Every look at the Savior is profitable to the viewer. On Resurrection Sunday, there were a number of views of Christ, by Mary Magdalene, by the two women, by Peter, by the two disciples on the Road to Emmaus.
The last view that day of victory took place in the evening, when our Lord appeared before the apostles who hid for fear of the Jews.
This view, of all views, confronts the manner of Christ's death squarely, and proves His resurrection in the teeth of His violent death.
Death comes in different varieties. The peaceful deaths, deaths due to disease or age, are puzzling to us. We can hardly understand WHY the person no longer lives.
But a violent death, a death due to mechanical destruction of the body, we can understand.
The incidents recorded in Scripture where Christ raised people from the dead were all quiet deaths. The death Christ died, though, was a violent death. He was beaten, punctured, hung upon a cross to dehydrate and writhe in pain. And then His side was riven by the cruel spear, His heart and lungs torn apart and His blood and fluids discharged.
Our Lord Jesus was very very dead. Even laymen had no problem understanding it, and there was no hope His body could live again.
And yet he presented that same, torn, wounded body before His disciples alive again! He displayed the wounds before them. Even as He stood there, with those wounds, He should not be alive, and yet He was and ever shall be!
The Lamb who was so cruelly torn for our salvation lives again! He is forever our slain lamb, but He is a standing Lamb!
Our response can only be the same as His disciples: "Then were the disciples GLAD when they saw the Lord!" |
#9 - Top Played Sermon (48-Hours) on 4/1/2013
