He is Risen! He has risen indeed!
The world has tried to cancel Easter and shutter church doors. Easter cannot be canceled… 2000 years ago all the forces of hell tried that and it failed. The forces of evil tried to kill the infant Jesus. Their plan failed. The same forces of evil used the political power of Rome to crucify Jesus… The forces of evil did not know they were foils in the mighty hand of God. God’s plan was to erase our broken commandments on the cross, then destroy death forever by raising “Himself” from death and the grave. A sealed tomb could not contain glorious light of the resurrection of Jesus.
Welcome to Easter! He is risen! He is risen indeed!
Maybe the “sheltering in” on this Easter Sunday has reminded us that Easter is not about our new Easter clothes. We could not shop for them this year. Thousands of Easter baskets and chocolate eggs remain on the shelves of shuttered stores. We have learned other things about ourselves and life.
Easter is about Jesus. Easter is about hope. Easter is about Jesus and His resurrection from death and the grave. Easter is knowing that death on this earth is not the end of life. Your soul, your spirit, was created by God to live forever. You know it in your soul, in your heart. The Easter event shatters all fear, because the resurrection of Jesus strips Satan of his power to hold people in the fear of death.
If, on this Easter morning you are one who feels unsure about your eternal destiny, and your heart is locked in fear then hear the truth your soul longs to hear. Jesus is alive! He has risen from the dead! He is the “hope” your heart longs to know.
We all have friends who are grieving over the recent loss of a husband or wife, a child, a parent, a friend. Death came like a ruthless thief, snatching away a treasured presence, leaving only hollow memories in its’ wake. This sadness of grief casts a spell of loneliness too powerful for spoken words or shallow songs to break. For those who do not know Jesus….. “hope” is missing.
On a Sunday morning 2000 years ago, the disciples of Jesus were hiding in a locked room. They were without hope. They were afraid to go out into the streets. Afraid to show their faces, unless there was a mask to cover their face. On this Easter we can understand their fear as we sequester behind closed doors, and shuttered windows.
There is nothing like the truth of Easter to bring hope back to life.
Easter has its own anthems:
“Easter Triumph, Easter joy
This alone can sin destroy
From sin’s power (the) Lord (has) set us free’ Alleluia!
No more can death appall,
Now no more the grave enthrall’
(Jesus) has opened paradise Alleluia!
Gloria and Bill Gaither’s familiar lyrics proclaim the Easter hope.
Because He lives I can face tomorrow
Because He lives all fear is gone
An empty grave is there to prove my Savior lives
And life is worth the living just because He lives
Easter has its own Scripture:
I know that my redeemer lives,
And on the last day, He will take His stand on the earth.
Even after my skin is destroyed
Yet in my flesh I shall see God. (Job 19:25-26)
This is the truth of Easter. This is the truth, this is the message of Easter for those locked behind closed doors, fearful to step into the light of each new day.
Easter has its own proclamation: “He is not here, He has risen from the dead.”
What great news we possess. We dare not allow shuttered windows and closed doors to snuff out our Easter joy and hope. The good news of Easter is not that Jesus lived and died, but that He died on a cross and rose from death in a resurrected, glorified body on a Sunday morning 2000 years ago.
Billy Graham wrote: “Without the resurrection, the cross is meaningless.”
"Without Jesus' death, we have no hope of God's forgiveness; and without Jesus' resurrection, we have no hope of eternal life. Like the two wings of an airplane, both are essential!"
Both the cross on which our broken commandments were nailed, and the empty tomb of Jesus have shattered the fear of death. The cross and empty grave remove the wrath of a Holy God from the human heart. Easter celebrates God’s dramatic rescue operation giving you and me a righteousness which we could not ourselves earn.
The Easter event enables us to see hope beyond the shuttered windows and locked doors. We have been told to shelter in because our national and state leaders fear….the virus stalking our streets. It lingers in the air beyond our doors. The disciples “sheltered in” after the death of their Rabbi. The fear of death that stalked the streets of Jerusalem was too much, and they were afraid. We can understand their fear.
When the resurrected Jesus entered their shuttered and dark room, their hearts were set free with hope for living. When Jesus enters a locked heart, the sun shines bright after the grief of tears at borrowed grave, or a sealed casket. “Because He lives, I can face tomorrow
Because He lives, All fear is gone.”
What a grand heritage we possess! We dare not allow Easter to be canceled, nor pass without rejoicing in and declaring our hope. It is Jesus Christ—the miraculously resurrected Son of God—who remains the object of our worship and the subject of our praise. It does not matter if we are “sheltered in our homes” or singing together beneath stained glass windows. Easter cannot be canceled.
Charles Colson in his devotion for Easter reminded us that there will always be those who seek to deny the resurrection: “…….The easiest way to get attention
during Easter is to claim the resurrection of Christ was a hoax.”
“The latest claimant is a researcher named Suzanne Marie Olsson. She says that she's convinced she has found the final resting place of Jesus—in a Muslim shrine in India. Olsson wants to exhume the body and run some DNA tests on it. Tracing the body's origins will "resolve the raging controversy," over the identity of the remains, she says.
Charles Colson said: “Don't hold your breath, Ms. Olsson. People have been trying to "resolve the raging controversy" for some two thousand years”. Some, like the Pharisees, simply paid the soldiers to say the disciples came at night and stole the body of Jesus. Through the centuries others have written books: “The Da Vinci Code”; proposing that the beaten body of Jesus swooned in the cool tomb of stone only to awaken, then marry his sweetheart, Mary Magdalene, and move to France and start a family.
The men and women who witnessed the death of Jesus; those who wrapped his breathless body with a linen shroud; those who rolled the stone to close the entrance to the tomb, knew it was watched and sealed by Roman guards. Everyone knew that Jesus was dead and buried.
Listen to the words the angel spoke to the same women who wrapped the broken and dead body of Jesus in a linen shroud. “I know you are seeking Jesus, who was crucified, He is not here, He has risen”. “God and tell his disciples.” He is risen! He is risen indeed.
To accept the words of the angel, spoken to these women in the shallows of early morning, or deny the words of the angel is always a choice. To deny the words of the disciples who with their own eyes saw and touched the visible resurrected body of Jesus in the shuttered “Upper Room” is always a choice.
In his devotion Charles Colson wrote: “How do I know the disciples are telling the truth? How do I know they are not perpetrating a hoax”.
This was his answer. “I know the resurrection is a fact, and Watergate proved it to me. This is how I know.
Twelve men testified they had seen Jesus raised from the dead, then they
proclaimed that truth for 40 years, never once denying it. Every one was beaten, tortured, stoned and put in prison. They would not have endured that if it weren't true.
Watergate embroiled 12 of the most powerful men in the world-and they couldn't keep a lie for three weeks. You're telling me 12 apostles could keep a lie for 40 years? Absolutely impossible.”
Only the resurrected glorified body of Jesus, risen from the chains of death can provide eternal peace for your soul. Jesus is the truth, the whole truth, the only truth.
Intuitively you know human death can not destroy your soul. The real you, the soul God gave you at your conception never dies. Only faith in the resurrection of Jesus opens the door to eternal life.
If, on this morning, you chose to deny the resurrection then I understand the never ending tears, that fall like rain, when you stand at the foot of an open oak casket.
On this Easter I know the words of the angel to be true. ‘Because Jesus lives I can face tomorrow, no matter the fear of cancer, nor the virus that stalks the streets where I live. Because Jesus rose from the grave with a glorified resurrected body, I know that one day when Jesus returns I too shall possess a resurrected glorified body fashioned like His. (Philippians 2:20-21)
He is risen! He is risen indeed. Amen.
