Resurrection 19 Holy Week, It's What Resurrection People Do

[HKHaugan]

Resurrection 19 Holy Week, It's What Resurrection People Do

We are preparing for a celebration of the Resurrection on Easter Sunday. Jesus is risen and we know it. But it is not enough to believe it. That's just the beginning. We have to live the Resurrection. We are a Resurrection people. Not a moment passes by that He is not with us. The faith that He had to go to the Cross was the faith it took to be resurrected. And the Lord Jesus' faith is His gift to us. We carry it wherever we are. This is the point we stand on and the point we make. Faith is the key to everything. Jesus was the one figure in all of human history who did with faith what no other person could do. He filled it and fulfilled it. All the action, all the words, all the miracles, all the relationships and all the life He lived was actualized by His faith. He is the personification of the ultimate spiritual being out of whom all existence came. He is faith alive. Without faith there is no way to reach Him, understand Him or relate to Him because His nature is faith. “He is the faithful God...(Deut.7:9).” Until we are faithful there is no way to claim we are significant, have meaning and daily purpose. But, by faith, clarity replaces doubt, confidence replaces hesitancy and living becomes a mission of passion and deliberate witness (Acts1:8). That's what Resurrection people do.

On the Thursday before Easter, known as Maundy Thursday, we celebrate the Lord Jesus initiating a special meal that guarantees His presence when we take part in it, the Lord's Supper. It consists of two symbolic substances, bread, His body and wine, His blood. When they are received, His real presence, the spiritual Person He is, becomes part of us. It has three purposes: to remember His death for us was real, to remember His Resurrection was real so He could enter our hearts by faith and to spiritually feed us for our every next moment to be a witness of His in faith. It's what a Resurrection people do.

On Good Friday we come together to understand the depth of Jesus' commitment to His Father that would mean His execution, taking our place, being a substitute for the deepest human problem, destroying the power of sin. The Cross, its vertical beam representing how sin separates us from God and the horizontal beam, representing how sin separates from one another. No one but Jesus could, by His death, bear the power of sin and destroy its power, then to open the door to know the Father's personal love and begin reunifying people in it. So Good Friday we rehearse His words on the Cross, confess our sin and take to heart His Cross that guarantees our faith in Him saves us from sin. It's called salvation. Through faith in Jesus, His Cross save us from sin, it's separation from God and one another. His Cross is our salvation. So we get together to let that remind us it's our life. That's what Resurrection people do.

Easter Sunday, Resurrection Sunday, makes every Sunday a celebration of every next moment. That's the Sunday that sets the pace for our every next moment. Celebrate every next moment? We celebrate it by serving Him. That's what Resurrection people do.