On the first day of the week, very early in the morning, the women took the spices they had prepared and went to the tomb. They found the stone rolled away from the tomb, but when they entered, they did not find the body of the Lord Jesus. While they were wondering about this, suddenly two men in clothes that gleamed like lightning stood beside them. In their fright the women bowed down with their faces to the ground, but the men said to them, “Why do you look for the living among the dead? He is not here… https://www.bible.com/bible/111/LUK.24.1-6.NIV

“Have you ever been really looking forward to something only for that thing not to happen?”

The Easter story is a fascinating one from so many aspects…
It is a story in which NOTHING - NOTHING, went the way it was “expected to.”

Very truly I tell you, unless a kernel of wheat falls to the ground and dies, it remains only a single seed. But if it dies, it produces many seeds. https://www.bible.com/bible/111/jhn.12.24

The “life” of busy-ness, worry, and stress is often incompatible with love, joy, peace, hope, purpose, & your true identity. That fake life needs to end before our true life can begin!

Without a death, there can be no resurrection.

With Jesus on a cross, God’s love takes human form and God’s love accomplishes that which neither Religion nor Politics could. It succeeds where even the most accomplished and brightest human efforts and wisdom fail.

OUR GREATEST NEED IS FORGIVENESS SO GOD SENT A SAVIOR!

The Resurrection of Jesus gives us good news…
1. That our own personal failures cannot undo Jesus’s love and faithfulness towards us and on our behalf.
2. That our failed human systems cannot thwart the love of God and his purpose to renew our world.
3. That we don’t have to look to any man-made system for hope, salvation or forgiveness.

Jesus rose from death, but the power of death, hell, and the grave stayed down.

We were saved from something, and we were also saved into something.
Not everything comes back up. Somethings need to stay in the grave.

For if we have been united with him in a death like his, we will certainly also be united with him in a resurrection like his. For we know that our old self was crucified with him so that the body ruled by sin might be done away with, that we should no longer be slaves to sin—because anyone who has died has been set free from sin. Now if we died with Christ, we believe that we will also live with him. https://www.bible.com/bible/114/ROM.6.5-8.NKJV

Just because you can’t see it, doesn’t mean nothing is happening.

What are some of the assumptions you hold about life, God, or your future that could be keeping you from seeing what Jesus might be up to in your life?

In the World, when something dies, it means loss, hurt, confusion, frustration.

“He is not there, He Is Risen. https://www.bible.com/bible/111/luk.24.6

And because Jesus rose from the grave, He offers His Resurrection and Power to you too!…If you will participate in His death, and trust Him with your life…He came to give life and abundant life.