HomeOUR SAVIOR LUTHERAN CHURCH
APRIL 2024
LIVING AS EASTER PEOPLE
CHRIST HAS RISEN! HE HAS RISEN INDEED! HALLELUJAH!
The season of Easter has begun! Easter is not just a day but rather a week of weeks. It is a time to celebrate like no other time in our year. All of history was changed forever on the day Jesus was raised from the dead. Nothing will ever be the same as before. Nothing can be the same as before. Because of the suffering, death and resurrection of Jesus of Nazareth our lives have been changed completely. We have been given the promise of eternal life in the very presence of God. Because of the resurrection of Jesus we can live as Easter people!
What does it mean to live as Easter people? During the first week of Easter we hear two stories of Jesus’ appearance to different disciples. First, we hear the story of his appearance to two of his disciples as they returned to their hometown of Emmaus from Jerusalem, broken- hearted that their leader, Jesus, had been killed, and the movement he had started, the peaceful revolution that would bring about the Kingdom of God had been crushed. Then we hear of two times when Jesus appeared to the eleven disciples who had hidden behind locked doors in stark terror of their own lives. The first time Jesus appeared to the eleven Thomas was absent, but he was present at the second appearance. These events are instructive, for they highlight the changes that occurred to these earliest disciples, the ones who had been eyewitnesses to the horror of the preceding days.
When the two disciples from Emmaus realized that the man in front of them was actually Jesus, they went instantly from despair and hopelessness to pure joy. So it was as well with the eleven. First the ten who were there at Jesus’ first appearance, and then Thomas, went from despair to joy as well. Do we have that same joy? We can. It is available to us as it was to them. We too can know joy of Jesus’ presence in our lives. We can have that joy because we have the assurance of Jesus’ resurrection, we know that our redeemer lives.
Seeing Jesus alive transformed those disciples in another way as well, they went from terrified to fearless, from hiding in locked rooms to public witness of the wonderful thing they had seen, even in the face of persecution. Even as they were threatened with imprisonment and death they became messengers of the good news, they became messengers of hope. When we have the assurance of Christ’s presence with us we can experience true joy and we are empowered to become fearless messengers of hope. That is what it means to live as Easter people.
CHRIST HAS RISEN! HE HAS RISEN INDEED! HALLELUJAH!
Pastor Phil
