominent.

A woman anointed the Messiah as he approached the triumphal entry.

Women were faithful to the end at the cross.

They had the courage to follow Joseph of Arimathea
as he made his way to Pilate to request the body and on to the tomb.

Thereby the women knew where Jesus was buried.

On Saturday evening it was the women who ventured out to buy spices for the anointing of his body.

Sunday morning they made their way to the tomb, heard the glorious yet frightening word of the angels, overcame their fears and took the good news to the absent disciples

All week they displayed persistence and courage.

To them the church remains forever in debt.



 -- From Jesus Through Middle Eastern Eyes, by
     Kenneth Bailey

~~~~~~~~~~~

After the Sabbath, at dawn on the first day of the week, Mary Magdalene and the other Mary went to look at the tomb.

There was a violent earthquake, for an angel of the Lord came down from heaven, and, going to the tomb, rolled back the stone and sat on it.

His appearance was like lightning, and his clothes were white as snow.

The guards were so afraid of him that they shook and became like dead men.

The angel said to the women, "Do not be afraid, for I know you are looking for Jesus, who was crucified. He is not here, for He is risen, just as He said. Come and see where He lay and then go quickly and tell His disciples: 'He has risen from the dead and is going ahead of you into Galilee.' There you will see Him. Now I have told you."   Matthew 28:1-7

The Easter People

These are hard days.

But remember, we are the 'Easter People'!

We don't whine and complain. We never despair. We don't wonder where God is!

Our song is not 'Nobody Knows the Trouble I've Seen'...

Our theme song is the 'Hallelujah Chorus'!!!

~~~~~~~~~~~~~

"We are not called to complain; we are called to reign!" From 

"For Such a Time as This" by Patsy Cameneti.


Our Lord Reigneth...and He shall reign forever and ever!
Hallelujah!

Approaching Easter - Resurrection

According to the Apostle Paul....

    For what I received I passed on to you as of first importance:
that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day according to the Scriptures,

and that he appeared to Peter, and then to the Twelve. After that he appeared to more than five hundred of the brethren, most of what are still living, though some have fallen asleep.

Then he appeared to James, then to all the apostles, and last of all he appeared to me also....1  Corinthians 15:3-8


Christ's appearances in the 40 days following His Resurrection prior to His ascension...

1. Were to believers only
2. Were tailor-made to comfort and confront each individual (His visit to Thomas was different from His visit to Peter, etc)
3. Were flesh-and-blood, not ghostly, encounters


So what does it all mean?


More from Philip Yancey in The Jesus I Never Knew...


"Because you have seen Me, you have believed," said Jesus. (John 20:29)

These privileged ones could hardly disbelieve.

But what about the others?

Very soon, as Jesus well knew, His personal appearances would come to a halt, leaving only "those who have not seen."

The church would stand or fall based on how persuasive these eyewitnesses would be for all--including us today--who have not seen. Jesus had 6 weeks in which to establish his identity for all time.

That Jesus succeeded in changing a snuffling band of unreliable followers into fearless evangelists, that eleven men who had deserted Him at death now went to martyrs' graves avowing their faith in a resurrected Christ, that these few witnesses managed to set loose a force that would overcome violent opposition first in Jerusalem and then in Rome--this remarkable sequence of transformation offers the most convincing evidence for the Resurrection.

What else explains the whiplash change in men known for their cowardice and instability?

One need only read the Gospels' descriptions of disciples huddled behind locked doors and then proceed to the descriptions in Acts of the same men proclaiming Christ openly in the streets and in jail cells to perceive the seismic significance of what took place on Easter Sunday.

The Resurrection is the epicenter of belief. It is, says, C. H. Dodd, "not a belief that grew up within the church; it is the belief around which the church itself grew up..."

The crowd at Jesus' crucifixion challenged Him to prove Himself by climbing down from the cross, but not one person thought of what actually would happen: that He would die and then come back.

Once that scenario played out, though, to those who knew Jesus best it made perfect sense.

The style fit God's pattern and character.  God has always chosen the slow and difficult way, respecting human freedom regardless of cost. He did not stop His crucifixion. He rose from the dead. The hero bore all the consequences, yet somehow triumphed.

One detail in the Easter stories has always intrigued me: Why did Jesus keep the scars from His crucifixion? Presumably He could have had any resurrected body He wanted, and yet He chose one identifiable mainly by scars that could be seen and touched. Why?

I believe the story of Easter would be incomplete without those scars on the hands, the feet, and the side of Jesus.

When human beings fantasize we dream of pearly straight teeth and wrinkle-free skin and sexy ideal shapes. We dream of an unnatural state: the perfect body.

But for Jesus, being confined in a skeleton and human skin was the unnatural state. The scars are, to Him, an emblem of life on our planet, a permanent reminder of those days of confinement and suffering.

I take hope in Jesus' scars. From the perspective of heaven, they represent the most horrible event that has ever happened in the history of the universe. Even that event, though--the Crucifixion--Easter turned into a memory.

Because of Easter, I can hope that the tears we shed, the blows we receive, the emotional pain, the heartache over lost loved ones, all these will become memories, like Jesus' scars.

Scars never completely go away, but neither do they hurt any longer. We will have re-created bodies, a re-created heaven and earth.

We will have a new start, an Easter start.