HE IS RISEN!
Opening Prayer
I rejoice today, Almighty God! Thank you for the gift of life made possible because of the resurrection of Jesus.
Read LUKE 24:1–12
Jesus Has Risen
24 On the first day of the week, very early in the morning, the women took the spices they had prepared and went to the tomb. 2 They found the stone rolled away from the tomb, 3 but when they entered, they did not find the body of the Lord Jesus. 4 While they were wondering about this, suddenly two men in clothes that gleamed like lightning stood beside them. 5 In their fright the women bowed down with their faces to the ground, but the men said to them, “Why do you look for the living among the dead? 6 He is not here; he has risen! Remember how he told you, while he was still with you in Galilee: 7 ‘The Son of Man must be delivered over to the hands of sinners, be crucified and on the third day be raised again.’ ” 8 Then they remembered his words.
9 When they came back from the tomb, they told all these things to the Eleven and to all the others. 10 It was Mary Magdalene, Joanna, Mary the mother of James, and the others with them who told this to the apostles. 11 But they did not believe the women, because their words seemed to them like nonsense. 12 Peter, however, got up and ran to the tomb. Bending over, he saw the strips of linen lying by themselves, and he went away, wondering to himself what had happened.
New International Version (NIV)Holy Bible, New International Version®, NIV® Copyright ©1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc.® Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide.
Reflect
He is risen—he is risen indeed!Millions of Christians around the world today are celebrating the simple but majestic content of today’s reading—that Jesus is alive! We have focused much on the words of Jesus in the final hours before his death. In today’s story, although Jesus was absent from the scene, his words were still present and, like his words of the previous days, much is revealed to us through them. To the fear, sadness, disappointment, and confusion the women must have felt, shock was added as they encountered not only an empty tomb, but two angels who ‘gleamed like lightning’ (v. 4). What followed, however, were the words of Jesus quoted by the angels who urged the women to ‘remember how he told you’ that he would ‘be crucified and on the third day be raised again’ (vv. 6, 7). His words offered the proof of his authority: what he said would happen had happened.
The resurrection shows once and for all that Jesus carries true power and authority and, ultimately, that what he says is true. Easter tells us that you and I can trust Jesus with our lives and that he will not let us down. He has embraced death and he has, as he said he would, come out the other side alive and victorious.
Apply
Do you find it easy to trust God? How does the reality of the resurrection affect this?
Closing prayer
Father in heaven, you fulfilled your promise—Jesus rose from the dead! There is no promise you have not kept nor will not yet keep. Help me to hold fast to your promises fulfilled that give me faith for those for which I wait.
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