Jesus Is Alive!
Elaine Poproski Download: Audio
Sunday Scripture Reading: John 20:1-18 (NRSV)
1 Early on the first day of the week, while it was still dark, Mary Magdalene came to the tomb and saw that the stone had been removed from the tomb. Read more…
Looking to Sunday: Preparing to Hear From God
by Elaine Poproski
This is the weekend of all weekends in the Christian calendar! I know Christmas gets all the hype, but everything about our faith rests on Good Friday and Easter. This is the weekend we remember the cost of God’s grace toward us. It’s the weekend we remember that not even death can stand in the way of God’s purposes.
Jesus’ story is the story of the world’s worst trades. A long time ago, a man named John Calvin wrote about Jesus’ unexpected trades when he wrote these words:
“This is the wondrous exchange made by His boundless goodness. Having become with us the Son of Man, He has made us with Himself sons [children] of God. By His own descent to the earth He has prepared our ascent to heaven. Having received our mortality, He has bestowed on us His immortality. Having undertaken our weakness, He has made us strong in His strength. Having submitted to our poverty, He has transferred to us His riches. Having taken upon Himself the burden of unrighteousness with which we were oppressed, He has clothed us with His righteousness.”[1]
The Easter story is that of Jesus trading His life for ours; it’s that of Jesus suffering the consequence of our sin; it’s that of Jesus experiencing abandonment by God so that our relationship with God could be restored.
For many of you reading this article, the Easter story is familiar – perhaps over-familiar. The danger of such familiarity is that the story stops being powerful; it loses its weight; we can’t be bothered to actually read the story anymore and as a result we lose parts of the story. And so, as you prepare for a worship service on Good Friday and Easter Sunday [it is my profound hope that none of you will forego the ‘extra’ service this week, regardless of whether you’re available to be at Walmer’s services or not] I encourage you to read the Easter story from start to finish. I’ve been reading it in John 18 – 19 and can highly recommend that you choose that gospel. But it’s also in Matthew 26 – 27, Mark 14 – 15, and Luke 22 – 23. Read one of the accounts or read all of them. What nuances had you forgotten? What pieces of the story impacted you as you read it? What difference does this story make in the way you live your life?