Almighty Father, who gave your only Son to die for our sins and to rise for our justification: Give us grace so to put away the leaven of malice and wickedness, that we may always serve you in purity of life; through Jesus Christ your Son our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever. Amen.
A Pleasant Early Morning. 9°C. Ewes and Lambs. pic.twitter.com/QNrZo7rfNd
— Yorkshire Wolds Weather (@WeatherWolds) April 14, 2023
We believe Christ’s resurrection can be proved with at least as much certainty as any universally believed and well-documented event in ancient history. To prove this, we do not need to presuppose anything controversial (e.g. that miracles happen). But the skeptic must also not presuppose anything (e.g. that they do not). We do not need to presuppose that the New Testament is infallible, or divinely inspired or even true. We do not need to presuppose that there really was an empty tomb or post-resurrection appearances, as recorded. We need to presuppose only two things, both of which are hard data, empirical data, which no one denies: The existence of the New Testament texts as we have them, and the existence (but not necessarily the truth) of the Christian religion as we find it today.
The question is this: Which theory about what really happened in Jerusalem on that first Easter Sunday can account for the data?
There are five possible theories: Christianity, hallucination, myth, conspiracy and swoon.
1. Jesus died. Jesus rose. [ Christianity ]
2. Jesus died. Jesus didn’t rise—apostles deceived. [Hallucination]
3. Jesus died. Jesus didn’t rise—apostles myth-makers [ Myth ]
4. Jesus died. Jesus didn’t rise—apostles deceivers [ Conspiracy ]
5. Jesus didn’t die. [ Swoon ]
THE SUPPER AT EMMAUS, Caravaggio, 1601 – National Gallery, London
The wine is not mentioned in The Bible, probaby because Christ’s blessing of the bread was enough for the disciples to recognise him. The risen Christ once again performs the Eucharist before the Emmaus pilgrims. pic.twitter.com/bbId6mRSmu— The Virtual Wine Museum – Le Musée Virtuel du Vin (@VIRTWINEMUSEUM) April 17, 2022
Almighty God, you show those in error the light of your truth so that they may turn to the path of righteousness: Grant that all who have been reborn into the fellowship of Christ’s Body may show forth in their lives what they profess by their faith; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever. Amen.
The Three Holy Women at the Empty Tomb#EasterSunday
BnF MS 1186 Psalterium (Psalter of St Louis & Blanche de Castille); 13th century (c.1230); f.25v @GallicaBnF pic.twitter.com/8TDGdjiOqW— Ennius (@red_loeb) April 9, 2023
Lyrics (from Psalm 47)–
O clap your hands together, all ye people; O sing unto God with the voice of melody. For the Lord is high and to be feared; he is the great King of all the earth. He shall subdue the people under us, and the nations under our feet. He shall choose out an heritage for us, even the worship of Jacob, whom he loved.
God is gone up with a merry noise, and the Lord with the sound of the trumpet. O sing praises, sing praises unto our God: O sing praises unto the Lord our King. For God is the King of all the earth: sing ye praises with the understanding. God reigneth over the heathen: God sitteth upon his holy seat. For God, which is highly exalted, doth defend the earth, as it were with a shield.
Glory be to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Ghost; as it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be, world without end. Amen
[Easter]…is the proclamation of a war already won. The war is at an end ”“ even though here and there troops are still shooting, because they have not heard anything yet about the capitulation. The game is won, even though the player can still play a few further moves. Actually he is already mated. The clock has run down, even though the pendulum still swings a few times this way and that. It is in this interim space that we are living: the old is past, behold it has all become new. The Easter message tells us that our enemies, sin, the curse and death, are beaten. Ultimately they can no longer start mischief. They still behave as though the game were not decided, the battle not fought; we must still reckon with them, but fundamentally we must cease to fear them anymore. If you have heard the Easter message, you can no longer run around with a tragic face and lead the humourless existence of a man who has no hope. One thing still holds, and only this one thing is really serious, that Jesus is the Victor. A seriousness that would look back past this, like Lot’s wife, is not Christian seriousness. It may be burning behind ”“ and truly it is burning ”“ but we have to look, not at it, but at the other fact, that we are invited and summoned to take seriously the victory of God’s glory in this man Jesus and to be joyful in Him. Then we may live in thankfulness and not in fear.
