{"id":12373,"date":"2025-04-20T06:00:00","date_gmt":"2025-04-20T12:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/mysticphoto.ca\/?p=12373"},"modified":"2025-04-20T10:52:47","modified_gmt":"2025-04-20T16:52:47","slug":"christ-is-risen","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mysticphoto.ca\/?p=12373","title":{"rendered":"Christ Is Risen!"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
Christ ist erstanden!<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
Sunday, April 20, 2025<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n
Hallelujia!<\/h3>\n\n\n
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God Chooses Life<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n
For Us All!<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n
Luke 24:1ff<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u2006On the first day of the week, at early dawn, [the women] came to the tomb, taking the spices that they had prepared. \u2006They found the stone rolled away from the tomb, \u2006but when they went in, they did not find the body. \u2006While they were perplexed about this, suddenly two men in dazzling clothes stood beside them. \u2006The women were terrified and bowed their faces to the ground, but the men said to them, \u201cWhy do you look for the living among the dead? He is not here, but has risen.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n
…<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Words of Grace for Today –<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n
…<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Today with great joy we proclaim:<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Christ is Risen! (He is risen indeed!) Christ is Risen! (He is risen indeed!) Christ is Risen! (He is risen indeed!)<\/p>\n\n\n\n
What\u2019s For Breakfast?<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
Winnie the Pooh and Piglet take an evening walk. For a long time they walk in silence. Silence like only best friends can share.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n
Finally Piglet breaks the silence and asks, \u2018When you wake up in the morning, Pooh, what’s the first thing you say to yourself?\u2019<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n
Pooh answers quickly, \u2018What’s for breakfast?\u2019 and then asks. \u2018And what do you say, Piglet?\u2019<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n
Piglet says, \u2018I say, I wonder what exciting thing is going to happen today?\u2019<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n
Billy Strayhorn, Easter Heart Burn, www.Sermons.com adapted 2025<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n
What wondrous things God has in store for us today, just as God had the most wondrous thing in store for the women that first Easter as they made their way to Jesus\u2019 tomb with their spices.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
As for the women that day and for Christians ever since, Easter morning is the most joyous time of all our lives! But this day\u2019s joy cannot be truly appreciated, if we do not remember what has brought us to this day.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Easter Only After …<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
After Advent calls us to be alert, to wait for Jesus\u2019 Christmas\u2019 birth, long promised. After, in Epiphanies unending, God reveals Christ\u2019 Light come to shine forever in our darkness. After Jesus draws us up to the mountaintop-wonder of his glory revealed, so astounding!<\/p>\n\n\n\n
After all that and more in this year so far, we were marked with ashes<\/strong>. Ashes bring us back to the humble reality of who we are: sinful people needing to repent, to be saved … again and again. So Jesus calls us to repent, to turn to God.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Repentance though is a root problem, not a problem of what fruit we produce. It lies at the root of who we see ourselves to be. \u201cI can\u201d statements cannot form our repentance, such as \u201cI have sinned God. I am sorry God. I can<\/strong> do better.\u201d Repentance contains our \u201cI can’t\u201d and \u201cGod can\u201d statements: \u201cI have sinned, God. I am sorry, God. I’ve tried and tried and tried but I just don’t produce good fruit. I can’t do better.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n
I need your Vine dresser to work on the roots of my life. Turn me around to your will. Give me a new life, God. Give me your life. I can’t. You can.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n
(Richard Jensen, Preaching Luke’s Gospel<\/u> p. 147, via B. Stoffregen, \u201cGospel Notes, adapted 2001 & 2025)<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n
No matter how hard we try, we cannot save ourselves. Only God can. So we turn to Jesus, who bends down to wash our feet at his last meal. And we protest like Peter that it should not be so. We try to protect Jesus, with swords, but Jesus tells us to put them away. We stand by, waiting, in grief, and, like Peter, we deny we know Jesus when others threaten us for being his followers, (or because we feel uncomfortable following such a demanding Saviour.) We watch as he is crucified, most torturous. Jesus is thirsty as one in three people on earth are today. He receives sour wine. Most receive nothing. And Jesus, the hope of all nations, of all generations, dies…<\/p>\n\n\n\n
and is buried<\/p>\n\n\n\n
in a new tomb<\/p>\n\n\n\n
spices and linen covering his body.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
It is the greatest victory for Evil, for Evil has wielded death against God\u2019s own Son and won.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Our hope has died as well, for what hope can we possibly find? There is none. There is none. There is none … without Easter.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Jesus Gives Us The Badly Needed …<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
Early in the morning on that third day the women go to the tomb with spices for the body, but Jesus is not there. He has risen from the grave.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The story is more than one resurrection; for others, like Lazarus, have been resurrected before. With Jesus\u2019 resurrection all evil, even death, is defeated, for all time. And with that defeat God promises us all resurrection to new life.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
For Jesus\u2019 story is not just standing at home plate and hitting a home run out of the stadium. It\u2019s standing at the plate, in the bottom of the thirteenth inning, with a full count, down three runs, bases loaded, having been put up at the plate in desperation by the manager, after you are mostly recovered from a chemotherapy treatment three days ago and surgery on your left shoulder last month, at 65 years old. You will never be here again, ever, even if you beat cancer.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Then you hit a home run to the utter amazement and benefit of a home town desperate for a team that could finally win.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
That\u2019s Jesus, not only on the cross, but risen on Easter morning for us, giving us all a badly needed win over Evil and Death itself.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
What appeared to be Evil\u2019s greatest victory, using jealousy, ridicule, plotting, bribery, riotous crowds, false testimony, weak leaders, a false conviction, and that most terrible symbol of Rome\u2019s power, the cross …<\/p>\n\n\n\n
What appeared to be Evil\u2019s victory over everything good, over all hope, over all love,<\/p>\n\n\n\n
is denied!<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Instead God works love in a most demonstrative way, and Jesus returns to teach, call, and send us, his disciples, out to share the Good News with the world.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
But we\u2019ve heard all that before, haven\u2019t we?<\/p>\n\n\n\n
More Precious Than A Sweet Orange<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
In East Germany in the early 1980s fresh fruits were so scarce that a simple orange was a very special Christmas gift. Imagine (if it could be found and then afforded) one simple and always imperfect orange was the most precious gift one could give … and so sweet to receive!<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Jesus\u2019 Easter story is more precious than any gifted orange, and still, like the bags of oranges now available to us in grocery stores, we take it for granted. Yet, as we hear the familiar story once again, it is God\u2019s promise to each of us, that we too can live again. That promise is more precious for us today than that scarce and costly Christmas orange.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
That promise is not just for 2000 years ago, nor only for all the sins of our past. It is a promise that we will never be separated from God\u2019s love, not by any sin, not by the most powerful Evil, not even by death itself. And don\u2019t we know there\u2019s enough sin and evil and death going around still today!<\/p>\n\n\n\n
This is the \u2018home run\u2019 we most need again today.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
As Christ\u2019s new creation forms around us and in us, we proclaim:<\/p>\n\n\n\n
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