Week 34: The Significance of the Resurrection
Week 34: The Significance of the Resurrection
What we need to ask now is not whether the resurrection happened but whether it matters whether it happened. For if it happened, it happened nearly two thousand years ago. How can an event of such remote antiquity have any great significance for us today? Why on earth do Christians make such a song and dance about it? Is it not irrelevant?
No, my argument this week is that the resurrection resonates with our human condition. It speaks to our needs in a way that no other distant event does or could do. It is the mainstay of our Christian assurance regarding the past, the present, and the future.
It is striking that in the very earliest days of the church the Jewish leaders “were greatly disturbed because the apostles were teaching the people and proclaiming in Jesus the resurrection of the dead” (Acts 4:2). This does not mean that the apostles had changed their minds about the gospel and were focusing no longer on the cross but on the resurrection. The cross remained at the center of the gospel, but of course, it was the cross as confirmed by the resurrection.
Sunday: The Verdict Reversed
Monday: The Assurance of Forgiveness
Tuesday: The Symbol of Power
Wednesday: The Conquest of Death
Thursday: The Resurrection of the Body
Friday: Our Living Hope
Saturday: Worldwide Mission