Journey to the Cross: Week Eight

This Week's Scripture:
Luke 24:1-12, John 20:1-18, Isaiah 25:9

Join us as we Journey to the Cross, a nine-week study designed to prepare our hearts for Easter. 

This study comes to us from The Daily Grace Company. Originally designed to be an eight-day study, we’re going to stretch it out over nine weeks and meditate on Scripture as we enter the season of Easter. I hope you’ll join us!

Last week we looked at Sunday is Coming!

This week we're looking at He is Risen.

And finally, next week, we'll look at Follow Me, and how we can follow Jesus for a lifetime!

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​He is Risen!

On Easter Sunday, we will proclaim with all of the saints that He has risen. What a joyful exclamation in unison with believers all over the world as we remember not only the sacrifice that He made for us, but also the truth that He has conquered death. We proclaim this truth because we have the sacred record of Scripture, but also because we have seen the evidence that He is alive in our own lives. I know that He is alive, because He is alive in me.

Just like that, our God has defeated death and the grave. The empty tomb cries out, ​

"Death is swallowed up in victory. 0 death, where is your victory? 0 death, where is your sting?" 1 Corinthians 15:54b-55

He has conquered sin and death for us and has given us a glimpse of what it will be like someday when death and sin are totally removed from this earth.

Our attention is turned toward Mary Magdalene. She had been there for  the  crucifixion, and she  came to the tomb that Sunday morning to anoint the  body of her Savior and friend. He had changed everything for her and rescued her from a life of sin, and it must have seemed like the least she could do to come that morning. The women were unsure how they could move the heavy stone that morning, but when they arrived it had been moved already. They stood in front of an empty tomb.

The other women and disciples seem to have scattered, likely trying to figure out what had happened to the body of Jesus. Mary stayed and wept. She didn't know that soon her weeping would be turned to joy (Psalm 30:5). A man stood in the garden, but she did not recognize Him. He asked her why she was weeping and who she was looking for, and then with one word everything changed--Mary. He called her name and she knew His tender voice (John 10:3-4). This was Jesus.

Jesus changes everything. He changed everything for Mary in the garden that day when she realized that her Savior was risen, and He changes  everything  for  us as well. He had risen.

Just like He said He would. This plan didn't make sense to the disciples, but it was the perfect plan of God from the foundation of the earth. This plan of redemption was to rescue in love the very people whose sin had nailed Him to that rugged cross.

All of the world yearned for the Messiah for centuries, and now He had come and finished the work  that He had come to do. The joy of the resurrection gives us a glimpse of the joy of the day we wait for when our Savior will return again and defeat sin and death once and for all. We have waited for Him, and He has saved us. We will rejoice in His salvation!

He is Risen!

It will be said on that day,

"Behold, this is our God; we have waited for Him, that He might save us. This is the Lord; we have waited for Him; let us be glad and rejoice in His salvation ." Isaiah 25:9

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"Jesus changes everything. He changed everything for Mary in the garden that day when she realized that her Savior was risen, and He changes everything for us as well."

When and how did Jesus change everything for you?