Remembering The Resurrection

REMEMBERING THE RESURRECTION

Text: Luke 24: 1-9

Intro: I suppose it is befitting that Easter is the first holiday of spring. After all, spring is the season of the year when the earth begins to bud forth with new life. That is very much what Easter is all about. It is the celebration of the resurrection of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ.

Most all who have been saved for any length of time realizes that colored eggs and bunny rabbits have nothing to do with the real meaning of Easter. In actuality, the practice of coloring eggs at Easter has its origin in the worship of Astarte. The story goes that an egg of wondrous size fell from heaven into the Euphrates River. The fish rolled the egg to shore, whereupon the doves settled on it and hatched it. From the egg, so goes the legend, came the goddess Astarte (The Two Babylons, pg. 109). I don’t feel that you’re some kind of heathen for allowing your children to color eggs and hunt them. However, I thought you might like to know where the practice came from.

No, Easter is not the celebration of a goddess being hatched from an egg. It is the celebration of our Savior, who died on a cruel cross, was buried in a tomb, and rose from the dead after three days. Another cause for celebration with reference to our Lord’s victory over death is that His victory is our victory (Rom.6: 4 & 5). This is not merely a tale. It’s the gospel truth.

I want us to remember the resurrection of our Lord on this special day. It was and is a vitally important event. Had Jesus not resurrected from the grave, God’s salvation plan would have been invalid, meaning that you and I would never have known the joy of becoming God’s child.

Theme: Christ’s resurrection meant:

I. VICTORY OVER DEATH

A. Christ Could Not Be Held By Death’s Prison.

Acts 2: 23 “Him, being delivered by the determinate counsel and foreknowledge of God, ye have taken, and by wicked hands have crucified and slain:

24 Whom God hath raised up, having loosed the pains of death: because it was not possible that he should be holden of it.”

1. The power of Christ overwhelmed the power of death.

John 10: 18 “No man taketh it (His life) from me, but I lay it down of myself. I have power to lay it down, and I have power to take it again. This commandment have I received of my Father.”

NOTE: The great joy of Easter is not finding a colored egg that had been cleverly hidden. The great joy of Easter is knowing that the tomb is empty.

The Empty Tomb

Little Philip, born with Down’s syndrome, attended a third-grade Sunday School class with several eight-year-old boys and girls. Typical of that age, the children did not readily accept Philip with his differences, according to an article in leadership magazine. But because of a creative teacher, they began to care about Philip and accept him as part of the group, though not fully.

The Sunday after Easter the teacher brought Leggs pantyhose containers, the kind that look like large eggs. Each receiving one, the children were told to go outside on that lovely spring day, find some symbol for new life, and put it in the egg-like container. Back in the classroom, they would share their new-life symbols, opening the containers one by one in surprise fashion. After running about the church property in wild confusion, the students returned to the classroom and placed the containers on the table.

Surrounded by the children, the teacher began to open them one by one. After each one, whether a flower, butterfly, or leaf, the class would ooh and ahh. Then one was opened, revealing nothing inside. The children exclaimed, “That’s stupid. That’s not fair. Somebody didn’t do their assignment.”

Philip spoke up, “That’s mine.”

“Philip, you don’t ever do things right!” the student retorted. “There’s nothing there!”

I did so do it,” Philip insisted. “I did do it. It’s empty. The tomb was empty!”

Silence followed. From then on Philip became a full member of the class. He died not long afterward from an infection most normal children would have shrugged off. At the funeral this class of eight-year-olds marched up to the altar not with flowers, but with their Sunday school teacher, each to lay on it an empty pantyhose egg.

Source unknown

2. The resurrection proved Christ’s deity.

Rom.1: 3 “Concerning his Son Jesus Christ our Lord, which was made of the seed of David according to the flesh;

4 And declared to be the Son of God with power, according to the spirit of holiness, by the resurrection from the dead:”