Almighty and merciful God, into whose gracious presence we ascend, not by the frailty of the flesh but by the activity of the soul: Make us ever by thy inspiration to seek after the courts of the heavenly city, whither our Saviour Christ hath ascended, and by thy mercy confidently to enter them, both now and hereafter; through the same Jesus Christ our Lord.

Morning everyone I hope you are well. The calm between all the rain and wind. Interesting how quickly the water levels are back at their normal levels, here at Derwentwater. Have a great day.#LakeDistrict pic.twitter.com/3OOswng3F6

— Rod Hutchinson (@lakesrhino) June 3, 2025

From there:

Does the road wind up-hill all the way?
Yes, to the very end.
Will the day’s journey take the whole long day?
From morn to night, my friend.

But is there for the night a resting-place?
A roof for when the slow dark hours begin.
May not the darkness hide it from my face?
You cannot miss that inn.

Shall I meet other wayfarers at night?
Those who have gone before.
Then must I knock, or call when just in sight?
They will not keep you standing at that door.

Shall I find comfort, travel-sore and weak?
Of labour you shall find the sum.
Will there be beds for me and all who seek?
Yea, beds for all who come.

La Résurrection du Christ

Charles Le Brun pic.twitter.com/mztOTM8ozw

— Histoire de France (@HistoiredeFran7) April 17, 2022

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

O God, the King of glory, you have exalted your only Son Jesus Christ with great triumph to your kingdom in heaven: Do not leave us comfortless, but send us your Holy Spirit to strengthen us, and exalt us to that place where our Savior Christ has gone before; who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, in glory everlasting.  Amen.

‘Bora da’ 😁☀️🏴󠁧󠁢󠁷󠁬󠁳󠁿
‘Good morning’ 😁☀️🏴󠁧󠁢󠁷󠁬󠁳󠁿@sixteenthCgirl @AledHall @hooson21 @ItsYourWales @Ruth_ITV @bootlegger1974 @StormHour @ThePhotoHour @sianharries_ @HCynwal @EleriSion @LouiseTalks @S4Ctywydd @DerekTheWeather @NickyZJohn @hawley_caroline pic.twitter.com/gzNmhAIeVW

— Llelo Gruffudd (@Llelo2801) June 1, 2025

O Almighty God, who hast created the earth for man, and man for thy glory: Mercifully hear the supplications of thy people, and be mindful of thy covenant; that both the earth may yield her increase, and the good seed of thy Word may bring forth abundantly, to the glory of thy holy name; through Jesus Christ our Lord.

Good day pic.twitter.com/ohAeOn7ZZT

— Aleksandar Mitrovic (@Aleksan52094351) May 31, 2025

From here:

No other word in all our vocabulary is more expressive of the message of Christ than the word “resurrection.” At Calvary the little band of disciples watched their Lord Jesus die, and they saw His broken body taken from the cross. Earlier, one of them had betrayed Him for 30 pieces of silver. Another had cursed and had sworn that he never knew Him. Most of them, turning and running for their lives, had forsaken Him. When Jesus’ body was placed in the tomb and the stone was rolled against it, it seemed that this was the end of all their hopes.

Then came Easter morning, and the midnight of despair was turned into glorious dawning. It was the resurrection of all their hopes.

But Calvary does not tell the whole story. Jesus died for all our sins, but the Bible says that Jesus “was raised again for our justification.”(9)

Several years ago I talked with Chancellor Adenauer, of Germany, and he asked me, “Do you believe that Jesus Christ is alive?”

I replied, “Yes, I do.”

He said, “So do I. If Jesus Christ is not alive, then I see no hope for the world. It is the fact of the resurrection that gives me hope for the future.” As he spoke those words, his eyes lighted up.

Indeed, the resurrection of Christ is the only hope of the world: “If Christ be not risen, then our hopes and dreams and faith are in vain.”(10) “The resurrection of Christ is the only hope of the world.”

