Easter 2025 Resurrection Power (Luke 24 and John 10:17)
Luke 24:1 The structure in the Greek suggests this was at first light, as soon as they could see.
- The women bring spices to embalm the body. John 19:39 says that Nicodemus also brought 75 pounds of spices. The spices would have been, Myrrh, aloe and probably Frankincense.
- This was also a real act of love on the part of these ladies. Touching a dead body would have made them unclean.
- Verse 10 tells us that the women were Mary Magdalene, Joanna, Mary the mother of James.
Verse 2 The tomb would have had a large round stone that looked like a wheel or disk covering the opening.
- The account in Matt tells us that an angel of the Lord appeared and rolled the stone away. (Earth quake)
Verse 3 The women enter the tomb since the door is already open. But find that the body of Jesus is not there.
Verse 4 Upon entering the tomb and pondering where the body had gone the women are in the presence of angels.
- The four gospels have slightly different recordings on the number of angels, and their location
- But all four gospels are clear, THE TOMB WAS EMPTY.
Verse 5-6 Of course, the women don’t yet understand that Jesus had risen from the dead or they wouldn’t have gone there with spices to anoint the body.
- So they are not looking for a living person they are looking for a dead body.
- But the angel’s response is so powerful. “Why do you look for the living among the dead?
- The women have come to the tomb, a place of death to look for a dead body.
- Their entire focus or perspective was on death, dead things.
- In the natural realm this made sense for them.
- But the angel says your focus should be on the living.
- Look for the living in the most unlikely place to find it, in a tomb.
- The women have come to the tomb, a place of death to look for a dead body.
John 10:17 Resurrection power starts with love. The reason my Father loves me…
- God the Father did not put His son to death.
- Jesus offered His own life as an act of love between the Father and son.
- Jesus also offered His own life as an act of love between Himself and us.
- Resurrection power then continues with authority:
- For resurrection power to exist there must be an authority that is greater than death itself.
- Resurrection power is put into motion with death
- You can’t have a resurrection without a death.
- Resurrection power reaches fullness in us, His disciples
- Matt 10:7-8 Jesus shared his resurrection authority with us.
Luke 24:9-11 When the resurrection was first announced it was seen as nonsense.
- The people of the day hard a time receiving the message in part because it was first delivered by women.
- 2000 years later people still see it as non-sense.
Resurrection power in action:
- EZK 37:11God moves in resurrection power through the prophet.
- And those bones come back to life!
- Isa 61 says that God will replace our ashes with beauty.
- That’s resurrection power!
- John 12:24 A seed must fall to the ground and die, so that resurrection life can come and bring a multiplication of life.
- Luke 9:23 We must take up our cross daily, die to ourselves and our will, so that resurrection power can come make something deeper, better out of our lives.
- Resurrection power is always at work in our life when we die daily to ourselves.
- Baptism, Col 2: 12When we go under the water we are buried. Death
- When we come up from the water with resurrection power, changed and made new.