Celebrating the Power of the Resurrected Christ!

One of the most attended and celebrated holidays in the world is here – Easter! I love Easter, and I always look forward to celebrating with my family and Church family the fact that we have salvation because of what Jesus went through and the fact that He is alive today! What a wonderful thing to celebrate. I hope that you are inspired and joyful at this thought as well!

Well, at Eagleville Bible Church we are going to celebrate with a great list of songs this Sunday (4/4/21)! Here they are:

• Jesus Paid it All, (YouTube Link)
• My Redeemer Lives, (YouTube Link)
• Resurrecting, (YouTube Link)
• King of kings, (YouTube Link)
• Forever, (YouTube Link)
• Power in the Blood/Victory in Jesus, (YouTube Link)

I am going to do things a bit different for this post. Instead of doing a devotional thought for each song, I will just list all of the songs and the Scripture references that go along with them. Then I will do one devotional thought about Easter and what Jesus went through for our salvation.

Here are the songs and Scriptures:

What is Easter and why do we celebrate it?

Easter is the day that Jesus rose from the grave and overcame death! See, leading up to Sunday (Easter) Jesus was put on trial for claiming to be God by the Jews. They hated Jesus and wanted Him dead. He didn’t do anything deserving death, but they hated the influence He had on the people that they were trying to control. So, they devised a plan that would remove Him from the equation. They wanted Him dead!

This plotting for Jesus’ life started very early in His ministry. We see the first instance of this in Mark 3:6 when the Pharisees and Herodians actually looked past their political and spiritual convictions in order to work together to assassinate Jesus! It is amazing what people will do to try to remove the obstacle of Christ from their life! They resolved to kill Him based on the miracle He performed by healing a man with a withered hand! Simply amazing to me that they would conclude from this miracle that Jesus was a threat to them and the people of Israel and that they must kill Him so that they would not lose their authority and control of the people. Be careful of people who will do anything to remain in authority of you – even kill people!

From that point, we can see throughout Jesus’ ministry the relentless pursuit of the Jewish leaders to trap Him, trick Him, discredit Him, and ultimately to Kill Him. They would pose questions to Him that were supposed to get Him to blaspheme God and the law, but they were always astonished at the wisdom and authority of Jesus’ responses! He always responded in such a way that they were forced to be silent and to reflect upon their own heart conditions, and that is still true to this very day! Jesus, the very mention of His name, forces us to evaluate our heart condition! This is why there is such extremes when people face the reality of Jesus, we either love Him or reject Him!

The Jewish people rejected Jesus and in so doing ended up fulfilling God’s plan of salvation for all of the nations of the world. This is a great mystery, but all of this had to happen so that the Scriptures could be fulfilled and we all could have access to the God of Israel. So, as we reflect upon Holy Week and remember the sacrifice of Christ, it is good to remember that God had planned this from the foundations of the world in order to save those who come to him by faith in the finished work of Christ on the Cross!

Maundy Thursday

Today (as I write this) is the Thursday (called Maundy Thursday) before Good Friday. On it we remember the preparations Jesus made with His Disciples for the next day (where I believe Jesus knew exactly what was going to happen, see Matt 26:1). It is good to read through Matt 26:17-75 in order to follow the course of events that took place that day. Most notable (to me anyway) is the Lord’s Supper, the washing of the Disciple’s feet, the prayer in the Garden of Gethsemane, the betrayal of Judas by a kiss, and then the trial and denial of one of his closest and best friend – Peter!

O the pain Jesus must have endured on this day! The reality of the situation doesn’t seem to have been clear to His followers, but He absolutely knew without a shadow of doubt that this was the last feast He was going to have with them while He was still in His humanity. He was mourning in His spirit, grieved at how the proceedings necessary for the salvation of those who were rejecting him had to unfold. “Please, Father, if possible can’t We do it another way?” is what Jesus was praying that evening. He was grieved so much so that Luke says He was sweating droplets of blood because of the anguish He was under (see Luke 22:44). This should speak to the level of spiritual torture the Son of God was enduring on our behalf, and it should produce in us all a reflective posture of worship for our Savior! Thank You God.

