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.

We Shall All Be Changed.....Richard Neuhaus

I have been crucified with Christ, and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me. The life I live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself for me.  (Galatians 2:20)

From As I Lay Dying, by Richard John Neuhaus.....
   
             In the years before my sickness, I had written
about the passage in terms of "the transportation of the ego."

    That still seemed to me a good phrase.

         Christ had taken my life into His, and I had

taken His life into me.

         There was, as it were, an exchange of essential identities. But now it seemed to me much more than a good theological point. Now it was the absolute center of what was happening to me, and what was going to happen to me.

         It was the crux--the cross point. This is what Christians mean when they say that in Baptism we die and  rise again with Christ. This is what we mean when we say we have been crucified with Christ, that on the cross He offered up not only His life, but our lives as well.

         And thus it became luminously clear to me as I fitfully thought through these questions, lying there on the hospital bed: I had already died! My death is behind me!

         The question of what is to happen to me now is not a question about me, but a question about Christ.

         And that question has been answered. "Christ is raised from the dead never to die again, death has no more dominion over Him."
                       
         Therefore death has no more dominion over me. At some point "it" will happen. This body will be separated from this soul, and that is a great sadness. I was not expecting it so soon...but it didn't really matter that much.....

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


        I tell you this, brethren: flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God, nor does the  perishable inherit the imperishable.

        Lo, I tell you a mystery. We shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed, in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet. For the trumpet will sound, and the dead shall be raised imperishable and we shall be changed.

        For this perishable nature must put on the imperishable, and this mortal nature must put on immortality.

        Death is swallowed up in victory.

        Thanks be to God, who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.

                                                            --1 Corinthians 15