Resurrection Sunday

Resurrection Sunday
Points of Interest from the Resurrection of Jesus Christ Story:
• There are at least 12 different appearances of Christ in the resurrection accounts, beginning with Mary and ending with Paul. They were physical, tangible experiences with Christ eating, speaking and allowing himself to be touched.
• Jesus’ resurrected body was different from his physical body. It was no longer subject to the same laws of nature. He could transcend locked doors, and yet he could still be touched and he could eat.
The resurrection gives my life meaning and direction and the opportunity to start over no

• Before Jesus ascended into heaven he gave the Great Commission, telling his followers to go and make disciples of all nations.

• The stone was not rolled away from the tomb so Jesus could get out.
He was able to walk through walls (John 20:19) in his resurrected body. The stone was rolled away so that everyone could see that he was risen.
God want’s the miracle of the Resurrection to shine and be know in all our lives!!!
Question for Reflection About the Resurrection of Jesus Christ::
When Jesus appeared to the two disciples on the road to Emmaus, they didn’t recognize him (Luke 24:13-33). They even talked in great length about Jesus, but they didn’t know they were in his very presence. Has Jesus, the resurrected Savior visited you, but you didn’t recognize him?
What is the Easter Miracle of the Resurrection?
The miracle of the resurrection is the most important miracle of the Christian faith. When Jesus Christ rose from the dead on the first day of the week, he showed people that the hope he proclaimed in his Gospel message was real, and so was God’s power at work in the world, for every believer!
In 1 Corinthians 15:17-22 the apostle Paul describes why the resurrection miracle is so central to Christianity: “…if Christ has not been raised, your faith is futile; you are still in your sins. Then those also who have fallen asleep [died] in Christ are lost. If only for this life we have hope in Christ, we are of all people most to be pitied. But Christ has indeed been raised from the dead, the first fruits of those who have fallen asleep. For since death came through a man, the resurrection of the dead comes also through a man. For as in Adam all die, so in Christ all will be made alive.”

