The Power Of Life Series

The Power of Life

(Mt.28:1-7;16-20)

Each Easter we celebrate the victory of Jesus Christ rising from the dead: “up from the grave He arose (we sing) with a mighty triumph oer His foes; He arose a victor from the dark domain, and He lives forever with His saints to reign…Hallelujah! Christ arose.”

This bodily resurrection of Jesus was real and true and most of all a living example of what He said to His disciples in verse 28:

“all power (all authority) has been given to Me in heaven and on earth…” including the power to rise from the dead and triumph over the forces of evil.

What can be disappointing to us is that even though we believe in the resurrection, we seldom experience the power of Jesus Christ in our lives.

--the family member with the health problem or the money problem or the growing-up problem

still has the problem and all this time you have been hoping and praying it would be different. It may be in your own life or in his or her life the wish remains the same—I want

me or him or her to have things work out right; instead things remain the same or worse.

Like the war on terrorism and this latest activity in Iraq—all the money and effort and personal sacrifice spent to make the world better, safer; but will it be? It would seem so when we

look at the aftermath of World War II and the defeat of Hitler or a few years ago in Bosnia,

when it was Milosevec and his regime that was defeated. And if we do make the world

“safer for democracy” does that mean the world will be better morally and economically and most important of all spiritually?

No matter how triumphant is the theme of Easter, you and I come to church this morning with problems and difficulties in our lives. And as much as Jesus Christ has done and continues

to do on our behalf, there remains this terminal illness in my body; there continues this

intractable sin I can’t get free of, or I’m no more holier now than I was a year ago.

So what does it mean to me if Jesus says: all power has been given to Me in heaven and on earth. How about if Jesus would give some of that power to me so I could get a few things in

my life straighten out and taken care of. The Bible is full of examples of Jesus (God) doing just that—of giving His power to His children. The Bible says: “and the spirit of the Lord

came upon …” And the spirit of the Lord came upon Samson and with the jawbone of a donkey he killed a 1000 Philistines- took care of his problem that day when the enemy was attacking him. In Revelation, John says in verse 10, I was in the Spirit of the Lord and the Lord spoke telling me to write this book and today we have that book God gave him to write- a book that describes our future and our hope, the Book of Revelation. Why do we have the book of Revelation because the power of the Lord was given to John in this case not to defeat Philistines but to write of divine events that were to take place years in the future.

And no doubt if you were to take an inventory of your life there have been those times, those

moments when something far greater than you was at work in you to heal, to instruct, to rescue you and in the night you said a silent prayer of thanks to God. Like the time Desiree or Isaiah may have been going through a critical health issue and more than doctors or medicines were on the scene- the power of the risen Christ was again made known to you and me.

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Reviewing this past week called holy week by the church, we see Jesus celebrating the last supper with His disciples in the upper room and then the crucifixion and death upon the cross and then the three day wait and the marvelous resurrection from the tomb. The analogy can be

made to a class room of students in which the teacher leaves the room and tells the students he will return. During our school years we have all experienced such a time and can remember the longer the teacher was away from the room, the more likely the class was to lose its order and discipline. In time without the teacher there, talking would start, then would follow more

bold and mischievous behavior by some. But when the teacher returned, the talking and the

horseplay stopped, because the one with the power was present again.