Easter Sunday

   Christina Curley of Malvern, Pennsylvania, related the following in Reader’s Digest.  “She’s only in her 40's, but my friend Mary has bounced back from cancer, heart problems, even a stroke. Through it all, she and her husband, Mark, have kept their sense of humor. One day she said, ‘You know what kills me . . .?’ Smiling, Mark teased, ‘Apparently nothing’” (May, 1907; p 234). Couldn’t something similar be said about Jesus Christ?

    Stay with me here. The Bible says nothing about the religious holiday of Easter, nor is there a single example of the early church recognizing or practicing the traditions and dramatic things modern churches do at Easter time every year. That being said, the Bible says much about the death of Jesus. New Testament writers freely and frequently admit Jesus was killed on a cross – but just as frequently – and very forcefully – insist that what killed Him couldn’t keep him killed! For instance, Matthew 27:59-60 states plainly, “And when Joseph had taken the body [of Jesus], he wrapped it in a clean linen cloth, and laid it in his new tomb  which he had hewn out of the stone; and he rolled a large stone against the door of the tomb, and departed.” But Matthew quickly goes on to declare there’s more to the story! In Matthew 28:5-6 an angel of the Lord announced mind-boggling news to some women who came to Jesus’ tomb early on the Sunday morning after He was crucified and buried on Friday – “I know that you seek Jesus who was crucified. He is not here; for He is risen.” For two thousand years faithful Christians have proclaimed that message, even as unbelievers and skeptics and critics have sought, unsuccessfully, to keep Jesus killed and in the tomb!

     Even some people who respect Christ as a great moral and religious reformer reject the clear New Testament teaching that Christ arose from the grave. Burton Coffman, in his commentary on the gospel of Matthew, wrote that Thomas Jefferson composed an abbreviated New Testament and closed it with Matthew 27:59-60 (quoted above). I quote Coffman at length – “A deist, Jefferson did not believe in the resurrection of Christ. In 1959, this writer [Coffman] visited Monticello, historic residence of Jefferson, an engraving of which appears on the reverse side of the nickel. It was about 3:00 p.m. and some thirty or forty tourists filed into the dining room, as the afternoon sun was shining on the western windows and producing a perfect luminous cross in the large center panel of the glass.  That phenomenon was due to the long action of sunlight on that ancient glass, refraction having been produced by structural changes in the glass itself. One spoke up and said, ‘Well, it seems as if Mr. Jefferson did not really get rid of Christ, after all!’ That remark made a profound impression upon those present. Silence fell upon the little company; and the guide, after some hesitation, remarked that she had not noticed it before” (studylight.org).

    The apostle Paul relentlessly proclaimed there’s more to the story of Christ than the cross where He died and tomb where He was buried. I close with a question Paul posed to King Agrippa in Acts 26:8 – “Why should it be thought incredible by you that God raises the dead?” Well, why should it? There’s  more to the story of Christ than the cross and the tomb – on Easter Sunday or any other day of the year.

--Dan Gulley