Tag: Jesus’ resurrection

Good News

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Happy Easter Monday! Everything has been leading to this. Jesus’ last week before His death on a Roman cross was action-packed to say the least. Just the things He said and did then have changed the world many times over. But as He always knew, the cross was coming, and come it did. What seemed like a total defeat for Jesus’ fledgling movement turned out to be the catalyst for its total success. On the third day, much to everyone’s surprise, Jesus was alive again. As we finish up our series, A Journey to the Cross with Mark, let’s talk about why this surprising news was just so good.

P.S. This will be the only post for this week. We are taking a few days off as a family. I’ll look forward to being back with you next week!

Good News

Have you ever had something good happen that you didn’t expect? That’s always fun. You’re just humming along, minding your own business, and then, BAM! Something happens to totally make your day. Everybody needs a day like that at least once in a while. What’s even more fun, though, is watching somebody else react to some unexpected good news. If you can catch it right, you can see the dawn of realization come on their face. You can watch as the clouds of confusion gradually lift and they experience the sheer joy of the moment. Videos of little kids reacting to a military parent surprising them with an unexpected homecoming come to mind here. Those things make me tear up every single time I see one. What may be the most fun of all, though, is seeing someone react to something good that they don’t even have a category for until they experience it. In those moments, you can almost watch their brains short-circuit. If they were a computer, their screen would just be flashing a “does not compute” message over and over again as their synapses were trying to figure out how to process the news in ways that will make any kind of sense out of what they are experiencing. And then the joy on the other side of the wall is often the purest, most intense joy you will find. Well, this morning, I want to talk with you for a few minutes about some people who had just this kind of an experience. 

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Digging in Deeper: Hebrews 2:14-15

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“Now since the children have flesh and blood in common, Jesus also shared in these, so that through his death he might destroy the one holding the power of death – that is, the devil – and free those who were held in slavery all their lives by the fear of death.” (CSB – Read the chapter)

Death has always been the great equalizer. Everyone dies eventually, should our Lord tarry. It doesn’t matter how wealthy or poor you happen to be. No amount of privilege or bad luck will impact this ultimate outcome. People of great resources have occasionally tried to put it off for as long as they can, but their efforts always prove futile in the end, all the resources put toward that end wasted. And although some have tried to make all of this sound poetic and beautiful, for most people it has been and remains terrifying. Jesus broke that fear. Let’s talk about how.

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Morning Musing: Mark 15:47; 16:2-4

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“Mary Magdalene and Mary the mother of Joses were watching where he was laid. . .Very early in the morning, on the first day of the week, they went to the tomb at sunrise. They were saying to one another, ‘Who will roll away the stone from the entrance to the tomb for us?’ Looking up, they noticed that the stone – which was very large – had been rolled away.” (CSB – Read chapter 15 here, and 16 here)

Have you ever mourned a missed opportunity? You had the chance to do something, but didn’t take it. And then it was gone. There was nothing you could do about it. It was too late. You simply missed it. As Jesus’ body was laid in His tomb, His followers all thought that He had missed an opportunity and them with Him. He had missed an opportunity to do an even greater good with His life. But now He was dead, and the opportunity was gone. If only they knew…

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Morning Musing: Mark 14:22-24

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“As they were eating, he took bread, blessed and broke it, gave it to them, and said, ‘Take it; this is my body.’ Then he took a cup, and after giving thanks, he gave it to them, and they all drank from it. He said to them, ‘This is my blood of the covenant, which is poured out for many.'” (CSB – Read the chapter)

What is the Lord’s Supper? Or, depending on your tradition, what is the Eucharist? The answers to those questions are perhaps wider ranging than you might expect. Not concerning ourselves with theological distinctions for the moment, the Lord’s Supper is one of the two most significant Christian acts of worship there is. The other is baptism, but that is a discussion for another time. Followers of Jesus have been observing the Lord’s Supper (or, again, depending on your tradition, celebrating the Eucharist or Holy Communion) since the very beginning of the church’s history. A church that doesn’t observe this tradition in some form or fashion can openly be questioned as to whether they are a church at all. Yet what is it? Well, a full answer to that question is well beyond the scope of this brief reflection, but as we come to the most foundational passage on the matter, let’s reflect for just a minute on what is the most important thing to remember about it.

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Morning Musing: Mark 9:9-10

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“As they were coming down the mountain, he ordered them to tell no one what they had seen until the Son of Man had risen from the dead. They kept this word to themselves questioning what ‘rising from the dead’ meant.” (CSB – Read the chapter)

Has anyone ever entrusted you with a secret? That’s always a powerful feeling. You know something that most of the people around you do not know. You have an up on them. Whatever else happens, you’re starting things with the playing field tilted just a bit in your direction. At least, that works if you understand what the secret means. Has someone ever asked you to keep a secret, but you didn’t have any idea what it meant? That’s the position Jesus put the disciples in as they were coming down from their mountaintop experience with Him. Let’s talk about what that means for us.

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