Do You Believe In The Resurrection?

Do You Believe In the Resurrection?

We often elevate Christmas, the birth of Jesus, as the best Christian holiday! Hey, ya get presents, right! On Easter, all ya get are some chocolate bunnies and hard boiled eggs!

You know when you color them some of the eggs crack and get color inside and my mom would still make us eat them even tho they looked so gross! But, except for that, IMO passion week around Easter is the pinnacle of the which is the death, burial, and resurrection that happened Christian faith! Like if Christ was born, and decided to let the cup of God’s wrath pass from him, and just said, “peace out”, we would have no hope! But Christ went all the way for us! So yeah, we need both Christmas and the Resurrection Sunday and to me that’s the more important one!

Of course, what He did for us is pretty epic! He died for our sins! But again, if that’s all He did, we would have no hope! He would have been deemed a false god! But, no, He rose from the dead as He said He would and proved His divinity and saving power! Some religions say Jesus was just a man and that’s all He was but His resurrection was seen by many and there is an empty tomb for us to prove to this day that He is God! Many will say, a man can’t come back from the dead. The Sadducees didn’t believe in the resurrection and (obligatory) they were sad you see! But instead, three days later, Jesus proved He is more than just a man! He is God!

You’ve heard of Luke 2 which is the popular Christmas story of all the gospels. Today we will read John 20 this morning which is one of the Resurrection stories in the gospels!

John 20:1 The empty tomb

1 Early on the first day of the week, while it was still dark, Mary Magdalene went to the tomb and saw that the stone had been removed from the entrance. 2 So she came running to Simon Peter and the other disciple, the one Jesus loved, and said, “They have taken the Lord out of the tomb, and we don’t know where they have put him!”

The Gospel of Luke 24 tells us that it wasn’t just Mary Magdalene, but also Joanna, Mary the mother of James, and others.

They had gone to the tomb to put spices on Jesus’ body and they were even wondering how they would remove the stone (about 2 tons) but when they got there they were perplexed that the stone was already rolled away! And Jesus was not in there.

Would you have believed in Jesus’ resurrection even if someone told you it was going to happen beforehand?

The Gospel of Luke 24 also tells us that when the ladies reported what they saw, they didn’t believe it either! Their curiosity was peaked, tho! Wouldn’t you want to go see for yourself too?

3 So Peter and the other disciple started for the tomb. 4 Both were running, but the other disciple outran Peter and reached the tomb first. 5 He bent over and looked in at the strips of linen lying there but did not go in. 6 Then Simon Peter came along behind him and went straight into the tomb. He saw the strips of linen lying there, 7 as well as the cloth that had been wrapped around Jesus’ head. The cloth was still lying in its place, separate from the linen. 8 Finally the other disciple, who had reached the tomb first, also went inside. He saw and believed. 9 (They still did not understand from Scripture that Jesus had to rise from the dead.) 10 Then the disciples went back to where they were staying.

The other disciple is John, the writer of this Epistle. They got to the tomb and confirmed that Jesus was not there. They saw the linens and the stone rolled away. So they ran back to tell the others! Why didn’t the others also go to the tomb?

Jesus Appears to Mary Magdalene

11 Now Mary stood outside the tomb crying. As she wept, she bent over to look into the tomb 12 and saw two angels in white, seated where Jesus’ body had been, one at the head and the other at the foot.

13 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.” 14 At this, she turned around and saw Jesus standing there, but she did not realize that it was Jesus.

15 He asked her, “Woman, why are you crying? Who is it you are looking for?”