given on Easter Sunday, April 16, 2017: I finished Easter Sunday service and began a week’s vacation. I apologize for not posting sooner. May you know that God loves you so much he gave his only son for your salvation.
Scripture connection
John 3:13-17
13 No one has ever gone to heaven and returned. But the Son of Man has come down from heaven. 14 And as Moses lifted up the bronze snake on a pole in the wilderness, so the Son of Man must be lifted up, 15 so that everyone who believes in him will have eternal life.
16 “For this is how God loved the world: He gave his one and only Son, so that everyone who believes in him will not perish but have eternal life. 17 God sent his Son into the world not to judge the world, but to save the world through him.
John 20:1-10
1Early on Sunday morning while it was still dark, Mary Magdalene came to the tomb and found that the stone had been rolled away from the entrance. 2 She ran and found Simon Peter and the other disciple, the one whom Jesus loved. She said, “They have taken the Lord’s body out of the tomb, and we don’t know where they have put him!”
3 Peter and the other disciple started out for the tomb. 4 They were both running, but the other disciple outran Peter and reached the tomb first. 5 He stooped and looked in and saw the linen wrappings lying there, but he didn’t go in. 6 Then Simon Peter arrived and went inside. He also noticed the linen wrappings lying there, 7 while the cloth that had covered Jesus’ head was folded up and lying apart from the other wrappings.
8 Then the disciple who had reached the tomb first also went in, and he saw and believed— 9 for until then they still hadn’t understood the Scriptures that said Jesus must rise from the dead. 10 Then they went home.
John study notes from the Life Application Bible (NLT):
“Nicodemus Visits Jesus at Night”
3:14,15—When Israelites were wandering in the wilderness, God sent plague of snakes to punish rebellious attitudes. If snake bit, looking up to Moses holding the bronze snake and believing that God could save them, did save them.
3:16–. . . When we share the Good News with others, our love must be like Jesus’—willingly giving up our comfort and security so that others might join us in receiving God’s love.
3:16–. . . eternal life is not an extension of a person’s miserable, mortal life; eternal life is God’s life embodied in Christ given to all believers now as a guarantee that they will live forever. In eternal life there is no death, sickness, enemy, evil, or sin. When we don’t know Christ, we make choices as though this life is all we have. In reality, this life is just the introduction to eternity. . . .
3:16—To “believe” is more than intellectual agreement that Jesus is God. It means to put our trust and confidence in him that he alone can save us. It is to Christ in charge of our present plans and eternal destiny. Believing is both trusting his words as reliable, and relying on him for the power to change. If you have never trusted Christ, let this promise of everlasting life be yours—and believe.
3:18—People often try to protect themselves from their fears by putting their faith in something they do or have: good deeds, skill or intelligence, money or possessions. But only God can save us from the one thing that we really need to fear—eternal condemnation. We believe in God by recognizing the insufficiency of our own efforts to find salvation and by asking him to do his work in us. When Jesus talks about unbelievers, he means those who reject or ignore him completely, not those who have momentary doubts. (emphasis added)
“Jesus Rises from the Dead”
20:9—Jesus’ resurrection is the key to the Christian faith. Why?
- Just as he said, Jesus rose from the dead. We can be confident, therefore, that he will accomplish all he has promised.
- Jesus’ bodily resurrection shows us that the living Christ, not a false prophet or imposter, is ruler of God’s eternal Kingdom.
- We can be certain of our resurrection because Jesus was resurrected. Death is not the end—there is future life.
- The divine power that brought Jesus back to life is now available to us to bring our spiritually dead selves back to life.
- The Resurrection is the basis for the church’s witness to the world.
Reflection: God so loved us
[Sing Morning Has Broken, UMH 145]
Today is the third day after Jesus was crucified. Today is Easter and morning has broken, as the hymn reminds us, like the first morning. The earth continues to revolve around the son, the birds still sing, and after the rain, everything is like new. Yet, today is Easter 2017, over 2,000 years after Jesus’ crucifixion and we awake to a new morning.
Do you sense the awesomeness of the new morning?
Do you sense the renewal of our world after a spring rain?
Do you sense the love of God?
Hear these words from John:
1Early on Sunday morning while it was still dark, Mary Magdalene came to the tomb and found that the stone had been rolled away from the entrance. 2 She ran and found Simon Peter and the other disciple, the one whom Jesus loved. She said, “They have taken the Lord’s body out of the tomb, and we don’t know where they have put him!”
[Sing Lift High the Cross, UMH 159]
Mary and the other women greeted that Sunday morning with a tremendous sense of loss. Certainly they did not see the awesomeness of Easter morning, they were beginning the new week with a tradition of honoring the death of a loved one. At the moment, their steps were slow and their shoulders were sagging. They were simply following the tradition of mourning, carrying the spices to the tomb. The mood was anything but joyful.
