Resurrection Morning

This is the translated outline of the sermon preached on Easter Sunday to the combined congregations of Ashiya Christian Church and Unfinished Community on Sunday, April 20, 2025, drawing from Luke 24:1-12

Happy Easter!

Last week, I talked about the reality of Passion Week (Holy Week) in our own lives. If the reality of Good Friday (the crucifixion), and Holy Week overall is just another day, not something real to us, than Easter is just another day. Come to think of it, I don't think I have seen many Easter-related advertisements in the city this year. But this feeling of "just another day," the feeling that this is somehow unreal, is not limited only to today; even Jesus' own disciples did not believe that it was happening. To them it seemed like a foolish story.

But there was a great difference between the women who visited Jesus' tomb on that resurrection morning, and the doubting disciples who did not believe in the truth of the resurrection. According to the Gospel accounts, the disciples had distanced themselves from Jesus after his arrest but the women - as we read in Luke 23 last week - watched everything unfold from a distance while the crowds shouted "crucify" at Jesus, and when his body was at last brought down from the cross, they bore witness to it all. And when he was buried, they were the ones who made the arrangements, and prepared his body for the tomb.

We hear the word "uncertainty" so much these days. For the disciples, Jesus' arrest and execution must have shaken their trust in Him, and cast them into so much uncertainty. But even in the midst of all this, they still believed in Jesus - none more so than the women - and felt an inexplicable sense of certainty in him. They believed that staying close to Jesus was what they needed to do, no matter how difficult the situation became, so that their relationship with Jesus would not be interrupted. And so, they were the ones who received firsthand the words of Jesus at his death, and were the first witnesses on that glorious resurrection morning.

s of Jesus before his death.

Let us pray, O God, when we feel the wonder of Easter, help us to go beyond it and give us that certainty of faith, and through it joy and thanksgiving. In the name of Jesus Christ, the Risen Lord, Amen.