Because He Lives

Hello Everyone,
In April of the year 2000, there was a car crash in Japan. A man died in the accident. When the police came to examine the body, witnesses at the scene said they recognized the car and though the injuries disfigured the body, they also recognized the dead man. He was a 60-year-old local shipbuilder. This man’s family was called and a brother-in-law was able to come to the scene. "Yes," he said, "That’s him. That’s my brother-in-law." He took the news back to the family. Calls were made. The family quickly gathered that afternoon at the home of the widow.

There they mourned: crying, hugging, sharing memories, and making funeral plans.Then the door opened and in walked the 60-year-old shipbuilder, home from a hard day’s work and wondering why all the relatives had come over to his house.No, it was not a resurrection. It was a misidentification. The man at the car crash was not the man they thought he was, so the family called the police and told them to start their identification process over, because the "dead man" had just walked into their living room.It would have been interesting to have been in that living room to see the change that came over the family when they realized their loved one was not dead after all: from tears to smiles, from devastation to elation, from mourning to dancing.

They must have felt like death had been defeated in their home.
But, death had not been defeated; it had just been misplaced.

Their joy meant some other family’s sorrow, and the shipbuilder will someday fall to the power of death.Jesus Christ, the Son of the Living God was dead.
Hope went to the grave with Him. In the Bible the Resurrection is the greatest event.

It is the turning point of the lives of those first followers and the event that catapulted faith in Jesus beyond a small circle to the entire world. The shipbuilder’s family must have been overjoyed when he walked in the door. But when the disciples realized that Jesus was alive, they were infused with a joy that, as Jesus said, no one would ever take away.

That man had a greater length of life than his family thought, but the meaning of life and its final outcome were the same as the day before.

When Jesus walked out of that tomb, everything changed! Jesus said in
John 14:19Before long, the world will not see me anymore, but you will see me. Because I live, you also will live.What does the resurrection of Jesus Christ means to us today.
Tune in tomorrow and that is just what we will see.

All for JesusPastor Phil