Good Friday

This is the most difficult and reverent day for me in Holy Week. When I say the most difficult, I don’t mean hard to understand, but more like mournful. Now, I do have to say that because I know Sunday’s coming and I have seen the results of the resurrected Christ, it is not as bad to me but I do try to put myself as one of His followers on that day. Can you imagine seeing what they were seeing that day? The One they had been following, hearing teach, watching heal, been close to, was now dead! Their hopes, their dreams of a new King over Israel demolished, their Savior dead. Why didn’t He defend himself? Why didn’t He call down the angels when they prompted Him to? Why didn’t He do a miraculous sign while He was on the cross that would have lifted him from that tree fully healed and restored in His physical body, wiped out the Roman leadership, and claimed His rightful position as the King of this nation? Why? Why? Why?

Now what? The One we looked to for deliverance is being buried in a tomb. What will we look to now? How will we face tomorrow, the Sabbath. The day in which we have to be still and reflect. We can’t busy ourselves with work in order to try and forget what just happened. We have to be still and reflect. This is horrible! Was He a lunatic? Was He a liar? Did we just waste away the last 3 1/2 years of our lives? Where is He? Why? Can’t you just feel what they must have felt? That must have been so confusing for them, and it breaks my heart to think of how they must have felt. It also must have been torture for them to know that they deserted their Savior in the hour of His greatest need (see Matt 26:56)! O the pain of that decision.

What they didn’t know (as it seems) is that their Savior was doing the ultimate battle in the Spirit! He went into Hell and proclaimed the Gospel to all of the spirits that were disobedient (see 1 Peter 3:18). He was declaring His victory over death to death itself! While the things that are seen to us looked dismal and deadly, there was life happening and being proclaimed in the Spiritual realm! While everything looked dark and defeated on earth, the God of light was declaring victory in the heavens! To be absent from the body is to present with the Lord is what Paul states in 2 Cor 5:8, and we see this in Christ too! He was alive even though all thought He was dead.

Easter Sunday

The day after the Sabbath, a day in which the Jewish people were to do nothing, we can see the eagerness of His followers (particularly the women) to be at the tomb to grieve His death (see Matt 28:1). As they were there, an earthquake shook that place and Angels appeared to them declaring that Jesus was not there – He is Risen! (see Matt 28:5-6). This is why one of my favorite things to do on Easter is to say, “Happy Resurrection Day!”.

The women ran away full of fear and joy! Have you ever felt that? It is exhilarating to be overwhelmed with those emotions at the same time, like a roller-coaster ride. They must have felt like they truly were on an emotional roller-coaster. Their hopes are restored, the Savior is alive, the Gospel is still intact!

As they were running, Jesus appeared to them and they fell at His feet and worshiped Him! Yes, now they get it! I really feel that when we understand the power of the resurrected Christ, we too will fall at His feet and worship Him with fear and joy bubbling out of our hearts! Then they ran to the other Disciples and told them the good news, at that news Peter and John (I believe the “other disciple who Jesus loved, referenced in John 20:3-4) ran to the tomb, saw the evidence of Jesus’s resurrection, and then they believed! It says in John 20:9 that they had not understood that Christ must rise from the dead until that moment! O the feeling of relief that must have washed over them when they seen all of this, then later when they actually seen Jesus Himself with their very own eyes in His resurrected body (see John 20 for many of those encounters).

We also have the opportunity to celebrate along with the Disciples of Christ because we can see Jesus at work in our lives too! Easter Sunday is the day set apart for remembering the resurrection, but I would like to propose that we celebrate each day and moment of the year at the fact that we have a risen Savior. See, because he lives that means that we can live, and live life to the fullest! Easter is so much more than a good time to meet together with family, to go to Church, to dress up like a bunny and drop eggs all around for kids to pick up (I still don’t understand that whole concept??)!

Easter is a day where the culmination of a year long compiling of undeniable evidences of a risen Savior at work in our lives gets expressed through worship and praise! It is the most important day for followers of Christ, because without the hope of its message we are utterly hopeless and to be pitied by all (see 1 Cor 15:16-19)! But, we are not hopeless and we are not to be pitied because the evidence of Christ’s resurrection has been examined and we have found it to be overwhelmingly accurate and true! Since it is true, that makes us the most joyful and free people in the entire world, because our Savior paved the way necessary for us all to access everlasting life in His name! This is what Easter represents, Life everlasting by the victory of Christ Jesus! Hallelujah!

I pray that you will be praising God this Easter Sunday along with us! Jesus is worthy!

God bless you.