After the Sabbath, as the first day of the week was dawning, Mary Magdalene and the other Mary went to see the tomb. And suddenly there was a great earthquake, for an angel of the Lord, descending from heaven, came and rolled back the stone and sat on it. His appearance was like lightning and his clothing white as snow. For fear of him the guards shook and became like dead men.
But the angel said to the women, “Do not be afraid, for I know that you are looking for Jesus who was crucified. He is not here, for he has been raised, as he said. Come, see the place where he lay. Then go quickly and tell his disciples, ‘He has been raised from the dead, and indeed he is going ahead of you to Galilee; there you will see him.’ This is my message for you.”
So they left the tomb quickly with fear and great joy and ran to tell his disciples. Suddenly Jesus met them and said, “Greetings!” And they came to him, took hold of his feet, and worshiped him. Then Jesus said to them, “Do not be afraid; go and tell my brothers and sisters to go to Galilee; there they will see me.” (NRSVUE)
“Christ is risen!”
“Christ is risen, indeed! Alleluia!”
“The Lord suffered for the sake of him who suffered, and was bound for the sake of him who was imprisoned, and was judged for the sake of the condemned, and was buried for the sake of the buried. So come, all families of human beings who are defiled by sins, and receive remission of sins.
“For I am your remission, I am the Passover of salvation. I am the Lamb sacrificed for your sake. I am your ransom. I am your life. I am your Resurrection. I am your light. I am your salvation. I am your King. I lead you toward the heights of heaven. I will show you the eternal Father. I will raise you up with my right hand.” Melito, Bishop of Sardis (died c.190 C.E.)
So, why not today, of all days on the calendar? Why not experience miracles on this Day of Resurrection in which new life abounds? Why not sense the power of Christ’s Resurrection coursing through your spiritual veins? For this is the day of new beginnings, leaving old grudges and bitterness behind. This is the day of deliverance from all things which hinder us from knowing God and seeing the Savior.
O God, of unchangeable power and eternal light: Look favorably on your whole Church, that wonderful and sacred mystery; by the effectual working of your providence, carry out in tranquility the plan of salvation; let the whole world see and know that things which were cast down are being raised up, and things which had grown old are being made new, and that all things are being brought to their perfection by him through whom all things are made, your Son Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.
The story of Christianity, the very heart and essence of the religion, is a tale of transformation from all the obstacles, impediments, and barriers which confine or cripple. The person and work of Jesus accomplished this. In his earthly ministry, Christ continually called people to transformative change into the reality of God’s gracious and benevolent realm.
“I have come to give the good life, a life that overflows with beauty and harmony.”
Jesus(John 10:10, First Nations Version)
Christ’s resurrection made possible our own transformative new life. This is both exciting and scary. Resurrection is frightening because it’s a call to live a life without any of the walls which have defined us and/or imprisoned us.
The massive stone covering the tomb of Jesus Christ was rolled away. He walked out of the grave by the power of resurrection. The cave of death was changed into the place of liberation.
That place is a powerful image of moving aside any and all obstacles to our own faith and freedom. The prison doors have been opened. Our self-contrived inner prisons, as well as the unjust shackles placed upon us, have dropped away.
As a result, those who have been exiled, excommunicated, and treated as expendable are visited by the luminous healing presence of God’s great liberating force: resurrection.
I want to fully know the Chosen One [Jesus] and the power that raised him from the dead. I want to know what it means to participate in his sufferings and to become like him in his death, living in the hope that, like the Chosen One, I will also rise from death to life. (Philippians 3:10-11, First Nations Version)
All of these words may either seem strange and/or compelling. If this is the case, it is a sad situation. Because it’s quite necessary that we become familiar with such language. Unfortunately, the gap between the world we are presently living in, and the world our hearts yearn to know, is quickly coming to an unsustainable place of high stress.
There is now a profound disconnect between the love deep inside us, and the way in which we are living our day-to-day lives on this earth. The issue has become so great as to warrant the need for resurrection.
And I am not simply addressing Christians. In his earthly ministry, Jesus was not only talking to his own Jewish people; he came for the whole world. Jesus is for everyone – whether we acknowledge him according to Christian dogma and doctrine, or not.