But Christ is alive. And because He is alive, that makes all the difference in the world. In His resurrection evil has been defeated, Satan has been defeated, death has lost its sting, love has conquered hate, God has accepted the atoning work of Christ on the cross, and all of creation bursts forth in a new song. Because Christ is alive, we can face death with confidence.

Resurrection of Christ (c. 1700), by Noël Coypel pic.twitter.com/N5zAGOP8rs

— Classical Art (@SeekAfterBeauty) April 20, 2025

Christ himself pointed out the benefit of his sufferings and resurrection when he said to the women in Mt 28, 10 – “Fear not: go tell my brethren that they depart into Galilee, and there shall they see me.” These are the very first words they heard from Christ after his resurrection from the dead, by which he confirmed all the former utterances and loving deeds he showed them, namely, that his resurrection avails in our behalf who believe, so that he therefore anticipates and calls Christians his brethren, who believe it, and yet they do not, like the apostles, witness his resurrection.

The risen Christ waits not until we ask or call on him to become his brethren. Do we here speak of merit, by which we deserve anything? What did the apostles merit? Peter denied his Lord three times; the other disciples all fled from him; they tarried with him like a rabbit does with its young. He should have called them deserters, yea, betrayers, reprobates, anything but brethren. Therefore this word is sent to them through the women out of pure grace and mercy, as the apostles at the time keenly experienced, and we experience also, when we are mired fast in our sins, temptations and condemnation.

These are words full of all comfort that Christ receives desperate villains as you and I are and calls us his brethren. Is Christ really our brother, then I would like to know what we can be in need of? Just as it is among natural brothers, so is it also here. Brothers according to the flesh enjoy the same possessions, have the same father, the one inheritance, otherwise they would not be brothers: so we enjoy with Christ the same possessions, and have in common with him one Father and one inheritance, which never decreases by being distributed, as other inheritances do; but it ever grows larger and larger; for it is a spiritual inheritance. But an earthly inheritance decreases when distributed among many persons. He who has a part of this spiritual inheritance, has it all.

Read it all.

Resurrection day #EasterSunday
BL Add MS 19352; Theodore Psalter; 1066 CE; Eastern Mediterranean (Constantinople); f.146 @BLMedieval pic.twitter.com/5PUDFv3Ols

— Ennius (@red_loeb) April 20, 2025

As I am in the US for the first time in many years, I find myself longing for the simplicity of Maua, Kenya, during Easter time. There Easter has none of the commercial trappings we find here. As I enter grocery stores, discount stores, and department stores I am shocked at the amount of space taken by the Easter candy, bunnies and stuffed animals, baskets, decorations, and new spring clothing. These items take more space than any grocery store has for all their goods in Maua.

I recently read that an estimated $2 billion will be spent on Easter candy this year in the US. Two billion dollars to celebrate the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ, who asked us to feed the hungry, clothe the naked, give water to the thirsty, house the homeless, care for the sick and imprisoned, and welcome the stranger.

Read it all.

"And it happened that, while [Jesus] was with [the two disciples] at table, he took bread, said the blessing, broke it, and gave it to them. With that their eyes were opened and they recognized him, but he vanished from their sight." (Lk 24:30-31)

Supper at Emmaus by Rembrandt. pic.twitter.com/6wCmbcu64r

— Christian Culture (@Christian8Pics) April 24, 2019

Listen to it all.

“He has cheated hell
And seated us above the fall
In desperate places he paid our wages
One time, once and for all.”

The power of detail
Caravaggio – The Supper at Emmaus – 1601 pic.twitter.com/v7fViqaYTx

— Rembrandt's R👀m 🖌 (maaikedirkx) (@RembrandtsRoom) April 13, 2023

Send out Thy light and Thy truth, that I may live near to Thee, my God.  Let me feel Thy love, that I may be – as it were – already in heaven, that I may do all my work as the angels do theirs; and let me be ready for every work, be ready to go out or go in, to stay or depart, just as Thou shalt appoint.  Lord, let me have no will of my own, or consider my true happiness as depending in the smallest degree on anything that can befall me outwardly, but as consisting altogether in conformity to Thy will.