–Karl Barth Dogmatics in Outline (New York: Harper and Row, 1959), p. 123
It was lovely to welcome families to our Easter Family Service.Easter Egg Hunt after the service and refreshments for the adults @churchofengland pic.twitter.com/VitfqVO5zz
— St Peter's Church (@tiltonchurch) April 10, 2023
O God, the living God, who hast given unto us a living hope by the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead: Grant that we, being risen with him, may seek the things which are above, and be made partakers of the life eternal; through the same Jesus Christ our Lord.
Alnmouth from St.Cuthbert's Cross. Acrylic on canvas. Re-posted for Easter. Happy Easter 😊 #art #easter #Northumberland #Alnmouth #painting pic.twitter.com/lLSpQY3Nvd
— RobertPermain (@rob_invision) April 9, 2023
I have desired to go
Where springs not fail,
To fields where flies no sharp and sided hail,
And a few lilies blow.
And I have asked to be
Where no storms come,
Where the green swell is in the havens dumb,
And out of the swing of the sea.
–Gerard Manley Hopkins (1844-1899)
May this Easter fills your heart with renewed hope, love & peace. May all of us recognise the beauty of life..Happy Easter! ( Resurrection of Christ by Raphael) pic.twitter.com/SA48Cq63o0
— Liz Mathew (@MathewLiz) April 8, 2023
When a man is not truly seeking the Lord, he wants short sermons, and these of a high literary order, or else adorned with attractive rhetoric. But when he is, with his whole heart, seeking for the Savior, he is not so concerned about polite phrases and ecclesiastical correctness. He looks eagerly for a practical direction how he may come to Jesus, and he will take that from any man or woman, be their station what it may. Let him be a chimneysweep, if he will lead me to Jesus, I will follow.
So it was with this holy woman. She desired to find the Lord and she was altogether absorbed in that one pursuit. She speaks as if everybody was equally intent upon the one theme. For instead of mentioning the name Jesus, she says, “If thou hast borne him hence.” Why, Mary, what are you talking about? “About Him,” says she. But who is this of whom you speak? Ah, friends! to her there was but one “him” in all the world, just then! Oh, to be thus absorbed!
Such was the desire of Magdalene to find the Lord Jesus, that she feared no ghastly sight. Let her know where the body is laid and she will be there. That body, which had bled so much from its five wounds, must have been a heart-breaking sight to a tender-hearted woman, but she is not dismayed. Let
the body be how it may, it is the flesh and blood of her dear Lord and she must pay it homage. Wounds or no wounds, she would behold it. A wounded Christ is altogether lovely in the eyes of His redeemed. His blood, flowing for me, clothes Him with a royal crimson robe in my eyes. I fear nothing, so long
as I may but come to Him. Dear hearts, if you long for salvation, you will not find fault with those who preach the doctrine of the cross, the wounds, the blood! You will not kick at the doctrine of a crucified Savior, your Substitute condemned at the bar of justice. You want Jesus who died. You must behold
Him for yourself by faith and no ridicule of the vain, or sneer of the proud, or cavil of the doubting, can make Him uncomely in your eyes.Notice that she dreads no heavy burden. She says, “I will take him away.” Why, Mary, you could not bear away so great a load! You would fall beneath the weight of a man’s corpse! You are not strong enough for the sad task! Ah! but she thought that she could bear the blessed burden and she meant to try!
She would have accomplished it. Faith laughs at impossibility and cries, “It shall be done.” But love actually performs the deed. A heart that is burning with love has about it a seven-fold energy, whose capacity it would be hard to calculate.
Wishing you a restful Easter Sunday 🙏
Titian's 'Noli me Tangere' depicts the moment Christ rises from the dead, appearing to his grieving follower, Mary Magdalene.
Explore the story of the Passion, told through paintings in our collection: https://t.co/zOJDC0tC89 pic.twitter.com/BlCxBztJ1N
— National Gallery (@NationalGallery) April 9, 2023
Jesus of Nazareth was certainly dead by the Friday evening; Roman soldiers were professional killers and wouldn’t have allowed a not-quite-dead rebel leader to stay that way for long. When the first Christians told the story of what happened next, they were not saying: “I think he’s still with us in a spiritual sense” or “I think he’s gone to heaven”. All these have been suggested by people who have lost their historical and theological nerve.
The historian must explain why Christianity got going in the first place, why it hailed Jesus as Messiah despite His execution (He hadn’t defeated the pagans, or rebuilt the Temple, or brought justice and peace to the world, all of which a Messiah should have done), and why the early Christian movement took the shape that it did. The only explanation that will fit the evidence is the one the early Christians insisted upon – He really had been raised from the dead. His body was not just reanimated. It was transformed, so that it was no longer subject to sickness and death.
