Friday
One last reminder for this week…He is still risen!
One week ago it was Good Friday and we were preparing to remember the sacrifice of our Lord on the Cross. Just five days ago we celebrated the most incredible moment in human history – the Resurrection!
I recall reading somewhere that the great artist Michelangelo once asked a fellow artist, “Why do you keep painting endless pictures on the one theme of Christ in weakness, Christ on the cross, and most of all, Christ hanging dead?” he asked. “Why do you concentrate on the passing episode as if it were the last work, as if the curtain dropped down there on disaster and defeat? That dreadful scene lasted only a few hours. But for unending eternity Christ is alive; Christ rules and reigns and triumphs.”
Michelangelo was right (in a sense). Even though the cross is vitally important because of the redemption that Jesus accomplished for us there, Christians should not emphasize His death to the exclusion of His resurrection. I think that sometimes we tend to focus on what Jesus did for us on the cross without connecting that moment of sacrifice to the eternal promise we have in His resurrection.
Jesus once said, “I am the resurrection and the life; he who believes in me shall live even if he dies, and everyone who lives and believes in me shall never die.” (John 11:25-26) The central tenet of our Christian faith this is not just whether we believe that Jesus died for us on the cross. We must also believe that He rose from the dead. The Bible says it this way: “He was delivered over to death for our sins and was raised to life for our justification.” (Romans 4:25)
Saul of Tarsus believed generally in resurrection before he met Jesus on the Damascus Road, but he did not understand the power of The Resurrection. He was a Pharisee, a member of the same Jewish sect that convinced Pontius Pilate to crucify Jesus, and Pharisees believed in resurrection. But the Paul we have come to know in the New Testament was more than a former Pharisee. He was completely transformed by his encounter with the risen Jesus. He was an Apostle, one of just a handful of men who had seen Jesus after the resurrection and were sent to preach the “good news”.
Paul said, “But if it is preached that Christ has been raised from the dead, how can some of you say that there is no resurrection of the dead? If there is no resurrection of the dead, then not even Christ has been raised. And if Christ has not been raised, our preaching is useless and so is your faith. For if the dead are not raised, then Christ has not been raised either. And if Christ has not been raised, your faith is futile; you are still in your sins.” (1 Corinthians 15:12-17) When we ask Christ to come live in our hearts, we are given the promise of resurrection. In other words, we are no longer dead to sin, but have the promise of eternal life.
Winston Churchill knew the significance of the resurrection when he said, “When a man steps out of his own grave, He is anything that he says He is, and He can do anything that he says He can do. The resurrection is not only good news, it’s the best news imaginable.”
Jeff Frazier
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