The First Sunday After Easter

Chiefs vs Bills - AFC Divisional Round January 23, 2022

1:54: 29-26 Bills after a Gabriel Davis TD, plus 2pt conversion

1:02: 29-33 Chiefs after Tyreek Hill TD (64 yd)

0:13: 36-33 Bills after Gabriel Davis TD

0:00 36-36 after Butker FG

10:45 OT - 36-42 after Kelce TD from Mahomes

Last week, we talked about some proof of the resurrection, and also the implications of it.

Rather than to scramble on to the next good thing to talk about - as if there is a next good thing - Lorien and I thought it would be good to slow down and take our time working through this. So, during the season of Eastertide (which lasts for 50 days from Easter to Pentecost), we’re going to spend some time looking at the resurrection, and then what’s next.

Let’s hop over to Luke 24:11

Luke 24:11 NLT

11 But the story sounded like nonsense to the men, so they didn’t believe it.

This passage is referring to the group of women (including Mary Magdalene) telling the disciples that Jesus has risen.

Eastertide Sermons (Sermon I: First Sunday after Easter: The Fact of the Resurrection) By Henry Alford, D.D., Dean of Caterbury

THE words spoken of in [Luke 24:11] (the former of these texts) were of no common character. They formed, it is true, the report of the women who had returned from the sepulchre of the Lord, and this report might be regarded as tinged with mental excitement, and with feminine credulity.

During the last few moments of that Chiefs playoff game against the Bills, my son Taran was getting so excited. By the way, the Chiefs are only his second favorite team. But he was saying - there’s still hope! I on the other hand, being well-rehearsed in disappointment as a long-time sports fan, spent quite a bit of energy explaining to him that it was over - there was no way the Chiefs were going to win or even tie the game up with less than 2 minutes left to play.

The disciples were really down. Their hopes and dreams crushed. They’d be fine if it was never known that they once confessed Jesus was the Christ - the Son of the living God!

Now, let’s have a look at Acts 2:32

Acts 2:32 NLT

32 “God raised Jesus from the dead, and we are all witnesses of this.

Wait a minute! This same group of disciples, dejected, downcast, ready to walk away from it all and go back to their former lives just 50 days ago, are now suddenly invigorated, willing to risk it all by sharing the news of the Resurrected Lord and King. What happened?

We go back to 1 Corinthians 15:13-23

1 Corinthians 15:13–23 NLT

13 For if there is no resurrection of the dead, then Christ has not been raised either. 14 And if Christ has not been raised, then all our preaching is useless, and your faith is useless. 15 And we apostles would all be lying about God—for we have said that God raised Christ from the grave. But that can’t be true if there is no resurrection of the dead. 16 And if there is no resurrection of the dead, then Christ has not been raised. 17 And if Christ has not been raised, then your faith is useless and you are still guilty of your sins. 18 In that case, all who have died believing in Christ are lost! 19 And if our hope in Christ is only for this life, we are more to be pitied than anyone in the world. 20 But in fact, Christ has been raised from the dead. He is the first of a great harvest of all who have died. 21 So you see, just as death came into the world through a man, now the resurrection from the dead has begun through another man. 22 Just as everyone dies because we all belong to Adam, everyone who belongs to Christ will be given new life. 23 But there is an order to this resurrection: Christ was raised as the first of the harvest; then all who belong to Christ will be raised when he comes back.

It turns out that Christ was and is indeed resurrected, and if you read a bit further in the gospels, you see that Jesus appeared to them.

Without the reality of the resurrection, this group of disciples and apostles likely would have silently returned to what they were doing before Jesus. And, as a result, we would not have the Christian church today. It was because those early followers of Jesus knew that he was raised from the dead that we have more than just a tale of the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus, but we have recorded history verified by those that witnessed it.

I will pose the questions again as I did last week: what does this mean for us?

Every resurrection is preceded by death, and a cross (or difficulty) can yield great gain in a heart matured by it.

Like a butterfly, resurrection transformation happens from the inside out; there is no shortcut, and the end result is worth the process.

Transformation only happens when we enter into the chrysalis of our situation with complete surrender.

Learning to fly takes practice, and practice means we do what Jesus did over and over again.

What is something - perhaps one thing - that Jesus is asking of you today?