Let’s be clear: the stories are not about someone coming back into the present mode of life. They are about someone going on into a new sort of existence, still emphatically bodily, if anything, more so. When St Paul speaks of a “spiritual” resurrection body, he doesn’t mean “non-material”, like a ghost. “Spiritual” is the sort of Greek word that tells you,not what something is made of, but what is animating it. The risen Jesus had a physical body animated by God’s life-giving Spirit. Yes, says St Paul, that same Spirit is at work in us, and will have the same effect – and in the whole world.
Good morning!
Resurrection of Christ,
Noël Coypel (1700),
350 x 255 cm
Musée des Beaux-Arts
Rennes #France
Nicene Creed:
"On the third day he rose again in accordance with the Scriptures"
Angel:
"SVRREXIT, NON EST HIC”
Jesus floats toward heaven surrounded by supernatural light pic.twitter.com/uDiXTcrs9h— Miguel Calabria (@MiguelCalabria3) April 9, 2023
Sam believes that Gandalf has fallen a catastrophic distance and has died. But in the end of the story, with Sam having been asleep for a long while and then beginning to regain consciousness, Gandalf stands before Sam, robed in white, his face glistening in the sunlight, and says:
“Well, Master Samwise, how do you feel?”
But Sam lay back, and stared with open mouth, and for a moment, between bewilderment and great joy, he could not answer. At last he gasped: “Gandalf! I thought you were dead! But then I thought I was dead myself. Is everything sad going to come untrue? What’s happened to the world?”
“A great shadow has departed,” said Gandalf, and then he laughed, and the sound was like music, or like water in a parched land; and as he listened the thought came to Sam that he had not heard laughter, the pure sound of merriment, for days without count. It fell upon his ears like the echo of all the joys he had ever known. But he himself burst into tears. Then as a sweet rain will pass down a wind of spring and the sun will shine out the clearer, his tears ceased, and his laughter welled up, and laughing he sprang from bed… “How do I feel?” he cried.” Well, I don’t know how to say it. I feel, I feel” –he waved his arms in the air– “I feel like spring after winter, and sun on the leaves; and like trumpets and harps and all the songs I have ever heard!”
— J.R.R. Tolkien (1892-1973), The Return of the King
"God exists: that is the real message of Easter. Anyone who even begins to grasp what this means also knows what it means to be redeemed."
~Pope Benedict XVI pic.twitter.com/DUmgk49vON— ＴＨＥＯＤＯＲＩＣ ᴺᴼᵂᴬᴷ ن (@Theo_Logica) April 18, 2022
Take the time to listen to it all from the Oxford Philomusica.
O God, who by the glorious resurrection of thy Son our Saviour Jesus Christ hast destroyed death, and brought life and immortality to light: Grant that we, being raised together with him, may know the comfort and strength of his presence, and rejoice in hope of thy everlasting glory; through the same Jesus Christ our Lord, to whom be dominion and praise for ever and ever.
#ImageOfTheDay on #Easter Wednesday.
Christ rising from the tomb surrounded by an aureole of glory.
A 15th century painting on the reredos in the Ogle Chantry at @HexhamAbbey. pic.twitter.com/9DMZOy7uv1— Michael Sadgrove 🇪🇺 (@MichaelSadgrove) April 12, 2023
Lord Jesus, risen from the dead and alive for evermore: Stand in our midst…[in this season] as in the upper room; show us thy hands and thy side; speak thy peace to our hearts and minds; and send us forth into the world as thy witnesses; for the glory of thy name.
Today's art: Supper at Emmaus – Diego Rodríguez da Silva y Velázquez https://t.co/Nkv7Aykvvd pic.twitter.com/lx4t86YRfF
— Art and the Bible (@artbible) April 11, 2023
Without a doubt, at the center of the New Testament there stands the Cross, which receives its interpretation from the Resurrection.
The Passion narratives are the first pieces of the Gospels that were composed as a unity. In his preaching at Corinth, Paul initially wants to know nothing but the Cross, which “destroys the wisdom of the wise and wrecks the understanding of those who understand”, which “is a scandal to the Jews and foolishness to the gentiles”. But “the foolishness of God is wiser than men, and the weakness of God is stronger than men” (I Cor 1:19, 23, 25).
Whoever removes the Cross and its interpretation by the New Testament from the center, in order to replace it, for example, with the social commitment of Jesus to the oppressed as a new center, no longer stands in continuity with the apostolic faith.
–Hans Urs von Balthasar (1905-1988), A Short Primer For Unsettled Laymen
He is risen indeed. Alleluia!
