He Arose!
“Don’t be alarmed,” he said. “You are looking for Jesus the Nazarene, who was crucified. He has risen! He is not here. See the place where they laid him.”
Mark 16:6
The Resurrection is the high point of a Christians faith and the anchor of our hope. It is the foundation of the gospel, it is the guarantee of heaven. Without it, our faith is useless and we are lost.
Christ gave us a victory that we did not earn or deserve, yet we were on his mind through it all.
The apostle Paul said that the resurrection proved that Jesus was the Son of God.
“He was shown to be the Son of God when he was raised from the dead by the power of the Holy Spirit. He is Jesus Christ our Lord.”
Romans 1:4
“For the message of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God, it is our hope.”
1 Corinthians 1:18
“And if Christ has not been raised, our preaching is useless and so is your faith.”
1 Corinthians 15:14
Without the resurrection, we’d be hopeless. We’d be in sin and we’d face a Godless eternity. The resurrection of Christ should be a constant reminder of his love for us.
God does not merely declare His love. He demonstrates it on the cross.
You see, at just the right time, when we were still powerless, Christ died for the ungodly. Very rarely will anyone die for a righteous person, though for a good person someone might possibly dare to die. But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.
Romans 5:6-8
If Jesus died on the cross and was buried in the tomb, but never resurrected, there would be no hope, no forgiveness, no chance at life for any of us. It is his resurrection that makes all the difference, that gives us our foundation. It gives us a hope that no other can offer.
“Though the doors were locked, Jesus came and stood among them and said, ‘Peace be with you!’”
John 20:26
The cross shows the power of Jesus Christ. The cross is our hope. He willingly died on the cross. He took our place. He bore our sin because every one of us has sinned and “falls short of the glory of God”
Easter celebrates God raising his son Jesus from the dead as well as the destruction of the power of sin and death forever. It symbolizes the opening of Heaven with the gift of eternal life to everyone.
He has risen! He has risen indeed!
Christ’s suffering and death on the cross was not the end of the story, but only the beginning…
Happy Easter,
Connie
