Alleluia! Christ is Risen!
(Christ is Risen Indeed! Alleluia!)
Grace and peace to you from God our Father and our risen Lord and
Savior Jesus Christ.
As throughout his Gospel, Matthew’s resurrection story proclaims God’s power in Jesus
as the One
who fulfills Scripture
and comes
into the world as the Messiah.
He tells this part of the story in a way that emphasizes God’s triumph. God has booted death out of the world. (Skinner, WP)
In the resurrection, God defeated the powers-that-be who sought to make a crucified man
executed by
Roman authorities
a nobody.
They tried
to silence their enemies and, instead, the story of his death and resurrection
has endured for more than two millennia. (Skinner, WP)
Matthew
tells us the women who saw the stone rolled away were filled with fear, but also
with great joy when they heard the angel’s declaration that Jesus was not
there.
He invites them to come and see, and then to go and tell.
And they
did!
They ran to tell the other disciples the
world-changing news that they had seen and heard.
“That first
announcement to the disciples became a continuous chain of announcements with
one messenger repeating the message to the next, down through the ages.”
(Jacobson, WP)
We can
imagine their words to their friends:
“Alleluia! Christ is Risen!”
Instead of
the despair of death,
the empty
tomb prompts our praise and worship
of God’s
saving power,
and as
always,
our
salvation - God’s saving action for us - invites our response:
to follow
Jesus, to listen to him and be obedient to him.
As disciples or followers of Jesus, our obedience is our response to the Good News that we are God’s own children, saved by grace, through Christ.
In Acts, Peter retells the story of these last three days and reminds us that when the disciples went to Galilee and met Jesus after the resurrection, Jesus commanded them to preach and testify, telling everyone about Jesus and the forgiveness of sins that we receive through his name.
The Great Commission to his disciples is:
Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and
of the Holy Spirit and teaching them to obey everything that I have
commanded you.
Our Lenten theme here at Grace was “Listen Up”.
As we heard the gospel stories of Jesus in the wilderness, Nicodemus, the woman at the well, the man born blind, and Lazarus, we listened for what God was saying to and through each of them.
We reflected
on how they encountered God
and how it
changed them.
We listened
for what God was saying to each of us
through their stories.
On
Wednesdays, gathered in the fellowship hall,
we shared our
stories of faith
and how we are changed by God’s transformational love for us.
And then
during this Holy Week,
on Maundy
Thursday and Good Friday,
we listened again
to the words of Jesus,
first
commanding his disciples to love one another,
and then
speaking to us from the cross.
Today we
celebrate that Jesus is Risen and
like the
disciples who witnessed his resurrection,
we are invited to go and tell others what God has done.
Tell others
how God has worked in your life,
to bring new
understanding;
Tell how God
has seen you
when you
have felt cast out or overlooked;
Tell how you
have witnessed God’s healing
in body or spirit;
Tell how you
have witnessed God restore
relationships
and belonging in a community;
Or tell how
you are waiting on God,
trusting in
the promise that Jesus gives us in the Great Commission,
that he is
with us “to the very end of the age.”
God commands
us to be God’s witnesses to the world.
This Easter
and always,
let God’s love be shown and God’s name be known through you.
Let us pray.
Risen and
Living God,
Thank you
for the salvation
we receive
through Your Son Jesus.
Show us how
to be witnesses to your love
And tell
others how your love for us changes us.
Send us out
to go and tell
That
everyone would know
your
abundant grace and mercy.
We pray in
Jesus’ name.
Amen.
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