The evil gaslighting sort of person wants you to believe that you are alone, bereft of any help – that somehow you need to assert yourself aggressively into the dog-eat-dog world. Wickedness always looks to chaos and war as the path to gaining the life one wants.
But Jesus is the bridge to another kind of thinking, another sort of life. He is the guide to the greatest power which exists in the world: Love. And Love is why resurrection is a reality.
Although we suffer from systemic evil and all kinds of structural “ism’s” in this world, our shackles and chains have been largely forged by ourselves, through spiritual ignorance and misunderstandings of who we are and why we are here.
Resurrection opens us to new life. It provides identity, purpose, and passion to live the good life. Even though we live in this world below, our answers to living in the here-and-now are found in the world above.
Since you have been raised up to a new life with the Chosen One [Jesus] then keep looking upward toward him into the spirit-world above, where he sits in the place of greatest honor at Creator’s right hand. Keep your thoughts and desires centered on the spirit-world above, not on the things from the earth below. (Colossians 3:1-2, First Nations Version)
All of us have experienced walking a dark path in life. But now it is high time to walk away from uncontrolled emotions and evil ways. There are plenty of lying spirits who intend on deceiving you and I for their own selfish purposes. Instead, we can refuse and resist such evil.
We can live in ways that represent the good, the right, and the just. We can experience living a resurrected life. Let us choose the pure path of the new person in Christ, the person you and I were created to be.
The telltale signs of the person living into resurrection are a deep feeling for the pain of others, kindness, humility of heart, a gentle spirit, and long-suffering patience with others. Such persons wear forgiveness like a well-worn pair of jeans.
This is the path of resurrection, the way of unity, peace, and harmony. And these qualities will always guide us and inform us in helpful and sacred ways.
Our current global decline comes from an accumulation of greed and sheer lovelessness. But the possibility of rebirth, of resurrection, rises from our deep universal yearning for the good and the true. It comes from our radical willingness to change and live a different counter-cultural life.
Resurrection does not occur because of lofty thoughts; it comes from a humble, and contrite heart which yearns for a better and more sacred existence.
Only until we find our present life on this world as intolerable with its injustice and persistent carelessness, will we see that we must put love where love is not.
The great lesson of resurrection is that Love makes all things right.
Dear friends, let’s love each other, because love is from God, and everyone who loves is born from God and knows God. The person who doesn’t love does not know God, because God is love. This is how the love of God is revealed to us: God has sent his only Son into the world so that we can live through him. (1 John 4:7-9, Common English Bible)
May resurrection move from being merely a theological concept, to a powerful reality that permeates and fills your life with meaning, power, and love. Amen.
Jesus Christ and the Apostles, by Nikolas Martínez Ortiz de Zarate (1907-1990)
But whatever were gains to me I now consider loss for the sake of Christ. What is more, I consider everything a loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, for whose sake I have lost all things. I consider them garbage, that I may gain Christ and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that which is through faith in Christ—the righteousness that comes from God on the basis of faith.
I want to know Christ—yes, to know the power of his resurrection and participation in his sufferings, becoming like him in his death, and so, somehow, attaining to the resurrection from the dead. (New International Version)
Whenever someone asks me what my favorite portion of Holy Scripture is, I reflexively turn to these verses in our New Testament lesson for today.
I resonate with these words from the Apostle Paul to the Church at Philippi, because they match what I truly believe, and how I really feel about Jesus.
We go through a lot of loss in this earthly life. We experience hardship and adversity. We grieve and lament.
Some of the losses in this life, we are okay with, or at least, we come around to being okay with them after a bit of time. Yet, there are other losses that are heartrending.
On the flipside, there are many gains we experience in this life. Some of them we worked very hard for, and others came to us as gifts.
Oftentimes, our gains and our losses are inextricably bound with each other. Something we consider precious is lost. We may even choose to set aside or give up something we have – we allow it become lost – so that we can gain something even better.
At other times, the process of gaining, losing, then gaining something good was not purposed by us, but by God.
And, to me, that’s probably the best sort of good there is.
Another way of putting the matter is: We must let go and accept how something or someone is, before we can experience what a truly good life really is.
