Sundays With Joyce

WORD FOR TODAY

Resurrection

1. Eternal body made for us by God 2 Corinthians 5:1
For we know that if our earthly house of this tabernacle were
dissolved, we have a building of God, a house not made with hands,
eternal in the Heavens
2. Glorious bodies Phillipians 3:21
Who shall change our vile body, that it may be fashioned like unto his
glorious body, according to the working whereby he is able even to
subdue all things unto himself.
3. Jesus is the resurrection and the life John 11:24,25
Martha saith unto him, I know that he shall rise again in the
resurrection at the last day. Jesus said unto her, I am the
resurrection, and the life: he that believeth in me, though he were
dead, yet shall he live: and whosoever liveth and believeth in me shall
never die. Believeth thou this?
4. Resurrection of righteous and wicked Acts 24:15
And have hope toward God, which they themselves also allow, that there
shall be a resurrection of the
dead, both of the just and of the unjust
5. Jesus appears to more than 500 1 Corinthians 15:6
After that, he was seen of above five hundred brethern at once; of whom
the greater part remain unto this present, but some are fallen asleep





He Rose!


Peter just couldn't understand what was happening.

If
Jesus were the Son of God, Peter must have wondered, why didn't he stop
the abuse and mockery Peter was witnessing in the high priest's
courtyard? How could someone who was supposed to be divine put up with
that?

Maybe it is just some tragic mistake, Peter may have
thought. Perhaps, after all, Jesus is another sincere but misguided
charismatic leader who has overwhelmed his followers with grandiose
words and visions and thoughts of invincibility. And if that's the
case, I'd better save my own skin while I can. "No," Peter insisted to
the courtyard bystanders, "I don't know him."

Later that day,
Peter watched Jesus, now brutally beaten, spiked to a cross, then
jerked upright in the sun to hang, and gasp for air, and finally die.
If Jesus were the Son of God, how could he die like that?

Peter
was just as troubled the following Sunday when he ran to Jesus' tomb to
find the body missing. The women told of angels' words that he had
risen, but with his own eyes Peter had seen Jesus die. If he were a
man--and he certainly died like a man--how could he return from death?
Someone must have taken the body. Must have!

It is this quandary
men and women have struggled with for centuries. If Jesus is God, how
could he die? And if he is man, how could he rise?

The Roman
soldiers guarding the tomb early that Easter morning were troubled by
no such ponderings. One moment they sat mesmerized by the fire
flickering in the chilly predawn hours. The next they were stunned by a
brilliance of arc-light proportions, as the tomb's stone lurched aside
and the radiant Jesus walked out alive!

How can God die, and how
can man live? Why, for that matter, was Jesus conceived by the Holy
Spirit and born of a virgin? Because Jesus is God's Son, sent to earth
to lead us to our Father, to die for our sins, and to rise from the
dead to show us that he is the source of everlasting life. He is the
God-Man.

And what is that to me? His shameful death that Good
Friday was a direct result of my sins. And his resurrection Easter
morning was for me, as well. He died and lived for me. For me--and for
you.