….the bridegroom rejoices to revisit the heart’s chamber when He finds it adorned with fruits and decked with flowers””that is, meditating on the mystery of His Passion or on the glory of His Resurrection.

The tokens of the Passion we recognize as the fruitage of the ages of the past, appearing in the fullness of time during the reign of sin and death (Gal. 4.4). But it is the glory of the Resurrection, in the new springtime of regenerating grace, that the fresh flowers of the later age come forth, whose fruit shall be given without measure at the general resurrection, when time shall be no more. And so it is written, ‘The winter is past, the rain is over and gone, the flowers appear on the earth’ (Cant. 2.11 f); signifying that summer has come back with Him who dissolves icy death into the spring of a new life and says, ‘Behold, I make all things new’ (Rev. 21.5). His Body sown in the grave has blossomed in the Resurrection (I Cor. 15.42); and in like manner our valleys and fields which were barren or frozen, as if dead, glow with reviving life and warmth.

The Father of Christ who makes all things new, is well pleased with the freshness of those flowers and fruits, and the beauty of the field which breathes forth such heavenly fragrance; and He says in benediction, ‘See, the smell of My Son is as the smell of a field which the Lord hath blessed’ (Gen. 27.27). Blessed to overflowing, indeed, since of His fullness have all we received (John 1.16). But the Bride may come when she pleases and gather flowers and fruits therewith to adorn the inmost recesses of her conscience; that the Bridegroom when He cometh may find the chamber of her heart redolent with perfume.

So it behoves us, if we would have Christ for a frequent guest, to fill our hearts with faithful meditations on the mercy He showed in dying for us, and on His mighty power in rising again from the dead. To this David testified when he sang, ”˜God spake once, and twice I have also heard the same; that power belongeth unto God; and that Thou, Lord, art merciful (Ps. 62.11f). And surely there is proof enough and to spare in that Christ died for our sins and rose again for our justification, and ascended into heaven that He might protect us from on high, and sent the Holy Spirit for our comfort. Hereafter He will come again for the consummation of our bliss. In His Death He displayed His mercy, in His Resurrection His power; both combine to manifest His glory.

–Bernard of Clairvaux (1090-1153), On Loving God, Chapter III

"Tell us, Mary: say what thou didst see upon the way.
The tomb the Living did enclose;
I saw Christ's glory as he rose!" (from the Easter Sequence)#EasterAtHome
BL Add 49598; Benedictional of Æthelwold; 963-984; England, S; ff.51v, 52v @BLMedieval pic.twitter.com/c8JJU8LvQG

— Ennius (@red_loeb) April 12, 2020

From here: Lord, who createdst man in wealth and store,
Though foolishly he lost the same,
Decaying more and more,
Till he became
Most poore:
With thee
O let me rise
As larks, harmoniously,
And sing this day thy victories:
Then shall the fall further the flight in me.

My tender age in sorrow did beginne
And still with sicknesses and shame.
Thou didst so punish sinne,
That I became
Most thinne.
With thee
Let me combine,
And feel thy victorie:
For, if I imp my wing on thine,
Affliction shall advance the flight in me.

Benvenuto Tisi (Garofalo), The Resurrection of Christ, c.1520 pic.twitter.com/p55TaMgKOH

— Solas (@solas_na_greine) November 18, 2024

God the Father bless me, Christ guard me, the Holy Spirit enlighten me, all the days of my life!  The Lord be the defender and guardian of my soul and my body, now and ever, and world without end!  Amen.  The right hand of the Lord preserve me always to old age!  The grace of Christ perpetually defend me from the enemy!  Direct, Lord, my heart into the way of peace.  Lord God, haste Thee to deliver me, make haste to help me, O Lord.

