met a friend for lunch yesterday at 11:30, and at around noon it struck me that at that moment almost 2,000 years ago, the sun went dark in Judea, and three hours later Jesus cried out and took his last breath. It’s called Good Friday because of the sacrifice he made for us.
But of course, many people died of crucifixion at the hands of the Romans, including many other Jewish men in the years before and after Jesus’ death. One huge difference that set his death apart was that early Sunday morning God raised him from the dead. Of the thousands that Rome crucified, only One came back to life in the flesh.
Though we in Churches of Christ don’t historically emphasize holy days on the Christian calendar (other than each Sunday), there’s nothing wrong with our putting extra focus on this most important of events on Easter Sunday.
Because of that, we’ll focus on the resurrection of Jesus, using Philippians 3:3-11 (especially verses 10-11) to emphasize how the resurrection is more than just a historical event. It is that, of course, but it’s also something that we experience. It’s both head and heart, intellect and emotion, and I hope to help our congregation lean into the experiential aspect of our Lord’s resurrection.
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