We wish you a joyful #Easter. pic.twitter.com/QKjRNujys4
— St Paul's Cathedral (@StPaulsLondon) April 1, 2018
You spend time in the book looking at Jesus’ post-resurrection appearances in the Gospels. It seems that the disciples’ testimony about seeing Jesus matters to you. Why do you trust their testimony?
If you understand how people thought about death and life after death in the ancient world, you will need two strands of converging evidence.
On the one hand, there are extraordinary reports about people going to the tomb of Jesus and finding that there was no body in it. In that world, grave robbery was a common occurrence, so an empty tomb by itself says, “This is odd,” but we can tell some stories about this that are much more credible than the idea that he’s alive again.
However, if at the same time this person turns up and is seen and felt to be bodily alive and speaks to people and cooks breakfast by the shore, then that is totally unexpected as well. Those two things kind of interpret one another. We know many experiences that people have — and I’ve known of experiences like this in our own family — that somebody who recently died will suddenly show up in a room or somewhere, for a moment or two, to people that they have known, then disappear again. They knew about that kind of thing in the first century as well. They had language for that. It was like an angel visiting. There’s a place in the New Testament where the disciples think that Peter has been killed in prison in Acts Chapter 12, and he’s knocking on the door and they say, “It can’t be Peter. It must be his angel.” They think this is a kind of angelic visitation before he goes off to wherever he will go.
You need those two bits of evidence put together and then the testimony makes sense. Otherwise, empty tomb? Somebody has taken the body. That’s what Mary Magdalene thought. Appearances? “Oh, yeah, we know about those. Just go and check in the tomb. You will find there’s still a body there.” But if there isn’t, then we are into something different. So that’s why that evidence is so important.
Read it all (subscription).
Today is Easter Sunday, when we celebrate the Resurrection, and here is the Resurrection panel from the east window in the chapel at @wadhamoxford. Christ is risen. pic.twitter.com/0qsOwqsPRO
— Dr Mark Kirby (@Kirby5Mark) April 9, 2023
Rise heart; thy Lord is risen. Sing his praise
Without delayes,
Who takes thee by the hand, that thou likewise
With him mayst rise:
That, as his death calcined1 thee to dust,
His life may make thee gold, and much more, just.
Awake, my lute, and struggle for thy part
With all thy art.
The crosse taught all wood to resound his name,
Who bore the same.
His stretched sinews taught all strings, what key
Is best to celebrate this most high day.
John 20:1-9
Then the other disciple who had reached the tomb first also went in; he saw and he believed. Till this moment they had failed to understand the teaching of scripture, that he must rise from the dead.
Art:
The Empty Tomb, Resurrection of Jesus
Steel engraving, 1853 pic.twitter.com/iPK18Thn0W— Kalina Boulter (@Kalina_Boulter) April 9, 2023
If I had a Son in Court, or married a daughter into a plentifull Fortune, I were satisfied for that son or that daughter. Shall I not be so, when the King of Heaven hath taken that sone to himselfe, and married himselfe to that daughter, for ever? I spend none of my Faith, I exercise none of my Hope, in this, that I shall have my dead raised to life againe. This is the faith that sustains me, when I lose by the death of others, and we, are now all in one Church, and at the resurrection, shall be all in one Quire.
–John Donne (1572-1631) [my emphasis]
Easter …..
Painting by Sandro Botticelli – La Ressurection De Jesus-Christ pic.twitter.com/tnz8DR5ICq— anisja rossi (@anisja_rossi) April 9, 2023
The resurrection of Jesus is claimed by Christians to be the turning point for the whole world, for each of us individually, and all of us together and for the whole of creation, always and everywhere. And that claim was made within 20 – 25 years of his death. So from the finality of death what this means is that the certainty of final endings is over. A new beginning is made.
Without the bodily resurrection of Jesus of Nazareth, there are simply endings. Look at it through the eyes of the witnesses:
For Peter, it would be the end of any chance of forgiveness for his cowardice and betrayal.
For Mary Magdalene, it would be the end of a relationship, of a friendship, where she was valued, having importance and dignity.
For us gathering here in this extraordinary building, we would not be here because the building would never have been built were it not for the resurrection of Jesus.
It’s not just an event in history; it is the most powerful event in history: past, present and the history that we are yet to know.
And we see the reality of the resurrection around us in all corners of the world.
The resurrection of Jesus Christ is among the most certain facts in history. It means eternal life, eternal hope, eternal joy because Christ is risen.
