Snapshots From The Bible WK13. Luke 24:v1-8. The Resurrection.

 

Luke 24: 1-8

 ‘1: But on the first day of the week, at early dawn, they went to the tomb, taking the spices which they had prepared. 2: And they found the stone rolled away from the tomb, 3: but when they went in they did not find the body. 4: While they were perplexed about this, behold, two men stood by them in dazzling apparel; 5: and as they were frightened and bowed their faces to the ground, the men said to them, "Why do you seek the living among the dead? 6: Remember how he told you, while he was still in Galilee, 7: that the Son of man must be delivered into the hands of sinful men, and be crucified, and on the third day rise." 8: And they remembered his words, 9: and returning from the tomb they told all this to the eleven and to all the rest.’

Easter Sunday- time to consider the story of Jesus’ resurrection; central to the Christian Faith.

If we regard God as the almighty and omnipotent power we should have no problem in believing this story. The point about God is that He is free to do anything He chooses and will use means that we are able to relate to in order to draw us to Him. The Resurrection is perfectly credible considering that almighty powers are beyond our understanding; therefore the Son of God is clearly capable of rising from the dead to fulfil God’s word as revealed in prophecies of old. To us, revival from stone dead after 3 days is impossible however the power of God makes all things possible so who are we to discredit this story without any real evidence to the contrary? 

Living in modern Western society we require a great deal of understanding and imagination to even relate to the idea of people being put to death on a cross, let alone all the other details of this special event. However, we know from history that many really cruel things happened that are shocking to us-  Roman gladiators killed each other for sport, slaves were treated incredibly cruelly, depicted recently in the film ‘Django,’ ethnic cleansing was horrendous and widespread and barbaric goings on were commonplace as reviewed in the Horrible Histories,’.

The difference here is that one person, Jesus, was betrayed, ganged up on and put to death in a cruel fashion for the good of all mankind. In some ways it makes no sense and in others, perfect sense, depending on your views and thoughts. If I am correct, God was always 3 in 1- Father, Son and Holy Spirit. That in itself is somewhat surprising as we would initially consider God to be just one power, one component yet we humans have been given 3 components; body, mind and soul without which we would not be able to function, so all things considered, this makes sense.  

What form Jesus took as God’s Son before His birth as a human we do not know, neither do we know the issues He faced upon becoming independent in this manner, except that He had to be obedient to His human parents treating them with respect, thereby taking a subservient role.  

What we do know is that Jesus made the choice to carry out this phenomenal sacrifice and was resigned to it as opposed to embracing it on His own behalf. His distress was obvious when acknowledging God’s will and He chose to do what He knew to be right despite having the power to walk away. That is a great lesson for us in times of pain and challenge. 

What do we get from all this? Grace. Eternal grace in the form of acceptance into God’s kingdom as a result of Jesus’ sacrifice.  We are told that we just have to believe, accept and ask for forgiveness of our sins in order to accept this gift. This is where our personal faith and philosophies come in, so to one and all regardless of personal belief, have a Happy Easter! 

Jaz McKenzie

 

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