4-12-20 Resurrection Sunday

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“Resurrection Sunday”

John 20:1-30 and 1 Corinthians 15:1-58

4-12-20

“Without Resurrection Sunday, there would be no Christmas.”

“Without Christmas, there would be no Resurrection Sunday.”

This is going to be rather short, but hopefully to the point. There is the temptation to come up with some new and clever way to tell the story of the empty tomb. Putting this temptation aside, one only has to read chapter 20 of John along with Matthew, Mark and Luke’s accounts.

  • A few points based on John’s account.
  1. John was an eye witness. Based on his account and others; there were more than 500 people who saw and or interacted with the resurrected Jesus. before he ascended into heaven after 40 days. 1 Corinthians 15:6 – Paul wrote: “Then He appeared to over 500 brothers at one time;……”
  2. The first person to see Jesus was a woman, Mary Magdalene. This is significant in that it elevated women to the same stature as men. If this was to be a ‘made-up story,’ then it would have been more plausible for Peter or John to be the first to see him.
  3. The stone was rolled away from the tomb so that people could see that Jesus was not there; not so that Jesus could escape from it.
  4. Jesus told Mary not to hold on to him (not that she was not supposed to touch him), but that she could let go of him because he was not going to disappear forever.
  5. The disciples had lost all hope until they saw Jesus in the locked room.
  6. Thomas gets a bad rap. He was in fact being honest in stating that he would not believe that Jesus was alive until he could place his fingers in the nail holes and place his hand in the pierced side of Jesus. He did not pretend to believe as some people have done down through the ages and even today.
  • So, what does the resurrection of Jesus mean to us today?
  1. There is hope for us if we believe that Jesus died on a cross for our sins and that He was buried and rose from the grave. Read Paul’s answer in chapter 15 of 1 Corinthians. Without it; there is no hope for us.
  2. We no longer need to fear death if we believe.
  3. We can look forward to tomorrow and all the tomorrows thereafter if we believe.
  4. We can look forward to being with Him when we die along with our loved ones who are believers.

  5. And there is hope in the future for those who are not yet believers that they would become believers.