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This week, and last, we are focussing our devotions around the Easter theme. We will focus on two chapters only - Luke 23 & 24.
Please read Luke 24:1-12.
The women go to the tomb early in the morning. However, they are expecting to find a dead Jesus. They went with ‘the spices they had prepared’ to put on Jesus’ body. The angel has to remind them, we read,
‘Remember how he told you, while he was still with you in Galilee: ‘The Son of Man must be delivered over to the hands of sinners, be crucified and on the third day be raised again.’ ” Then they remembered his words.’ (Luke 24:6-8).
They had forgotten Jesus’ word of promise. The horrendous events of Good Friday have made them, and all the others, forget their hope. Paul wrote of the importance of believing in the resurrection,
‘If Christ has not been raised, our preaching is useless and so is your faith…And if Christ has not been raised, your faith is futile; you are still in your sins…If only for this life we have hope in Christ, we are of all people most to be pitied.’ (1 Corinthians 15:14, 17, 19)
If Christ has not been raised, He would remain a great heroic example of love, but we would not have a Saviour! The resurrection declares that Jesus’ sin offering was complete. It declares His victory over judgement and death. It proves that He was not mad or bad in His claims! John Stott wrote,
‘The resurrection was the conquest confirmed and announced. We are not to regard the cross as defeat and the resurrection as victory. Rather, the cross was the victory won, and the resurrection the victory endorsed, proclaimed and demonstrated. ‘It was impossible for death to keep its hold on him’, because death had already been defeated. The evil principalities and powers, which had been deprived of their weapons and their dignity at the cross, were now in consequence put under his feet and made subject to him’ (The Cross of Christ).
RESPONSE
May we not allow the circumstances, however bleak, to make us forget Jesus’ promise of resurrection. I encourage you this week to prayerfully read through the accounts of the resurrection in each of the gospels.
Here is a fantastic resurrection hymn for you:
COMMUNITY GROUP STUDY – COMING SOON
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