–Frederick B. Macnutt, The prayer manual for private devotions or public use on divers occasions: Compiled from all sources ancient, medieval, and modern (A.R. Mowbray, 1951)

Flying in for Wednesday 😁 pic.twitter.com/QI4fJ81okd

— Veronica in the Fens 🧚🏼‍♀️ My Heart in Nature (@VeronicaJoPo) May 28, 2025

O Almighty God, who hast created the earth for man, and man for thy glory: Mercifully hear the supplications of thy people, and be mindful of thy covenant; that both the earth may yield her increase, and the good seed of thy Word may bring forth abundantly, to the glory of thy holy name; through Jesus Christ our Lord.

Good day pic.twitter.com/kgTaar7qJK

— Aleksandar Mitrovic (@Aleksan52094351) May 27, 2025

O God, you have prepared for those who love you such good things as surpass our understanding: Pour into our hearts such love towards you, that we, loving you in all things and above all things, may obtain your promises, which exceed all that we can desire; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever.  Amen.

Blessed #memorialday2025 ‘greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends’ #memorialday #lowcountrylife #southcarolina @summervillesc ⁦@EdPiotrowski⁩ pic.twitter.com/oU0OSQ8xlI

— Kendall Harmon (@KendallHarmon6) May 26, 2025

God our redeemer,
you have delivered us from the power of darkness
and brought us into the kingdom of your Son:
grant, that as by his death he has recalled us to life,
so by his continual presence in us he may raise us to eternal joy;
through Jesus Christ your Son our Lord,
who is alive and reigns with you,
in the unity of the Holy Spirit,
one God, now and for ever.
Amen.

Just An Afternoon Stroll. 15°C and very windy. Swifts. pic.twitter.com/CsVZ5Z5nai

— Yorkshire Wolds Weather (@WeatherWolds) May 25, 2025

O Lord Jesus Christ, who didst say that in thee we may have peace, and hast bidden us to be of good cheer, since thou hast overcome the world: Give ears to hear and faith to receive thy word; that in all the confusions and tensions of this present time, with mind serene and steadfast purpose, we may continue to abide in thee, who livest and wast dead and art alive for evermore.

Albrecht Altdorfer – The Resurrection of Christ, 1518 pic.twitter.com/kRyg2KX8Nf

— Solas (@solas_na_greine) January 2, 2024

So after the sum of four and three
nights, the Saviour sends
the month of April, in which most often comes
the glorious season for the comfort of men,
the rising of the Lord. Then joy is fitting
far and wide, as the prophet sang:
‘This is the day which the Lord made
for us, the wise one, for the generations of men,
for all blessed earth-dwellers, with bliss.’
We cannot keep that season by tallying
the count of days, nor the Lord’s ascension
into the heavens, because it always changes,
by calculations of the wise; but the venerable in winters
shall find with skill the holy days
in the cycle. But we will count still
more memorials of martyrs,
press on with words, sing the subject:
that after nineteen nights plus five
after Eastermonth comes to us
the relics begin to be raised up,
holy ornaments; that is an exalted day,
glorious season of prayer.

Read it all.

The Old English name for April was Eastermonað, 'in which comes the glorious season for the comfort of men' https://t.co/zgQkf5lotN pic.twitter.com/GttD4h8cpg

— Eleanor Parker (@ClerkofOxford) April 1, 2017

From there:

As I had always known
he would come, unannounced,
remarkable merely for the absence
of clamour. So truth must appear
to the thinker; so, at a stage
of the experiment, the answer
must quietly emerge. I looked
at him, not with the eye
only, but with the whole
of my being, overflowing with
him as a chalice would
with the sea. Yet was he
no more there than before,
his area occupied
by the unhaloed presences.
You could put your hand
in him without consciousness
of his wounds. The gamblers
at the foot of the unnoticed
cross went on with
their dicing; yet the invisible
garment for which they played
was no longer at stake, but worn
by him in this risen existence.

