This morning, following on from last week’s sermon on Easter Day (a day of no visible miracles), we looked at Easter Sunday and the most miraculous of all God’s miracles, the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead. This miracle is so great, it informs our daily lives and is the cornerstone of our faith. We cannot afford to simply remember it once a day at Easter; it needs to be at the heart of our daily living.
1 Cor 15:3-8 summarises the gospel and reminds us what is ‘of first importance.’ The resurrection is there at the heart of the Christian faith, for without it, we have no hope and have believed in vain. Whilst it is impossible for humans to overcome the power of death, this is not the case with God. With Him, nothing is impossible (Luke 1:37) and the miracle of the resurrection confirms that Jesus’s sacrificial death was acceptable to God and is the guarantee of our own future resurrection, which Paul teaches about in this great chapter.
We all have to come to the place where the resurrection is real to us – it is more than historical fact, though the evidence for the resurrection is firmly based in historical fact. The weight of testimony from fearful disciples to those prepared to die for their beliefs is one such evidence; it’s impossible to believe that Jesus merely ‘swooned’ on the cross or that the eyewitness testimony of so many of His death could be mistaken. Nonetheless, the resurrection is more than merely interesting. If it’s true, then it has the power to transform our lives as it has transformed millions of other people’s lives. Paul prayed for the Ephesians to grasp these spiritual truths, including the fact that the same incomparably great power which is at the heart of the resurrection dwells in us (Eph 1:18-19). May we be transformed daily by the truth that God is all-powerful, as demonstrated by the empty tomb.
