The Second Lesson stresses the importance of Christ's Bodily resurrection. A well-known Christian author claimed that the angel came:
Wrong. Removing the stone offered specific, undeniable evidence of his bodily resurrection...and
While having Jesus simply vanish from a closed tomb:
Seeing him ALIVE FROM the OPEN tomb:
Having Jesus simply disappear from a CLOSED tomb:
Exactly what liberal theologians to this day suggest:
Instead, Christ's Mighty Personal Triumph:
Third, Christ's bodily resurrection constitutes BARE-KNUCKLE evidence. God often offers needed gentle touches to life. They're his gifts:
That's all fine for distractions in life. But for proof of Christ's resurrection we need:
Bringing HOPE to all who accept him as Savior and Lord:
Whatever our age here we have yet to begin living. However close to our end here, we experience in Christ Alone the beginning of an adventure that HAS NO END. Fini
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Consider three lessons learned from Christ's bodily resurrection. The first today, the others tomorrow. I preached all three at length April 17 in lieu of the first three parts in this blog.
In the Spring of 1863, General Grant sent Colonel Benjamin Grierson's cavalry on a 300 mile penetration of the South, Memphis to Baton Rouge. On his arrival Grierson telegraphed Grant: the South is an empty shell. Which is what Christ's resurrection proved death to be: an empty shell, boasting victories it couldn't defend against Christ's counter attacks; successes Christ's resurrection turned into defeat; claims about life that Christ's resurrection exposed as Satan's lies, and more lies! A giant boulder rolled from the hills above Pacific Coast Highway a few years ago, rammed through barriers built to prevent such intrusions, and exploded like a bomb on the highway. Since it couldn't be removed intact, Caltrans officials drilled holes in the rock, planted dynamite sticks and ignited them. It worked, blasting the stony immensity into movable pieces. Jesus exploded death from inside death, leaving it conquered, a shambles, an empty shell, a powerless braggart.... Read Hebrews 2:14-18 to see how that provisions Christians with confident hope at every grave! End Part IV Simultaneously, as dust settled, and air cleared, the soldiers saw a gigantic Being in white appear—as a pillar of light emerge outside the tomb:
Walking to the stone:
Leaving the entire Roman guard:
Hardly had they adjusted to that shock when:
Before it cascaded into the garden as an exponential radiance. All of which dimmed when Jesus Christ himself bounded from the tomb:
And that, dear readers, is this writer's poor description of Christ's resurrection. End Part III Next: what lessons can we learn from it? Relaxation from the previous unsettling mood of creation lasted only momentarily...for:
There it stopped and seemed to pause:
In those stony depths, the tremor stopped: and
As it exploded...unseen inside the grave, the corpse of Jesus the Nazarene
Up he stood, light from his eyes illuminating the dark:
Simultaneously...outside...as the dust settled.... (This re-creation imagines some of the side-lights of Christ's bodily resurrection.)
The 16-man detachment ordered to guard the tomb of Jesus rotated on and off duty as sunset approached, Saturday of passion Week. The first three-hour watch occurred from 6-9 PM, the second 9-12 Midnight, the third Midnight-3 AM, the fourth, 3-6 AM. Sometime between 3-6 AM Sunday—likely between 4-5—God changed human history. In those hours:
EXCEPT...God had other plans for that first Resurrection Sunday. The songs that awakened the land suddenly, inexplicably and fearfully:
The sudden Quiet even awakened the men asleep:
After what seemed interminable delay, to their relief:
And next? Humanists can face death bravely, joining billions of mortals who have endured loss and hardship throughout history. And all without the army of experts on whom our culture now depends to get us through difficulties.
But do not be deceived. Humanists can only glory in the person’s memory, nothing more. Of course, they boast of THAT, what they can do. They never mention what they can’t! Of course, they dismiss what they CAN’T as irrelevant, but that only masks their refusal to face embarrassing questions about the after-life. Shakespeare had a more Biblical view. In Henry VI he had the Duke of Gloucester say, “My lord, ‘tis but a base, ignoble mind That mounts no higher than a bird can soar” A2 S1 Ll13-14. And ‘tis but an ignoble mind that soars no higher than this world’s concerns. For it can never affirmatively hope for Resurrection beyond death. William Ernest Henley wrote the poem Invictus, in which he gloried in his unconquerable will. The poem seethed with human arrogance. “I thank whatever gods may be...” he wrote in the first stanza. Whatever gods may be? As if the Living, Eternal God doesn’t exist! “Beyond this place of wrath and tears Looms but the Horror of the shade....,” he wrote in the third. The “horror of the shade?” As if only despair lurked beyond the grave? Trust no one, including yourself, who at the end leaves you staring into the dark....when Jesus Christ has brought life and immortality to light through the Gospel! Trust no one, including yourself, who at the end leaves you NOWHERE when you GET THERE....when Jesus Christ promises to conduct every believer into God’s Personal Presence in the New Jerusalem where infinite Joys await! Fini Alabama football coach Bear Bryant closed his career in December, 1982, by winning the Liberty Bowl. When a reporter at a news conference before the game asked what he would do differently in his life, Bryant replied, “First off, I wish I could have been a better Christians.”
In that response Bear Bryant proved himself aware of the Christian’s most powerful hope: resurrection of the body changed and fit for God’s new world. Not just hope for immortality of the spirit—which even Greek philosophy allowed—but for a new resurrected body—which Greek philosophy denied. The ages-old question, then, isn’t merely, “If we die, shall we live again?” But, “If we rise from the dead, shall we be different from what we now know?” Yes, Yes, Yes! In a Gunsmoke TV show, Actor jack Albertson played Danny, whose terminal heart disease would soon kill him. He conspired to defraud Scott Brady, who played a greedy saloon keeper who had hired men to kill Matt Dillon. At the end of the show Brady killed Danny and was arrested. Indiana, an alcoholic played by Vito Scotti, and a friend of Danny’s, came upon the scene with Danny dead in the street. As Indiana neared he began shouting, “Danny Wilson, where are you? Danny Wilson, where are you?” Kneeling at the corpse Doc Adams, turned and said to Kitty, “That’s the most relevant question I’ve ever heard.” And he was right. For it’s really the ultimate question facing every human. WHERE ARE WE after we take our last breath and the next person we see is God Almighty on his throne, with Jesus Christ sitting at his right hand? End Part I |
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