The Morning of the Resurrection
Edward Burne-Jones (1833-1898) pic.twitter.com/4fLMUzWwcc

— Edward Wilkie (@wambaworld) April 16, 2017

Lyrics:

The Lord’s my Shepherd, I’ll not want
He makes me lie in pastures green
He leads me by the still, still waters
His goodness restores my soul

And I will trust in You alone
And I will trust in You alone
For Your endless mercy follows me
Your goodness will lead me home

He guides my ways in righteousness
And He anoints my head with oil
And my cup, it overflows with joy
I feast on His pure delights

And I will trust in You alone
And I will trust in You alone
For Your endless mercy follows me
Your goodness will lead me home

And though I walk the darkest path
I will not fear the evil one
For You are with me, and Your rod and staff
Are the comfort I need to know

And I will trust in You alone
And I will trust in You alone
For Your endless mercy follows me
Your goodness will lead me home (I will trust)

And I will trust in You alone
And I will trust in You alone
For Your endless mercy follows me
Your goodness will lead me home (for Your endless mercy)

For Your endless mercy follows me
Your goodness will lead me home (for Your endless mercy)
For Your endless mercy follows me
Your goodness will lead me home

Enjoy the whole thing.

O Lord Jesus Christ, who hast gone to the Father to prepare a place for us: Grant us so to live in communion with thee here on earth, that hereafter we may enjoy the fullness of thy presence; who livest and reignest with the Father and the Holy Spirit, ever one God, world without end.

Guten Morgen am Freitag,
heute mal ein Blumengruß aus dem Garten. pic.twitter.com/b5cXoKBorR

— Die Bergziege (@brauchtfreiheit) May 23, 2025

They took the body down from the cross and one of the few rich men among the first Christians obtained permission to bury it in a rock tomb in his garden; the Romans setting a military guard lest there should be some riot and attempt to recover the body. There was once more a natural symbolism in these natural proceedings; it was well that the tomb should be sealed with all the secrecy of ancient eastern sepulchre and guarded by the authority of the Caesars. For in that second cavern the whole of that great and glorious humanity which we call antiquity was gathered up and covered over; and in that place it was buried. It was the end of a very great thing called human history; the history that was merely human. The mythologies and the philosophies were buried there, the gods and the heroes and the sages. In the great Roman phrase, they had lived. But as they could only live, so they could only die; and they were dead.

On the third day the friends of Christ coming at daybreak to the place found the grave empty and the stone rolled away. In varying ways they realized the new wonder; but even they hardly realized that the world had died in the night. What they were looking at was the first day of a new creation, with a new heaven and a new earth; and in a semblance of the gardener God walked again in the garden, in the cool not of the evening but the dawn.

—Everlasting Man I.iii

The Resurrection, Bellini (Gemaldegalerie, Berlin) pic.twitter.com/jEdIauvOgY

— Celia Parker (@celiaparker65) April 15, 2018

To sum up, the resurrection of Jesus Christ is the great verdict of God, the fulfillment and proclamation of God’s decision concerning the event of the cross. It is its acceptance as the act of the Son of God appointed our representative, an act which fulfilled the divine wrath but did so in the service of the divine grace. It is its acceptance as the act of His obedience which judges the world, but judges it with the aim of saving it. It is its acceptance as the act of His Son whom He has always loved (and us in Him), whom of His sheer goodness He has not rejected but drawn to Himself (and us in Him) (Jer. 31:3). In this the resurrection is the justification of God Himself, of God the Father, Creator of heaven and earth, who has willed and planned and ordered this event. It is the justification of Jesus Christ, His Son, who willed to suffer this event, and suffered it to the very last. And in His person it is the justification of all sinful men, whose death was decided in this event, for whose life there is therefore no more place. In the resurrection of Jesus Christ His life and with it their life has in fact become an event beyond death: “Because I live, ye shall live also” (John 14:19).

