Clergy View: God is with you He will be revealed
More than ever, this is a promise we can cling to. Jesus comes to us while we are yet grieving.
Written By:
Bethany Nelson | Park United Methodist Church | 4:00 pm, May 5, 2021 ×
Pastor Bethany Nelson
While Easter was celebrated a month ago, within the Christian church, we are yet in the season of Easter. A time where we reflect and learn from the stories of the early followers of Jesus as they encounter the risen Christ.
One of my favorite Easter stories is the Walk to Emmaus (Luke 24:13-35). It tells the story of two people (one named Cleopas, and one unnamed, though thought to be his wife, Mary) who are walking from Jerusalem to their home in Emmaus. As they walk, they are talking of the events of the week (that is, the death and resurrection of Jesus). A stranger joins them, and while scripture tells us that this stranger is Jesus, the couple doesn’t yet recognize him. He asks, “What are you tal
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Jesus Christ died for our sins and was raised again to life to bring us back to a close relationship with God
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When I was a small boy growing up in rural Ghana, members of the women’s ministry in our local church would go to the town cemetery at dawn on Easter Sunday and start marching from there with loud singing through the main street, “He is Risen, He is Risen.”
A common greeting among Christian believers across the centuries is: “Christ is Risen,” and the response is: “He is Risen indeed.”
We all nurture hopes of various kinds. We hope to live a long and productive life. We hope our children and grandchildren will grow into good people who will contribute to society. We hope for world peace and prosperity. These are all good things, but we can’t necessarily count on them to come to pass. They may or may not.
So what can we hope for that will never disappoint us? St. Augustine once wrote, “The Lord’s resurrection is our hope” (Sermon 261:1). Placing our hope in Jesus’ rising from the dead is a sure bet. In fact, it’s something we can stake our lives on. That’s because the hope St. Augustine is talking about is different from Joe’s hope that he’ll win the lottery. While Joe has no idea whether he’ll ever win, we know that everyone who believes that Jesus has been raised from the dead will be saved (Romans 10:9). So we’re not just wishing something good will happen; we are confident it will!
In the musical
Jesus Christ Superstar, Jesus stands amid a fanatical crowd bellowing out their devotion to him. Simon the Zealot senses an opportunity and shrewdly informs Jesus that:
There must be over 50,000 screaming love and more for you
Every one of 50,000 would do whatever you ask him to
Keep them yelling their devotion, but add a touch of hate at Rome
You will rise to a greater power, we will win ourselves a home
You’ll get the power and the glory, for ever and ever and ever.
In the show, Jesus refuses to cultivate hatred of Rome and retorts that neither Simon nor the crowds understand what true power is. Lyricist Tim Rice is no New Testament scholar it is open to debate whether Simon’s zeal pertained to religion or included a violent expulsion of Roman power from Judea and Galilee. But Rice did hit upon a genuine theme in Jesus’ ministry: Jesus refused to be the Messiah of a violent revolution, and he called on his fellow Jews to repent of the idea that the