Following the Giver of Life
Today’s Message
THE RESURRECTION STORY
Mark 16:1-3
Saturday evening, when the Sabbath ended, Mary Magdalene, Mary the mother of James, and Salome went out and purchased burial spices so they could anoint Jesus’ body. Very early on Sunday morning, just at sunrise, they went to the tomb. On the way they were asking each other, “Who will roll away the stone for us from the entrance of the tomb?”
Matthew 28:2-5
Suddenly there was a great earthquake! For an angel of the Lord came down from heaven, rolled aside the stone and sat on it. His face shone like lightening, and his clothing was as withe as snow. The guards shook with fear when they saw him, and they fell into a dead faint.
Then the angel spoke to the women. “Don’t be afraid!” he said. “I know you are looking for Jesus, who was crucified…”
Luke 24:5-7
The women were terrified and bowed with their faces to the ground. Then the [angels] asked, “Why are you looking among the dead for someone who is alive? He is risen from the dead! Remember what he told you back in Galilee, that the Son of Man must be betrayed into the hands of sinful men and be crucified, and that he would rise again on the third day.”
Mark 16:6-7
”…Look, this is where they laid his body. Now go and tell his disciples, including Peter, that Jesus is going ahead of you to Galilee. You will see him there, just as he told you before he died.”
Luke 24:9-10
So they rushed back from the tomb to tell his eleven disciples - and everyone else - what had happened. It was Mary Magdelene, Joanna, Mary the mother of James, and several other women who told the apostles what had happened.
John 20:2
[Mary Magdelene] found Simon Peter and the other disciple, the one whom Jesus loved. She said, “They have taken the Lord’s body out of the tomb, and we don’t know where they put him!”
Luke 24:11-12
But the story sounded like nonsense to the men, so they didn’t believe it.
However, Peter jumped up and ran…
John 20:3-11
…and the other disciple [John] started out for the tomb. They were both running, but the other disciple outran Peter and reached the tomb first. He stooped and looked in and saw the linen wrappings lying there, but he didn’t go in. Then Simon Peter arrived and went inside. He also noticed the linen wrappings lying there, while the cloth that had covered Jesus’ head was folded up and lying apart from the other wrappings. Then the disciple who reached the tomb first also went in, and he saw and believed - for until then they still hadn’t understood the Scriptures that said Jesus must rise from the dead. Then they went home.
[But] Mary was standing outside the tomb crying…
Mark 16:9
…the first person who saw [Jesus] was Mary Magdalene, the woman from whom he had cast out seven demons.
John 20:11
…as she [stood outside the toom and] wept, she stooped and looked in. She saw two white-robed angels, one sitting at the head and the other at hte food of the place where the body of Jesus had been lying. “Dear woman, why are you crying?” the angels asked her.
”Because they have taken away my Lord,” she replied, “and I don’t know where they have put him.”
She turned to leave and saw someone standing there. It was Jesus, but she didn’t recognize him. “Dear woman, why are you crying?” Jesus asked her. “Who are you looking for?”
She thought he was the gardener. “Sir,” she said, “if you have taken him away, tell me where you have put him, and I will go and get him.”
”Mary!” Jesus said.
She turned to him and cried out, “Rabboni!” (which is Hebrew for teacher)
Matthew 29:9-10
…as [Peter and the other disciple] went [home], Jesus met them and greeted them. And they ran to him, grasped his feet, and worshipped him. Then Jesus said to them, “Don’t be afraid! Go tell my brothers to leave for Galilee, and they will see me there.”
John 20:18
Mary Magdelene found
“The tomb that held our disappointments becomes the place where we find hope because it points to the one simple truth that we have all been looking for: LIFE!”
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John 14:6
”I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one can come to the Father except through me.”Jesus IS the life we seek. In Him we find the life we are looking for. In following Him we are led to the place of true life!
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John 6:48, 51
I am the bread of life!… Anyone who eats this bread will live forever; and this bread, which I offer so the world may live, is my flesh.”John 10:10
”The thief’s purpose is to steal and kill and destroy. My purpose is to give them a rich and satisfying life.”Jesus IS the life and He has come so that we can receive it!
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John 3:16
”For this is how God loved the world: He gave his one and only Son, so that everyone who believes in him will not perish but have eternal life.”Believe - to accept something as being true, to commit to something or someone, in the case of a person, to entrust yourself to them.
To believe in Jesus is to commit to Him, to follow Him, to entrust our lives to Him. And THIS is the path to LIFE!
John 8:12
”I am the light of the world. If you follow me, you won’t have to walk in darkness, because you will have the light that leads to life.”The key to walking out of the darkness is to follow the light!
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The Empty Tomb!
The fact that Jesus is eternally alive is what makes His invitation for us to follow Him to life legitimate!
Luke 9:22-25
”The Son of Man must suffer many terrible things. He will be rejected by the elders, the leading priests, and the teachers of religious law. He will be killed but on the third day he will be raised from the dead.”Then he said to the crowd. “If any of you wants to be my follower you must give up your own way, take up your cross daily, and follow me. If you try to hang on to your life, you will lose it. But if you give up your life for my sake, you will save it. And what do you benefit if you gain the whole world but are yourself lost or destroyed?”Matthew 16:26
”And what do you benefit if you gain the whole world but lose your own soul? Is anything worth more than your soul?”What’s the point of having all the things if it still can’t give you LIFE?
The pathway to true LIFE is found only in Jesus Christ!
We all wake up in the same world where there is darkness and question, hurt and pain, and yet, we can have the greatest hope in the midst of all of those things because of the invitation to follow Jesus Christ, who is alive, who is God himself, who is the light of life, and the GIVER of life, who shares freely with anyone who is willing to follow him.- to believe - to commit their life to his way.