Jesus, by Ghanshyam Gupta
Allow me, or please indulge me, as I frame the Apostle’s words in my own sort of language:
Anything in this life that I have achieved; anything I have come to possess; any sort of position or title I hold or have held; any kind of identification I have, or prestige I have gained, is of no value. In reality, it’s all rather worthless.
If you will let me take it even further, compared to having an authentic, real, and experiential relationship with Jesus as my Savior, my Lord, and my Friend, everything else is like a bunch of garbage. That’s how much I value Jesus. There’s no other thing, no other relationship, that comes remotely close to knowing Christ.
It isn’t so much that I found Jesus, but that he found me. So, I have a faith that’s got nothing to do with keeping up appearances or rule-keeping, or keeping ahold of anything. I have the life that is truly life.
But, oh my, there is so much more to experience and to know with Jesus! I want to experientially know the power of Christ’s mighty resurrection. I want to be like him, and participate with him, as if Jesus were living his life through me.
And, I must tell you, I know that this sort of life means suffering. But I also know that this suffering puts me in solidarity with my Lord – which is exactly where I want to be.
I only want to live up to who I’m supposed to be in Christ, to be my true self, and not some faux Christian living according to mere rules and regulations. The only thing that counts to me is faith expressing itself through love.
I understand that I took a lot of liberties with the text, and elaborated on it in order to make it my own. But, truth be told, we all need to find ways to make scripture as our own.
We all must let go of some old ways and unlearn a lot of things, in order to discover new life and be united with Christ. Everyone needs to learn from the past, so that we can live a new life here in the present.
If you don’t like my words, that’s fine. You aren’t under any obligation to read them. Yet, I do believe we have an obligation to Holy Scripture, and specifically, to ingest it as if it were the best meal you’ve ever eaten.
Indeed, we end up experiencing a lot of losses in this life. Yet, with Jesus, we will never lose him, because he will never forsake us. Christ is our eternal gain. He’s alive, always living, so that we need never be concerned about him not existing anymore.
That’s my faith. That’s what I trust in, or rather whom I put my faith in, and my trust upon. It’s all about Jesus. Anything less will not stand the test of time, nor of satisfaction in life.
What will you do with Jesus?
Christ isn’t going to strongarm you into the kingdom of God. But he will doggedly go after you, and be a pester pup in your ears and an ever-present sense in your heart.
You might as well go ahead and consider him, or perhaps reconsider him, like you’ve never done before.
After all, you’ve really got nothing to lose.
We believe in one Lord, Jesus Christ,
the only Son of God, eternally begotten of the Father, God from God, Light from Light, true God from true God, begotten, not made, of one being with the Father; through him all things were made. For us and for our salvation he came down from heaven: was incarnate of the Holy Spirit and the Virgin Mary, and became truly human. For our sake he was crucified under Pontius Pilate; he suffered death and was buried. On the third day he rose again in accordance with the Scriptures; he ascended into heaven and is seated at the right hand of the Father. He will come again in glory to judge the living and the dead, and his kingdom will have no end. – The Nicene Creed, on Jesus Christ
Artdepictingcracked earth, a dry riverbed, white plastic shapes, a lack of life and the red glow of fire. The figures are separated, lacking any real connection.By artist Chris De Hoog
For we know that all creation has been groaning as in the pains of childbirth right up to the present time. And we believers also groan, even though we have the Holy Spirit within us as a foretaste of future glory, for we long for our bodies to be released from sin and suffering.
We, too, wait with eager hope for the day when God will give us our full rights as his adopted children, including the new bodies he has promised us. We were given this hope when we were saved. (If we already have something, we don’t need to hope for it. But if we look forward to something we don’t yet have, we must wait patiently and confidently.) (New Living Translation)
Salvation is not only personal; it’s also cosmic.
That is, freedom from the power of sin, death, and hell is not only for an individual person, but this deliverance is for all of creation, for the entire earth.
So then, all of creation – not just people – long for and groan for the advent of Christ. My oak tree in the backyard longs for it. My dog whines for it. When it rains, the sky is wondering how long it will have to keep up its tears.
Together with the entire cosmos, we look forward to the complete fulfillment of our inheritance as God’s creation, as God’s creatures.
Since that is true, it is Christians who need to see the privilege and responsibility of conducting ourselves with unity, harmony, and non-violence. We are to live this way because we are foreshadowing the end of the world’s story.
