Today's Bible Study, Authored by M.T. Clark 03/31/2024
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Study Discussion at: Scenes of Resurrection Podcast
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Scenes of Resurrection
Growing up with the strange pageantry of chocolate Easter
Bunnies and colored hard-boiled eggs in plastic green grass-filled baskets
juxtaposed with a liturgical church tradition that was heavy on ceremony and
the pantomime of reverence but light on the injunction to know, read, and study
the Bible did nothing to assure me of the truth of the gospel or my having a
part in it. My church tradition and personal experience did convince me that I
was a sinner, but it didn’t convince me that I was a Christian, and although
one could graciously and truthfully say that God had his hand on me from the
time I was knitted in my mother’s womb and through all the days of my life, I
don’t think my faith in Jesus Christ was legit until I heard a gospel radio
message that made me understand that salvation wasn’t something I had to earn
but was a free gift from God and caused me to surrender to God’s plan for my
life and to make Jesus the Lord and Savior of my life in March of 2010.
Before coming to Christ, the weird bunny-egg stuff, my
angst, ignorance, confusion, doubt, and sin caused me to hate Easter. It seemed
to be the phoniest holiday ever created.
He is risen indeed? Was He? Was He really? Then why do these people gather
in His Name seem so strange or hypocritical? Where are the miracles? Where is
the genuine faith? Why do these people not live righteous lives? Where is the
holiness? Where is the love? Why hasn’t my faith changed me? And why if there
is a God that is good, holy, and powerful do we celebrate the event that
changes world history and brings heaven to earth in such a bizarre and childish
fashion?
You got me, brother. But
We won’t blame God though… all of this bunny and egg stuff – whether it's due
to the compromise of the early church to welcome pagans into the fold or it is
“harmless” symbolic (idolatry) worship run amok – we will lay not confuse the
way man’s worship is acted out with who God is.
And we will choose to take the high road today and obey our Lord,
Savior, and Teacher and we will:
Luke 23:34 (NKJV)
34 …forgive
them, for they do not know what they do."
I guess strange child-like faith is better than no faith and
so I will choose to forgive the masses of “Christians” who participate and
perpetuate the egg-bunny stuff on Resurrection Sunday. As we are all called to do, I will follow.
Ephesians 4:32 (NKJV) that encourages me to
32 … be kind to one another,
tenderhearted, forgiving one another, just as God in Christ forgave you.
So I choose to forgive you, my Easter Bunny loving – Egg
Coloring, Hiding, and Chomping brothers and sisters, for your ignorance,
shallow faith, hypocrisy, and weird forms of Easter worship – because it made
me doubt the Christian faith and made me feel confused, angry, and
unloving. I choose to forgive you all.
In Jesus name, Amen.
Okay, instead of focusing on the things that will invariably
annoy and disturb me about today’s holiday – which truly should be the biggest Christian
celebration of the year – we would instead like to share passages from the
Bible that document the truth of the Resurrection of Jesus.
We pick up the Resurrection narrative in Mark – after Mary
Magdalen, Mary the mother of James, and Salome – discovered the empty tomb,
Jesus’s body gone, and a young man dressed in white (an angel – according to
Matt 28:1-5)) who told them that Christ is risen and that they would see Him in
Gailee.
Mark 16:9-11 (NKJV)
9 Now when He (JESUS)
rose early on the first day of the week (SUNDAY), He appeared first to
Mary Magdalene, out of whom He had cast seven demons.
Matthew 28:9-10 (NKJV) tells us
9 … as they went to tell His
disciples, behold, Jesus met them, saying, "Rejoice!"
So they came and held Him by the feet and worshiped Him.
10 Then Jesus said to them, "Do not be afraid. Go and tell My brethren to go
to Galilee, and there they will see Me."
But Mark 16:10-11 (NKJV) tells us
10 She went and told those
who had been with Him, as they mourned and wept.
11 And when they heard that
He was alive and had been seen by her, they did not believe.
But John & Luke’s gospel tell us that Peter and John
believed as they ran to the tomb to confirm what they said.
Luke 24:12 (NKJV)
12 But Peter arose and ran to
the tomb; and stooping down, he saw the linen cloths lying by themselves; and
he departed, marveling to himself at what had happened.
John 20:3-9 (NKJV)
3 Peter therefore went out,
and the other disciple, and were going to the tomb.
4 So they both ran together,
and the other disciple outran Peter and came to the tomb first.
5 And he, stooping down and
looking in, saw the linen cloths lying there; yet he did not go in.