My sermon at Holy Communion at @Cburycathedral this morning:https://t.co/f9XAgC3ULU
— Archbishop of Canterbury (@JustinWelby) April 9, 2023
Gather gladness from the skies;
Take a lesson from the ground;
Flowers do ope their heavenward eyes
And a Spring-time joy have found;
Earth throws Winter’s robes away,
Decks herself for Easter Day.
Beauty now for ashes wear,
Perfumes for the garb of woe.
Chaplets for disheveled hair,
Dances for sad footsteps slow;
Open wide your hearts that they
Let in joy this Easter Day.
Seek God’s house in happy throng;
Crowded let His table be;
Mingle praises, prayer and song,
Singing to the Trinity.
Henceforth let your souls alway
Make each morn an Easter Day.
🌿Ostermontag …🌿🐣🌿 pic.twitter.com/qzkEIjT9wt
— 💫Stein_harmonie🍀🧚♀️ (@SteinHarmonie) April 10, 2023
Lord of all life and power,
who through the mighty resurrection of your Son
overcame the old order of sin and death
to make all things new in him:
grant that we, being dead to sin
and alive to you in Jesus Christ,
may reign with him in glory;
to whom with you and the Holy Spirit
be praise and honour, glory and might,
now and in all eternity.
Amen.
Our beautiful magnolia 🌸
📷 shannybasar pic.twitter.com/aKwIKPrS6G
— Rochester Cathedral (@RochesterCathed) April 10, 2023
Make no mistake: if He rose at all
it was as His body;
if the cells’ dissolution did not reverse, the molecules
reknit, the amino acids rekindle,
the Church will fall.
It was not as the flowers,
each soft Spring recurrent;
it was not as His Spirit in the mouths and fuddled
eyes of the eleven apostles;
it was as His Flesh: ours.
The same hinged thumbs and toes,
the same valved heart
that pierced died, withered, paused, and then
regathered out of enduring Might
new strength to enclose.
Let us not mock God with metaphor,
analogy, sidestepping transcendence;
making of the event a parable, a sign painted in the
faded credulity of earlier ages:
let us walk through the door.
The stone is rolled back, not paper-mache,
not a stone in a story,
but the vast rock of materiality that in the slow
grinding of time will eclipse for each of us
the wide light of day.
And if we will have an angel at the tomb,
make it a real angel,
weighty with Max Planck’s quanta, vivid with hair,
opaque in the dawn light, robed in real linen
spun on a definite loom.
Let us not seek to make it less monstrous,
for our own convenience, our own sense of beauty,
lest, awakened in one unthinkable hour, we are
embarrassed by the miracle,
and crushed by remonstrance.
–John Updike (1932-2009)
Today (4/9): The Resurrection of the Lord#angels
“On Easter Sunday the Church celebrates the Resurrection of Our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ from the dead, the greatest feast of the liturgical year.”
We joyfully proclaim,”He is risen!” with the response,”He is risen, indeed!” pic.twitter.com/dVm44v38ft— WritingAngels (@LectorGirl85) April 9, 2023
O God, who for our redemption gave your only begotten Son to die upon the Cross, and by his glorious resurrection delivered us from the devil and the power of death: Grant us grace to die daily to sin, that we may live with him in the joy of his resurrection; who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, now and for ever. Amen.
'Loveliest of trees, the cherry now
Is hung with bloom along the bough,
And stands about the woodland ride
Wearing white for Eastertide'
(Housman, 'A Shropshire Lad') pic.twitter.com/kfLkAFdsyQ— Beatrice Groves (@beatricegroves1) April 10, 2023
For then he opened their vnderstanding, that they might perceiue the Scriptures, and sayd vnto them: Thus it is written, and thus it behooued Christ to suffer, and to rise from death the third day, and that there should be preached openly in his name pardon and remission of sinnes to all the Nations of the world (Luke 24.45-47). Yee see (good Christian people) how necessary this Article of our faith is, seeing it was prooued of Christ himselfe by such euident reasons and tokens, by so long time and space. Now therefore as our Sauiour was diligent for our comfort and instruction to declare it: so let vs be as ready in our beliefe to receiue it to our comfort and instruction. As he died not for himselfe, no more did he rise againe for himselfe. He was dead (sayth Saint Paul) for our sinnes, and rose againe for our iustification (1 Corinthians 15.3-4). O most comfortable word, euermore to be borne in remembrance. He died (saith he) to put away sinne, hee rose againe to endow vs with righteousnesse. His death tooke away sinne and malediction, his death was the ransome of them both, his death destroyed death, and ouercame the deuill, which had the power of death in his subiection, his death destroyed hell, with all the damnation thereof. Thus is death swallowed vp by Christs victory, thus is hell spoyled for euer.
