Resurrection Sunday

Well… today is Easter Sunday, and I’ll just tell you right up front, I don’t usually call it Easter Sunday, I call it Resurrection Sunday. Because that’s what today is all about. The resurrection of Jesus Christ. And I admit, that when I was a kid, I didn’t really understand what this holiday was all about…nor did I care, because it was about the candy, the gifts we received, and the week out of school, in-fact; it wasn’t until I became a Christian that I really understood it. But over the years, as I’ve grown in my faith, I’ve come to appreciate Resurrection Sunday more and more, because this day, some 2000 years ago give me the greatest gift I could have ever received…freedom from death in the lake of fire!

You see, Jesus paved the way for my everlasting life in heaven when He beat death and the tomb and was resurrected back to everlasting life.

So, what I want to do this morning is talk to you a little bit about that. I want to talk to you about how we can be sure that Jesus was raised up from the dead, and what His resurrection means for each one of us, those who have put our faith and trust in Him as Lord and Savior.

Moreover, brethren, I declare to you the gospel which I preached to you, which also you received and in which you stand, by which also you are saved, if you hold fast that word which I preached to you—unless you believed in vain.

For I delivered to you first of all that which I also received: that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, and that He was buried, and that He rose again the third day according to the Scriptures, and that He was seen by Cephas, then by the twelve.

After that He was seen by over five hundred brethren at once, of whom the greater part remain to the present, but some have fallen asleep. After that He was seen by James, then by all the apostles. Then last of all He was seen by me also, as by one born out of due time.

1 Corinthians 15:1-8

Now this was the Apostle Paul writing to believers in the city of Corinth, and in this letter, he talks to them about all kinds of things. Things they needed to be doing, and things that the needed to stop doing, but when he gets to this section of the letter, he says to them, “Now guys, I’ve talked to you about a lot of things… But I want to remind you of the Gospel that I preached to you (the Good News I told you about).” And then he says, “And here’s what’s most important: Christ died for our sins in accordance with the Scriptures, He was buried, and He was raised on the third day, in accordance with the Scriptures.” Paul is stressing the point, as I try to stress the point, that it all happened according to the Word of God, the plan of God. The Word that we read today, which is just as true back then when Paul spoke about it and wrote about it. Although this letter is addressed to the church in Corinth, it is addressed to us as well.

Here’s how it went down. Jesus went to the cross and died on the cross on Friday. Paul just told us why Jesus did that – to pay for our sins. All of us have sinned against God. We’ve rebelled against Him, we’ve disobeyed Him, we’ve ignored Him. We’ve lied, we’ve cheated, we’ve coveted, we’ve lusted, we’ve had hatred in our hearts. We may not have done all those things, but we have done one or two of them.

We all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God. And the Bible tells us that there are none who are righteous, no not one. When God looked down upon humanity, we all stood guilty before Him. And God could’ve said, “They’re all guilty, I’m going to punish them all.” And that would have been just, and fair if He had said that, or done that. But instead, when God looked down upon humanity, and saw that all of mankind was guilty of sin, and as His justice demanded punishment for that sin, the Christ said, “Father, I’ll take the punishment.” So, God comes into the world as a man in the body of the person we call Jesus, and He lives the life that we should have lived… a life without sin, and then He goes to the cross, where our sin is laid upon Him. And instead of God pouring His wrath out on us, He pours it out on His Son – Jesus. And Jesus takes our punishment and then dies in our place. He was then placed in the tomb before the sun went down on that same Friday. He was in the tomb all day Saturday, and then early Sunday morning, He rose from the dead.