—Church Dogmatics (IV.1) [E.T. By Geoffrey Bromiley and Thomas Torrance of the German Original] (London: T and T Clark, 1956), page 309

Wishing everyone the peace and joy of Easter. (The Resurrection of Jesus Christ, Pietro Perugino 1448 – 1523) pic.twitter.com/mvKEVLhcm4

— Michael Tyquin (@Posthorne01) March 30, 2024

Lyrics:

Look to the day when the world seems new again:
Morning so fresh you could touch the sky;
The earth smells sweet and ev’ry flower looks bright,
Shining in a dewy light as you wander by.
Taking the time to enjoy each moment;
Tasting the fruits spread along your way,
Knowing there’s time to spare, Dreams you can dream and share:
Look to the day, look to the day.

Look to the day when the earth is green again:
Promise of spring after winter’s sleep.
The sounds of life returning fill the air,
Music that’s forever there for your heart to keep.
Deep in the earth lay the seed of life renewed,
Quiet and strong till the time of spring:
Life in each bud and shoot, Life in each flower and fruit,
Look to that day when earth shall sing.

Look to the light that will drive out darkness;
Look to the hope that will conquer fear.
God’s strength uphold us till the fight is won,
Till we see our task is done when the day is here.
Look for that day when there shall be no more pain;
Sorrow and sighing shall pass away.
Pray for the day to come, Trust that the day will come,
Look to that day, look to the day.

Lord, we give thanks for the gifts of life and health;
Plant a new seed in our hearts, we pray:
Help us to see, O Lord, How it could be, O Lord;
Look to the day, look to that day, look to the day, look to that day.

From here:

Moist with one drop of thy blood, my dry soul
Shall (though she now be in extreme degree
Too stony hard, and yet too fleshly,) be
Freed by that drop, from being starved, hard, or foul,
And life, by this death abled, shall control
Death, whom thy death slew; nor shall to me
Fear of first or last death, bring misery,
If in thy little book my name thou enrol,
Flesh in that long sleep is not putrefied,
But made that there, of which, and for which ’twas;
Nor can by other means be glorified.
May then sin’s sleep, and death’s soon from me pass,
That waked from both, I again risen may
Salute the last, and everlasting day.

La Résurrection du Christ de Murillo (musée de l’Académie des beaux-arts de San Fernando, Madrid) pic.twitter.com/nDxjWaiNNO

— Philippe (@phdbeu) April 20, 2025

O God our Father, whose law is a law of liberty: Grant us wisdom to use aright the freedom which thou hast given us, by surrendering ourselves to thy service; knowing that, when we are thy willing bondsmen, then only are we truly free; for Jesus Christ’s sake.

—New Every Morning (The Prayer Book Of The Daily Broadcast Service) [BBC, 1900]

Good Morning from Sunny Selside 👋 pic.twitter.com/0cEhPO1i04

— Visit North Yorkshire (@visitnorthyork) May 22, 2025

So, how can we learn to live as wide-awake people, as Easter people? Here I have some bracing suggestion to make. I have to believe that many churches simply throw Easter away year by year; and I want to plead that we rethink how we do it so as to help each other, as a church and as individuals, to live what we profess.

For a start, consider Easter Day itself…Easter is about the wild delight of God’s creative power—…we ought to shout Alleluias instead of murmuring them; we should light every candle in the building instead of only some; we should give every man, woman, child, cat, dog, and mouse in the place a candle to hold; we should have a real bonfire; and we should splash water about as we renew our baptismal vows…It’s about the real Jesus coming out of the real tomb and getting God’s real new creation under way.

But my biggest problem starts on Easter Monday. I regard it as absurd and unjustifiable that we should spend forty days keeping Lent, pondering what it means, preaching about self-denial, being at least a little gloomy, and then bringing it all to a peak with Holy Week, which in turn climaxes in Maundy Thursday and Good Friday…and then, after a rather odd Holy Saturday, we have a single day of celebration.

