Jesus Christ is Risen! He is Risen indeed! Alleluia!
On the first day of the week, very early in the morning, the women took the spices they had prepared and went to the tomb. They found the stone rolled away from the tomb, but when they entered, they did not find the body of the Lord Jesus. While they were wondering about this, suddenly two men in clothes that gleamed like lightning stood beside them. In their fright the women bowed down with their faces to the ground, but the men said to them, “Why do you look for the living among the dead? He is not here; he has risen! Remember how he told you, while he was still with you in Galilee: “The Son of Man must be delivered into the hands of sinful men, be crucified and on the third day be raised again.” Then they remembered his words.
Luke 24:1-8 NIV
The dawn of the Sunday after Yeshua died dawned cold and stark for his forlorn followers. Their teacher and friend, their leader and-many had hoped-their Messiah was dead and buried in a borrowed grave. His execution had been so sudden and his death so quick that they had not even had a chance to properly prepare his body in one last act of faithfulness and devotion.
It was for this purpose that the women who followed Yeshua from Galilee just weeks before, Mary Magdalene, Mary the mother of James, Salome, Joanna, and others, left in the very early morning to prepare his body. Their main concern was how they were going to move the massive stone placed before the tomb on Friday.
Imagine their surprise, then, when they discovered not only the stone rolled away, but also the soldiers they had seen their Friday gone. Inside, the tomb was empty. All that remained was the linen used to wrap Yeshua’s body. What was going on? What had happened?
Even more startling, men in dazzling white clothes appeared to them and gave them a message: “Why are you looking for the living among the dead? Yeshua has risen, just as he told you he would.” Risen? What did that mean?
Then it happened, as the women fled the tomb in confusion, and in not a small amount of wild hope, that Yeshua himself appeared to them. They had to have been terrified. These women had seen Yeshua die just days before, and now he was standing in front of them telling them not to be afraid and to go tell his disciples what had happened.
What had happened? Yeshua had returned from death, just as he promised his disciples and his followers for weeks before that fateful Friday when he was executed. Yeshua had risen from the dead. Suddenly their mourning turned to joy, their despondence to hope. There standing in front of them was the ultimate proof that their faith had been well placed: Yeshua was indeed the Messiah he promised to be.
This Yeshua, Jesus Christ the Messiah promised to mankind since there first was sin, rose from the dead, the final act of His mission of redemption to mankind. Jesus rose because, while with His death sin was conquered, with His resurrection death was conquered. Through this complete conquest, we now have the hope of forgiveness and eternity by grace through faith.
We share our astonishment with the women and the disciples that first Easter morning. It is beyond amazing that Jesus Christ is who He is to us. Our sinful minds can dimly conceive of a love so great that would cause someone to give up divine power, become a man, live a perfect life under the constant torment of the devil, the world, and the temptation to sin, then die for not His own sin but someone else’s, finally to rise to life so that same sinner can have eternal life with Him.
Yet this is exactly who our Jesus is. He did all of those things, not for some personal merit or gain, but because He loves each and every one of us so much that He was willing to conquer sin through His perfect death and restore us to eternity through His conquest of death. It is by His name, through our faith in Him granted to us by His Word and the Holy Spirit, that we share in His death and resurrection, and thereby have the hope of Heaven.
And now that we have that hope, we also have a message, to share the amazing truth of Jesus Christ as the fulfillment of God’s promise, as the conqueror of sin, hell, and death, as the promise of eternal life with a world starving for such hope. We share our amazement with our ancient sisters and brothers in Christ, now let us share our amazement with those who have not yet heard.
Jesus Christ is Risen! He is Risen indeed! Alleluia!
Jesus is the firstfruits of all those yet to be raised
