The Resurrected Jesus
Notes
Transcript
Handout
Today we celebrate the resurrected Jesus. He is risen! (He is risen indeed!)
Yet each of us carries suffering and death in our bodies. Some of us are feeling crushed by the magnitude of it and cry out in agony, “Why?!”
Perhaps the songs we have sung and the Scriptures we have read have given you a glimpse of hope, but they have not answered, “Why?!”
Why is there suffering and death all around us and in us?
Suffering and death entered God’s good creation through the agency of free will. God gave Satan (spiritual beings), Adam, and Eve a choice (Genesis 2:16-17; Ezekiel 28:11-19).
He gave them a choice because free will is essential for meaningful relationships. Yahweh, at the core of his being, is relational. He is one God, three persons, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, living freely in relationship always (John 16-17).
The abuse of free will, i.e., sin, started with Satan, who chose to usurp God’s throne (Isaiah 14:13).
The cycle continued with Adam, who chose to disobey God in eating the fruit so that he might be like God and experience good and evil (Genesis 3).
Paul says that through Adam’s act of rebellion, sin and death entered the world and sin and death spread to all men, because all have sinned (Romans 5:12-21). He cried out in Romans 7:24, “Wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from this body of death?”
What is God's answer to our rebellious hearts and the suffering and death all around us and in us?
The answer is threefold:
First, Jesus, God in the flesh, entered into our suffering and death, bearing all of it in his body on the cross (Isaiah 53:4-5; 2 Corinthians 5:20-21).
Second, Jesus conquered sin and death by his death and resurrection (1 Corinthians 15; Revelation 1:17-18).
Third, Jesus is coming again to redeem all things. Come! Lord Jesus, Come! (Luke 21:21-28; Revelation 1-22).
In the midst of your suffering and death, Jesus speaks to you in John 11:25-26 the same words he spoke to Martha, who was grieving the loss of her brother, Lazarus.
Jesus said to her, “I am the resurrection and the life. Whoever believes in me, though he die, yet shall he live,
26 and everyone who lives and believes in me shall never die. Do you believe this?”
Jesus is the resurrection and the life. This is our hope. This is God’s answer to sin, suffering, and death.
So I ask you, as Jesus did Martha: Do you believe in the resurrected Jesus?
If not, then I implore you to believe. Confess Jesus as Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, and you will be saved. Do it now, for today is the day of salvation.
If yes, then fix your eyes on the resurrected Jesus in your suffering, waiting patiently for his coming to redeem all things. Come, Lord Jesus, Come!
Let’s celebrate, for He is Risen! (He is risen indeed!)