There is a day coming when there will be no more malevolent and selfish posturing for power and control. No more oppression and victimization. No more injustice.
And we have the chance to begin living that way now, and not only in a future time. We get to do this because of Christ.
But that doesn’t mean we don’t suffer anymore. Presently, along with all creation, we have pain like that of a woman in childbirth. This is no papercut inconvenient pain; this is “I hurt like hell” pain. That sort of pain has us awaiting the redemption of our bodies.
I work as a hospital chaplain. Every day, I see suffering, some of it unimaginable. I listen to stories of people longing for healing, and grasping at hope. And I hear plenty of groaning (both the actual physical groans, as well as the more quiet internal sighs and groans).
I say to you: The human body is not meant to be destroyed. Our physical selves are not destined for elimination. No, our bodies are meant to be redeemed; they are meant for salvation. It will not always be this way!
So, we hope.
The Christian has the confident expectation that not only is the soul redeemed, but the body, as well. We can enjoy spiritual salvation now. But we must wait for the physical deliverance. There must be patience on our part until Resurrection Day.
The Apostle Paul was calling on believers to hope. Five times he said it in only two verses. Paul was emphasizing the need for spiritual endurance because we have not yet arrived.
In case you haven’t noticed, we aren’t in heaven; this isn’t a renewed earth; people around the globe are not all presently singing kumbaya together.
Therefore, it is imperative that we live with the tension between the “now” and the “not yet.” It’s a weird existence, this Christian life. But, in reality, we exist in the paradox of being saved now, and not yet being saved.
Another way of putting this is that God’s adopted children have not yet received their inheritance.
But that doesn’t mean we’ve been left to ourselves. We have the first fruits of our salvation: the Holy Spirit.
We presently, right now, enjoy a real and significant portion of God’s freedom and deliverance. We have God’s gift of presence. There is the continuing presence of Jesus Christ with us, the blessed Holy Spirit.
And this divine presence is what today helps us to endure and hold onto hope. By holding this future hope, we learn to accept, cope, and transcend our circumstances through love.
Therefore, since we have been made right in God’s sight by faith, we have peace with God because of what Jesus Christ our Lord has done for us. Because of our faith, Christ has brought us into this place of undeserved privilege where we now stand, and we confidently and joyfully look forward to sharing God’s glory.
We can rejoice, too, when we run into problems and trials, for we know that they help us develop endurance. And endurance develops strength of character, and character strengthens our confident hope of salvation. And this hope will not lead to disappointment. For we know how dearly God loves us, because he has given us the Holy Spirit to fill our hearts with his love. (Romans 5:1-5, NLT)
The very suffering which we so often try to avoid and get out of, becomes the means of connecting us with Christ and with others.
The problem becomes the answer.
The Spirit groans with our own spirit, and we all become connected together.
I point out, however, that not everyone wants this sort of connection. There are many people who want nothing to do with solidarity.
Some folks want to remain in their own little huddle or small world; and they take offense at anyone outside of their group who seeks to understand and connect with that group’s suffering.
Although everyone’s pain and suffering is unique – and no one can fully know another’s sorrow – that does not mean solidarity and connection are impossible, or undesirable.
I don’t need to have cancer in order to connect with a cancer patient. I don’t have to become victimized to show genuine empathy and extend competent comfort. Yet, sadly, some persons only want connection and consolation from a certain person or group.
But I say to that: Who are you to tell God whom God can love you through?
To suffer is one thing, because we all must suffer in some way. But to compound your suffering by your own volition is another thing altogether.
You deserve better than harming yourself through cutting off help.
It could be that today is the day you reach out to that person you know will be there for you. Or, perhaps now is the time to quite putting off making space for prayer and reflection.
Whatever it is that you need to do, it’s okay to do it, without putting it off until tomorrow.
Lord Jesus Christ, by your patience in suffering you hallowed earthly pain and gave us the example of obedience to your Father’s will: Be near me in my time of weakness and pain; and sustain me by your grace, so that my strength and courage may not fail. Heal me according to you will; and help me always to believe that whatever happens to me here is of little account if you hold me in eternal life. Amen.
Rev. Tim Ehrhardt 