On Easter Day, we will gather to worship. If Jesus Christ were not risen, there would be no reason to come see and hear! There would be no Christian faith! There would be no Church!
We will come “since we believe that Jesus died and rose again” (1 Thessalonians 4:14)! “Jesus has been raised from the dead” (Matthew 28:7)! “Mary Magdalene went and announced to the disciples, ‘I have seen the Lord’” (John 20:18)!
Our celebration of Easter is rooted in the testimony of the New Testament’s Easter Event. Easter directs and controls our lives because it happens again and again. The Risen Lord Jesus is with us always!
- She died after a long illness, the loss deeply felt by all who knew her, none more than her children and grandchildren. But what happened then was that each member of her family who had been left behind sought and found a new direction.
- The dismissal from his job was unexpected, unannounced, swift, and cruel. One day he was on the way up, and the next he was out, his career over. He became an author, consultant, public figure and speaker. As he and his wife looked back, twenty years later, both agreed that these years had been the happiest of their life together.
- Before the invention of the new surgical procedure that removed all the cancer from his spinal cord, he was completely paralyzed. Now he was cured, but confined to a wheelchair. The next book he wrote bore the title, A Whole New Life, and proclaimed eloquently and completely that his new life was not only different but superior to the fifty years he had already lived.
The power of the risen Christ is present not just once upon a time, but constantly in new and exciting ways! Our future hope is because Easter happens again and again. Yes, death happens. But after death happens, new life begins!
CHRIST Is Risen! WE Are Risen! Alleluia! Thanks be to God!
—Pastor David Fetter
No comments:
Post a Comment