…Easter week itself ought not to be the time when all the clergy sigh with relief and go on holiday. It ought to be an eight-day festival, with champagne served after morning prayer or even before, with lots of alleluias and extra hymns and spectacular anthems. Is it any wonder people find it hard to believe in the resurrection of Jesus if we don’t throw our hats in the air? Is it any wonder we find it hard to live the resurrection if we don’t do it exuberantly in our liturgies? Is it any wonder the world doesn’t take much notice if Easter is celebrated as simply the one-day happy ending tacked on to forty days of fasting and gloom?

…we should be taking steps to celebrate Easter in creative new ways: in art, literature, children’s games, poetry, music, dance, festivals, bells, special concerts, anything that comes to mind. This is our greatest festival. Take Christmas away, and in biblical terms you lose two chapters at the front of Matthew and Luke, nothing else. Take Easter away, and you don’t have a New Testament; you don’t have a Christianity; as Paul says, you are still in your sins…

…if Lent is a time to give things up, Easter ought to be a time to take things up….Christian holiness was never meant to be merely negative…. The forty days of the Easter season, until the ascension, ought to be a time to balance out Lent by taking something up, some new task or venture, something wholesome and fruitful and outgoing and self-giving. …if you really make a start on it, it might give you a sniff of new possibilities, new hopes, new ventures you never dreamed of. It might bring something of Easter into your innermost life. It might help you wake up in a whole new way. And that’s what Easter is all about.”

—Surprised by Hope: Rethinking Heaven, the Resurrection, and the Mission of the Church (New York: HarperCollins, 2008) pp. 255-257

Resurrection, 1510 #northernrenaissance #durer https://t.co/xaNvV2Dtzx pic.twitter.com/otZ5Az0E1F

— Albrecht Dürer (@artistdurer) September 7, 2022

Lyrics

Even before we call on Your name
To ask You, O God,
When we seek for the words to glorify You,
You hear our prayer;
Unceasing love, O unceasing love,
Surpassing all we know.

Glory to the father,
and to the Son,
And to the Holy Spirit.

Even with darkness sealing us in,
We breathe Your name,
And through all the days that follow so fast,
We trust in You;
Endless Your grace, O endless Your grace,
Beyond all mortal dream.

Both now and forever,
And unto ages and ages,
Amen

O Lord Jesus Christ, who didst say to thy disciples, Whatever you shall ask in my name, that will I do, that the Father may be glorified in the Son: Give us grace, we beseech thee, to ask aright; teach us to bring our requests into harmony with thy mind and will; and grant that both our prayers and our lives may be acceptable in thy sight, to the glory of God the Father.

Wielitscher Kapelle pic.twitter.com/IPMkFeCCL6

— Jure Kravanja Yurko (@JureYurko) May 21, 2025

…particularly when we look at the disciples, the watered-down resurrection doesn’t seem credible at all. Remember that the Gospel of John (whose author had little to gain by making the disciples, future leaders of the early church, look bad) notes that the disciples were so frightened that they barricaded themselves behind locked doors after Jesus’s death. They had good reason to be. “If the authorities dealt that way with Jesus, who had so many people supporting him,” they must have thought, “what will they do to us?” Even before the crucifixion Peter shrank in fear from being identified as a follower of Jesus. Imagine how their fear would have intensified after witnessing the Romans’ brutal execution of their master.

With one exception, all of Jesus’s male followers were so terrified that they shrank from standing at the foot of the cross, unable to accompany Jesus during his final hours. Their reluctance may have stemmed from an inability to watch the agonizing death of their friend, but much was out of fear of being identified as a follower of an enemy of Rome. (The women, showed no such fear, though the situation may have posed less danger for them.)

The disciples were terrified. So does it seem credible that something as simple as sitting around and remembering Jesus would snap them out of their abject fear? Not to me. Something incontrovertible, something undeniable, something visible, something tangible, was necessary to transform them from fearful to fearless.

This is one of the most compelling “proofs” of the Resurrection.

Read it all.

Christus surréxit! – Surréxit vere, allelúja
Hans Memling: The Resurrection (1490) pic.twitter.com/vet5tsUC00

— K H Hardy (@khhardy) April 20, 2025