6 Then Simon Peter came,
following him, and went into the tomb; and he saw the linen cloths lying there,
7 and the handkerchief that
had been around His head, not lying with the linen cloths, but folded together
in a place by itself.
8 Then the other disciple,
who came to the tomb first, went in also; and he saw and believed.
9 For as yet they did not
know the Scripture, that He must rise again from the dead.
But He was risen indeed – and shortly after this race to the
tomb – John’s gospel indicates Mary Magdelene’s seeing of the angel (s)
happened after the apostles left the empty tomb.
John 20:11-17 (NKJV)
11 But Mary stood outside by
the tomb weeping, and as she wept she stooped down and looked into the
tomb.
12 And she saw two angels in
white sitting, one at the head and the other at the feet, where the body of
Jesus had lain.
13 Then they said to her,
"Woman, why are you weeping?" She said to them, "Because they
have taken away my Lord, and I do not know where they have laid Him."
14 Now when she had said
this, she turned around and saw Jesus standing there, and did not know
that it was Jesus.
15 Jesus said to her, "Woman, why are you weeping? Whom are you seeking?"
She, supposing Him to be the gardener, said to Him, "Sir, if You have
carried Him away, tell me where You have laid Him, and I will take Him
away."
16 Jesus said to her, "Mary!" She turned and said to Him,
"Rabboni!" (which is to say, Teacher).
17 Jesus said to her, "Do not cling to Me, for I have not yet ascended to My
Father; but go to My brethren and say to them, 'I am ascending to My Father and
your Father, and to My God and your God.' "
So although these accounts give
different perspectives of the same first encounter of the resurrection, Jesus
did rise from the dead and told his disciples through Mary Magdelaine that He
was alive and He would see them again, which is documented in.
John 20:19-23 (NKJV)
19 Then, the same day at
evening, being the first day of the week, when the doors were shut where
the disciples were assembled, for fear of the Jews, Jesus came and stood in the
midst, and said to them, "Peace be with
you."
20 When He had said this, He
showed them His hands and His side. Then the disciples were glad when
they saw the Lord.
21 So Jesus said to them
again, "Peace to you! As the Father has sent Me, I
also send you."
22 And when He had said this,
He breathed on them, and said to them, "Receive
the Holy Spirit.
23 If
you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven them; if you retain the sins
of any, they are retained."
Jesus just suddenly appeared in their
midst in a locked room and proclaimed peace to them and “breathed the Holy Spirit
on them! – Sounds fantastic!
And the scriptures tell us that even
a fellow apostle – Thomas_ had difficulty in believing it.
John 20:24-29 (NKJV)
24 Now Thomas, called the
Twin, one of the twelve, was not with them when Jesus came.
25 The other disciples
therefore said to him, "We have seen the Lord." So he said to them,
"Unless I see in His hands the print of the nails, and put my finger into
the print of the nails, and put my hand into His side, I will not believe."
26 And after eight days His
disciples were again inside, and Thomas with them. Jesus came, the doors being
shut, and stood in the midst, and said, "Peace to you!"
27 Then He said to Thomas, "Reach your finger here, and look at My hands; and reach
your hand here, and put it into My side. Do not be unbelieving,
but believing."
28 And Thomas answered and
said to Him, "My Lord and my God!"
29 Jesus said to him, "Thomas, because you have seen Me, you have believed.
Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed."
That’s you and me – we are blessed because we have not seen
and touched Jesus, like Thomas did, and yet we believe and I know if you have
had experiences like I have, we can’t claim having a moment like Thomas did,
but we would deny that we haven’t seen or been touched by Jesus in our
lives.
Matthew 28:17-20 (NKJV) tells us Jesus had more to
say…
17 When they saw Him, they
worshiped Him; but some doubted.
18 And Jesus came and spoke
to them, saying, "All authority has been given to
Me in heaven and on earth.
19 Go
therefore and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of
the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit,
20 teaching
them to observe all things that I have commanded you; and lo, I am with you
always, even to the end of the age." Amen.
Mark 16:14-18 (NKJV) tells us more about this encounter
14 Later He appeared to the
eleven as they sat at the table; and He rebuked their unbelief and hardness of
heart (Thomas…) , because they did not believe those who had seen Him after He
had risen.
15 And He said to them, "Go into all the world and preach the gospel to every
creature.
16 He
who believes and is baptized will be saved; but he who does not believe will be
condemned.