Good News
All four of the Bible’s Gospel (which means “good news”) books — Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John — describe the good news that angels announced on the first day of the week: Jesus had risen from the dead, just as he told his disciples he would three days after his crucifixion.
Read -Matthew 28:1-5 describes the scene this way: “After the Sabbath, at dawn on the first day of the week, Mary Magdalene and the other Mary went to look at the tomb. There was a violent earthquake, for an angel of the Lord came down from heaven and, going to the tomb, rolled back the stone and sat on it. His appearance was like lightning, and his clothes were white as snow. The guards were so afraid of him that they shook and became like dead men. The angel said to the women, ‘Do not be afraid, for I know that you are looking for Jesus, who was crucified. He is not here; he has risen, just as he said. Come and see the place where he lay.'”
In his book God’s Story, Your Story: When His Becomes Yours, Max Lucado comments: “The angel sat on the dislodged tombstone. … The very rock intended to mark the resting place of a dead Christ became the resting place of his living angel. And then the announcement. ‘He has risen.’ Three words in English. Just one in Greek. Egerthe. So much rests on the validity of this one word. If it is false, then the whole of Christianity collapses like a poorly told joke. Yet, if it is true, then God’s story has turned your final chapter into a preface.
If the angel was correct, then you can believe this: Jesus descended into the coldest cell of death’s prison and allowed the warden to lock the door and smelt the keys in a furnace. And just when the demons began to dance and prance, Jesus pressed pierced hands against the inner walls of the cavern. From deep within he shook the cemetery. The ground rumbled, and the tombstones tumbled. And out he marched, into deaths graves and slapped a can of “IT IS FINISHED” in the face of the devil and took back what was rightfully HIS and became victorious and took the keys of heaven in one of HIS nail scared hands and walked out of that the Messiah !!! And the Angel cryed out – Egerthe! He has risen!”
Encountering the Risen Jesus
The Bible also describes many encounters that various people had with Jesus after his resurrection. One of the most dramatic happened when Jesus invited the apostle Thomas (who has become known as “Doubting Thomas” for his famous statement that he wouldn’t believe unless he could personally touch Jesus’ crucifixion wounds) to actually touch the scars on his resurrected body. John 20:27 records Jesus telling Thomas: “Put your finger here; see my hands. Reach out your hand and put it into my side. Stop doubting and believe.”
Jesus’ other disciples also had trouble believing that Jesus was physically resurrected, rather than appearing in spirit form. Luke 24:37-43 describes how Jesus gave them some physical proof of his resurrection, including eating food in front of them: “They were startled and frightened, thinking they saw a ghost. He said to them, ‘Why are you troubled, and why do doubts rise in your minds?
Look at my hands and my feet. It is I myself! Touch me and see; a ghost does not have flesh and bones, as you see I have.’ When he had said this, he showed them his hands and feet. And while they still did not believe it because of joy and amazement, he asked them, ‘Do you have anything here to eat?’ They gave him a piece of fish, and he took it and ate it in their presence.”
In his book The Jesus I Never Knew, Philip Yancey writes: “We who read the Gospels from the other side of Easter, who have the day printed on our calendars, forget how hard it was for the disciples to believe. In itself the empty tomb did not convince them: that fact only demonstrated ‘He is not here’ – not ‘He is risen.’ Convincing these skeptics would require intimate, personal encounters with the one who had been their Master for three years, and over the next six weeks Jesus provided exactly that. … The appearances are not spectral, but flesh-and-blood encounters. Jesus can always prove his identity — no other living person bears the scars of crucifixion.
A Powerful Presence
The people who encountered Jesus during the 40 days between his resurrection and ascension all discovered a powerful sense of hope because of his presence with them, the Bible says.
In her book Expecting to See Jesus: A Wake-Up Call for God’s People, Anne Graham Lotz comments that “every believer can experience that same sense of hope today: ”
Could it be that Jesus is waiting patiently in your life to give you evidence of his power that has not been diluted or depleted since that first Easter morning?
Are you so focused on what your situation is, which looks so radically different from what you had imagined, that you can’t see him? Have your tears blinded you to him? Are you so focused on your own pain or grief or confusion or helplessness or hopelessness that you are missing out on the greatest blessing you will ever receive? Could it be, at this very moment in your life, that Jesus is right there with you?”
Forgiveness Available for All
Josh McDowell writes in his book Evidence for the Resurrection: What It Means for Your Relationship with God that Jesus’ resurrection shows that God miraculously offers to forgive anyone who trusts him, no matter what sins they he or she may have previously committed: ”
The resurrection of Christ demonstrated that no sin is too terrible to be forgiven. Even though he took onto his bleeding back every sin that every one of us ever committed, God still resurrected him from the dead. Even the worst of our sins were taken to the grave and left there forever. Even though we have all done terribly foul things in our lives, the empty tomb of Jesus means that we are not condemned; we are forgiven.”
Dying With Faith
Jesus Christ’s resurrection miracle also paves the way for people to live forever when they trust him, so Christians can face death without fear. Jesus experienced a physical and factual resurrection. And — here it is — because he did, we will, too! … So let’s die with faith. Let’s allow the resurrection to sink into the fibers of our hearts and define the way we look at the grave. … Jesus grants us courage for the final passage.”
Suffering Leads to Joy
The resurrection miracle gives all people in this fallen world hope that their suffering can lead to joy, believers say. Mother Teresa once said: “Remember that the Passion of Christ ends always in the joy of the Resurrection of Christ, so when you feel in your own heart the suffering of Christ, remember the Resurrection has to come — the joy of Easter has to dawn. Never let anything so fill you with sorrow as to make you forget the joy of the Risen Christ.”
Easter Bible Verses
John 11:25-26
Jesus said to her, “I am the resurrection and the life. He who believes in me will live, even though he dies; and whoever lives and believes in me will never die. (NIV)
Romans 1:4-5
And Jesus Christ our Lord was shown to be the Son of God when God powerfully raised him from the dead by means of the Holy Spirit. Through Christ, God has given us the privilege and authority to tell Gentiles everywhere what God has done for them, so that they will believe and obey him, bringing glory to his name. (NLT)
Romans 6:8-11
Now if we died with Christ, we believe that we will also live with him. For we know that since Christ was raised from the dead, he cannot die again; death no longer has mastery over him. The death he died, he died to sin once for all; but the life he lives, he lives to God. In the same way, count yourselves dead to sin but alive to God in Christ Jesus.
Philippians 3:10-12
I want to know Christ and the power of his resurrection and the fellowship of sharing in his sufferings, becoming like him in his death, and so, somehow, to attain to the resurrection from the dead. Not that I have already obtained all this, or have already been made perfect, but I press on to take hold of that for which Christ Jesus took hold of me. (NIV)
1 Peter 1:3
Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! In his great mercy he has given us new birth into a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead… (NIV)