Easter Sunday of the Lord’s Resurrection

Gospel Bullet Points (John 20:1-9)

• On what we now call Easter Sunday, Mary Magdalene visited the tomb of Jesus. Maybe she wept all night for the loss of Jesus. For her, it is as if the world has already ended. Perhaps, on that Sunday morning, she was wondering whether life itself was still worth living. She has lost Jesus, the very person who brought her back to life after living a sinful life.
• She found an empty tomb. She ran off in tears to tell Peter and John that the Lord had been taken away. Later, she returned to the tomb, now with Peter and John. Mary, Peter, and John were SLOW TO BELIEVE that the Lord is RISEN.
• John arrived at the tomb first. He did not go in but saw the burial clothes. When Peter arrived, he went into the tomb, and saw the burial clothes there, and the cloth that had covered the head of Jesus, not with the burial clothes but rolled up in a separate place. The other disciple also went in, and in due course, they knew and believed that Jesus had risen.
• Mary, Thomas, and Peter were quite slow in believing. They still did not understand that the Lord had to rise from the dead after three days as He promised.
• And even if Christ were to appear today, we, too, could have a difficult time recognizing him. Sometimes we are devoured by extreme sadness, despair, pain, suffering, fear, bitterness, and self-pity, and these often blind us to the reality of the resurrection-to the reality that we have a friend up there, the Risen Lord, who is always ready to help us!
• Pain, suffering, resentment, hopelessness, and desolation are forms of imprisonment that may blind us to the reality that the Lord died, yes, but that He has risen to life again. Resurrection Day is a day of freedom. The rising of Jesus is supposed to be our rising, too, from whatever imprisons us.
• Easter is not just a historical event that happened in the past, long ago. It happens repeatedly to all of us in all sorts of ways. Every time we find the resolve and determination to rise above our sinful past and live again, that is a little bit of Easter.
• The Lord is alive. Let us celebrate the resurrection.