17 And
these signs will follow those who believe: In My name they will cast out
demons; they will speak with new tongues;
18 they
will take up serpents; and if they drink anything deadly, it will by no means
hurt them; they will lay hands on the sick, and they will recover."
John 20:30-31 (NKJV) tells us
30 And truly Jesus did many
other signs in the presence of His disciples, which are not written in this
book;
31 but these are written that
you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that believing
you may have life in His name.
Our encounters with Jesus aren’t written about in scripture
but they have happened, and we believe. Jesus
reveals Himself through His word as He did in the early days of His
resurrection to other disciples:
Mark 16:12 (NKJV)
12 After that, He appeared in
another form to two of them as they walked and went into the country.
These two disciples’ account of the risen Christ is told in.
Luke 24:13-25 (NKJV) which tells us:
13 Now behold, two of them
were traveling that same day to a village called Emmaus, which was seven miles
from Jerusalem.
14 And they talked together
of all these things which had happened.
15 So it was, while they
conversed and reasoned, that Jesus Himself drew near and went with them. 16 But their eyes were restrained, so
that they did not know Him.
17 And He said to them,
"What kind of conversation is this that you have with one another
as you walk and are sad?"
18 Then the one whose name
was Cleopas answered and said to Him, "Are You the only stranger in
Jerusalem, and have You not known the things which happened there in these
days?"
19 And He said to them,
"What things?" So they said to Him, "The things concerning Jesus
of Nazareth, who was a Prophet mighty in deed and word before God and all the
people, 20 and how the chief
priests and our rulers delivered Him to be condemned to death, and crucified
Him.
21 But we were hoping that it
was He who was going to redeem Israel. Indeed, besides all this, today is the
third day since these things happened. 22 Yes,
and certain women of our company, who arrived at the tomb early, astonished us.
23 When they did not find His
body, they came saying that they had also seen a vision of angels who said He
was alive. 24 And certain of
those who were with us went to the tomb and found it just as the
women had said; but Him they did not see."
Luke 24:25-32 (NKJV)
25 Then He said to them,
"O foolish ones, and slow of heart to believe in all that the prophets
have spoken! 26 Ought not the
Christ to have suffered these things and to enter into His glory?"
27 And beginning at Moses and
all the Prophets, He expounded to them in all the Scriptures the things
concerning Himself.
28 Then they drew near to the
village where they were going, and He indicated that He would have gone
farther. 29 But they
constrained Him, saying, "Abide with us, for it is toward evening, and the
day is far spent." And He went in to stay with them.
30 Now it came to pass, as He
sat at the table with them, that He took bread, blessed and broke it,
and gave it to them.
31 Then their eyes were
opened and they knew Him; and He vanished from their sight.
32 And they said to one
another, "Did not our heart burn within us while He talked with us on the
road, and while He opened the Scriptures to us?"
Their story seems to roll into the encounters already described as the rest of Luke’s Gospel tell us.
Luke 24:33-43 (NKJV)
33 So they rose up that very
hour and returned to Jerusalem, and found the eleven and those who were
with them gathered together,
34 saying, "The Lord is
risen indeed, and has appeared to Simon!"
35 And they told about the
things that had happened on the road, and how He was known to them in
the breaking of bread.
36 Now as they said these
things, Jesus Himself stood in the midst of them, and said to them, "Peace
to you." 37 But they
were terrified and frightened, and supposed they had seen a spirit.
38 And He said to them,
"Why are you troubled? And why do doubts arise in your hearts? 39 Behold My hands and My feet, that it
is I Myself. Handle Me and see, for a spirit does not have flesh and bones as
you see I have."
40 When He had said this, He
showed them His hands and His feet.
41 But while they still did
not believe for joy, and marveled, He said to them, "Have you any food
here?" 42 So they gave
Him a piece of a broiled fish and some honeycomb.
43 And He took it and
ate in their presence.
Luke 24:44-53 (NKJV)
44 Then He said to them,
"These are the words which I spoke to you while I was still with
you, that all things must be fulfilled which were written in the Law of Moses
and the Prophets and the Psalms concerning Me."
45 And He opened their
understanding, that they might comprehend the Scriptures.
46 Then He said to them,
"Thus it is written, and thus it was necessary for the Christ to suffer
and to rise from the dead the third day,
47 and that repentance and
remission of sins should be preached in His name to all nations, beginning at
Jerusalem.
48 And you are witnesses of
these things.
49 Behold, I send the Promise
of My Father upon you; but tarry in the city of Jerusalem until you are endued
with power from on high."