Yet, the story in all four of the gospels reveal the same shift in emotions when the women discover the stone rolled away from the tomb’s opening. Can you not see the change in the women’s posture and expressions when they reach the tomb, look up from the path and see the open tomb?
The Sunday morning suddenly turned from grief to joy. These women experienced the glory of God as they see, first hand, the promise of God revealed by an empty tomb. The glory of God evidenced as the figures in dazzling white robes, white as snow, tell them Jesus is risen from the dead, as Luke tells the story (Luke 24:5-7):
5 The women were terrified and bowed with their faces to the ground. Then the men asked, “Why are you looking among the dead for someone who is alive? 6 He isn’t here! He is risen from the dead! Remember what he told you back in Galilee, 7 that the Son of Man must be betrayed into the hands of sinful men and be crucified, and that he would rise again on the third day.”
[Sing Up from the Grave, UMH 322]
How awesome it is to realize the prophecy shared for thousands of years has come to fulfillment! Mary, the other women, and now the Apostles are learning firsthand the revelation that Jesus, a man with whom they had walked and talked was indeed God. Do you sense the renewal of hope that the gospels share with us today, this Easter Sunday 2017?
Jesus arose! He is alive! Jesus is the Son of God. The women ran to tell the Apostles, the other disciples, and surely all their friends even who still did not believe. This news was a personal witness so how could anyone still doubt the truth of these eyewitnesses to God’s amazing love of us.
John, the apostle that Jesus loved most, wrote the gospel for us. We are Christians so far removed from the eyewitnesses of Jesus’ ministry that we are still seeking to understand God’s love (John 3:16-17):
16 “For this is how God loved the world: He gave his one and only Son, so that everyone who believes in him will not perish but have eternal life. 17 God sent his Son into the world not to judge the world, but to save the world through him.
John had to learn firsthand that Jesus, someone he was deeply devoted to, a friend so close to him that as he was dying on the cross told him that he was to take care of his mother as though she was his own mother and that his mother was to accept John as her own son. This is love.
[Sing What Wondrous Love is This, UMH 292]
God so loved the world that he gave his only son, so that we might be forgiven of our sins and have eternal life. Do you sense the enormity of that love? In our earthly world, the full meaning of God’s love is beyond our human understanding. We get glimpses of it in our lifetimes, but full understanding seems just beyond our reach.
True knowledge typically comes from first hand experience and we have yet to experience our own death and resurrection. We depend on the words of the gospel, the letters of Paul and the others books in the New Testament to provide us the guidelines for living as Christ’s disciples; yet, first hand knowledge of the Easter experience continues to be a promise made by God in the Old Testament stories, by Jesus as revealed in the gospels, and by the Apostles and disciples who were there.
[Sing Where you there? UMH 288—used during Maundy Thursday]
Today, Easter 2017, we continue to share the story and live with the expectation that we, too, will remain in relationship with our loving God, until the time we, too, will experience life everlasting. As we read the resurrection story and hear the promises of the hymns, again consider:
Do you sense the awesomeness of the new morning?
Do you sense the renewal of our world after a spring rain?
Do you sense the love of God?
Where are you in the story?
Where are you in your relationship with God?
Where are you in living the life God has given you?
This Easter morning, consider then what John has shared in his gospel:
17 God sent his Son into the world not to judge the world, but to save the world through him.
Find the awesomeness of living in this world today, but remember the story and sense the full love of God as you walk out the doors to enter into our real life world today. You have a story to share and it is amazing. Live with the knowledge that life is a gift but the promise is that eternal life with God is even more wonderful than we can imagine.
[Sing Christ the Lord Is Risen Today, UMH 302, &/or He Lives, UMH 310.]
8 Then the disciple who had reached the tomb first also went in, and he saw and believed— 9 for until then they still hadn’t understood the Scriptures that said Jesus must rise from the dead. 10 Then they went home.
Be excited about God’s love as you step out today. Feel a sense of renewal because Christ did arise from the grave. But remember that as much as God loved us, we have been tasked to carry the story forward and to live as Christ has taught us to live: Love one another as you want to be loved!
Closing prayer:
Thank you, thank you, thank you, God!
You have lifted Christ from the grave
And you promise to life us, too.
You have refreshed the world with new life
As we witness in Spring’s glory.
You have demonstrated love in the worst of times
So we may learn that love wins every time.
Thank you, God, for sharing life with us.
Thank you, Jesus, for teaching us to love.
Thank you, Holy Spirit, for being with us always.
May we, with the help of you, God,
The Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit
Live today knowing that you loved us so much
That you died for us. –Amen
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