'Alleluia! Christ is risen!'
Wishing you a very Happy Easter from all of us at Westminster Abbey pic.twitter.com/BZrxOqK5ax
— Westminster Abbey (@wabbey) April 9, 2023
One has to turn to poetry and music this day because the news of what occurred is so good it is impossible fully to take in–KSH.
#EasterSunday @EdPiotrowski @medwick @ChrissyKohler @WXIIJackie @Em_I_Am @JustinMcKeeWx @LeeHaywoodWX @ramelcarpenter @marioncaldwx @RealSaltLife @StarboardRail @StormHour @ThePhotoHour @Christina4casts @CMorganWX @AndrewWMBF @AlexCorderoWX @ScottyPowellWX @FOX8CindyFarmer pic.twitter.com/KT65UXmd7e
— Mark Moore (@MMoore_hoops) April 9, 2023
Words cannot utter
Christ His returning:—
Mankind, keep Jubilee,
Strip off your mourning,
Crown you with garlands,
Set your lamps burning.
Speech is left speechless;—
Set you to singing,
Fling your hearts open wide,
Set your bells ringing:
Christ the Chief Reaper
Comes, His sheaf bringing…
Happy Easter! 🐰🐣
At the top of this enormously dramatic early 17th-century painting, Christ miraculously rises from the dead after his crucifixion and burial.
Learn about "The Resurrection" by painter Francesco Buoneri, a close follower of Caravaggio: https://t.co/4Kb7CopVkw pic.twitter.com/P9JTZDLKrq
— The Art Institute of Chicago (@artinstitutechi) April 17, 2022
Listen to it all and you can read more about it, including finding the lyrics, at Lent and Beyond.
The resurrection was as inconceivable for the first disciples, as impossible for them to believe, as it is for many of us today. Granted, their reasons would have been different from ours. The Greeks did not believe in resurrection; in the Greek worldview, the afterlife was liberation of the soul from the body. For them, resurrection would never be part of life after death. As for the Jews, some of them believed in a future general resurrection when the entire world would be renewed, but they had no concept of an individual rising from the dead. The people of Jesus’ day were not predisposed to believe in resurrection any more than we are.
Celsus, a Greek philosopher who lived in the second century A.D., was highly antagonistic to Christianity and wrote a number of works listing arguments against it. One of the arguments he believed most telling went like this: Christianity can’t be true, because the written accounts of the resurrection are based on the testimony of women””and we all know women are hysterical. And many of Celsus’ readers agreed: For them, that was a major problem. In ancient societies, as you know, women were marginalized, and the testimony of women was never given much credence.
Do you see what that means? If Mark and the Christians were making up these stories to get their movement off the ground, they would never have written women into the story as the first eyewitnesses to Jesus’ empty tomb. The only possible reason for the presence of women in these accounts is that they really were present and reported what they saw. The stone has been rolled away, the tomb is empty and an angel declares that Jesus is risen.
The resurrection of Jesus Christ is the turning point of the world. Death becomes new and eternal life.
Because of the resurrection of Jesus, our lives are changed today and have meaning throughout eternity. Christ is alive. He is risen!
Alleluia! pic.twitter.com/nt5EPi8cqL
— Archbishop of Canterbury (@JustinWelby) April 9, 2023
This is the real meaning of Easter…
No tabloid will ever print the startling news that the mummified body of Jesus of Nazareth has been discovered in old Jerusalem. Christians have no carefully embalmed body enclosed in a glass case to worship. Thank God, we have an empty tomb.
The glorious fact that the empty tomb proclaims to us is that life for us does not stop when death comes. Death is not a wall, but a door. And eternal life which may be ours now, by faith in Christ, is not interrupted when the soul leaves the body, for we live on…and on.
There is no death to those who have entered into fellowship with him who emerged from the tomb. Because the resurrection is true it is the most significant thing in our world today. Bringing the resurrected Christ into our lives, individual and national, is the only hope we have for making a better world.
“Because I live ye shall live also.”
That is the real meaning of Easter.
–Peter Marshall (1902-1949), The First Easter
Happy Easter!
(The Roermond Passion, c. 1435, Rijksmuseum, SK-A-1491) pic.twitter.com/5rEeOv2juB
— Renske Hoff (@RenskeHoff) April 8, 2023