50 And He led them out as far
as Bethany, and He lifted up His hands and blessed them.
51 Now it came to pass, while
He blessed them, that He was parted from them and carried up into heaven.
52 And they worshiped Him,
and returned to Jerusalem with great joy,
53 and were continually in
the temple praising and blessing God. Amen.
Luke retells of this last resurrection encounter with Jesus, the ascension, in
Acts 1:4-11 (NKJV)
4 And being assembled
together with them, He commanded them not to depart from Jerusalem, but
to wait for the Promise of the Father, "which," He said,
"you have heard from Me;
5 for John truly baptized
with water, but you shall be baptized with the Holy Spirit not many days from
now."
6 Therefore, when they had
come together, they asked Him, saying, "Lord, will You at this time
restore the kingdom to Israel?"
7 And He said to them,
"It is not for you to know times or seasons which the Father has put in
His own authority.
8 But you shall receive power
when the Holy Spirit has come upon you; and you shall be witnesses to Me in
Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the end of the earth."
9 Now when He had spoken
these things, while they watched, He was taken up, and a cloud received Him out
of their sight.
10 And while they looked
steadfastly toward heaven as He went up, behold, two men stood by them in white
apparel,
11 who also said, "Men
of Galilee, why do you stand gazing up into heaven? This same Jesus, who
was taken up from you into heaven, will so come in like manner as you saw Him
go into heaven."
Jesus Christ literally rose from the earth and into the heavens and is promised to return to us in:
Revelation
1:7 (NKJV) that tells us…
7 Behold, He is coming with
clouds, and every eye will see Him, even they who pierced Him. And all the
tribes of the earth will mourn because of Him. Even so, Amen.
There were other encounters with the resurrected Christ that are mentioned in Scripture. The book of Acts tells of Paul’s conversion experience on the Road to Damascus in Acts 9:1-20 and he speaks of his and others’ encounter with Jesus in
1
Corinthians 15:6-8 (NKJV) that tells us the resurrected Jesus
6 …was seen by over five
hundred brethren at once, ……by James, then by all the apostles. 8 Then last of all He was seen by me
(Paul) also, as by one born out of due time.
But the scene of the Resurrection that sticks with me the most is the one with Peter spoken of in:
John 21:15-22 (NKJV)
15 So when they had eaten
breakfast, Jesus said to Simon Peter, "Simon, son of Jonah, do you
love Me more than these?" He said to Him, "Yes, Lord; You know that I
love You." He said to him, "Feed My lambs."
16 He said to him again a
second time, "Simon, son of Jonah, do you love Me?" He said to
Him, "Yes, Lord; You know that I love You." He said to him,
"Tend My sheep."
17 He said to him the third
time, "Simon, son of Jonah, do you love Me?" Peter was grieved
because He said to him the third time, "Do you love Me?" And he said
to Him, "Lord, You know all things; You know that I love You." Jesus
said to him, "Feed My sheep. 18 Most
assuredly, I say to you, when you were younger, you girded yourself and walked
where you wished; but when you are old, you will stretch out your hands, and
another will gird you and carry you where you do not wish."
19 This He spoke, signifying
by what death he would glorify God. And when He had spoken this, He said to
him, "Follow Me."
20 Then Peter, turning
around, saw the disciple whom Jesus loved following, who also had leaned on His
breast at the supper, and said, "Lord, who is the one who betrays
You?" 21 Peter, seeing
him, said to Jesus, "But Lord, what about this man?"
22 Jesus said to him,
"If I will that he remain till I come, what is that to you? You
follow Me."
Jesus’ conversation with Peter is a conversation that we are all have with God, where we must answer the Lord’s question “Do you love me?” And if our answer is yes, we must be prepared to feed and lead the Lord’s sheep – our brother and sisters in Christ and regardless of our uncertainty of purpose or direction for this life be fully prepared to answer Jesus’ command to “Follow Me.” – wherever it may lead us.
It's Resurrection Sunday, – Easter – if you must…, and as
Christians, disciples – students and followers of Jesus, let’s not let the
strange pageantry, darkness, and ignorance that surrounds this most blessed of
holidays, cause us to lose the peace and the joy that the Lord gives us when we
encounter and choose to follow the– the King of Kings, the Lord of Lord, the
Prince of Peace, Our brother, Our Friend, Our Teacher, Our Lord, and Savior and
Wonderful Counselor, and Our God - Jesus Christ.
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Encouragement for the Path of Christian Discipleship
