Thought for the Week

The hope of resurrection

It was all over. It was three years since they had begun the rollercoaster of life with Jesus.

Three years of exciting and challenging ministry, training, miracles and healings. Crowds of people following them, wanting to hear him speak and heal them.

They remembered Jesus raising Lazarus from death, the excitement of the crowds on Palm Sunday, clearing the temple of the money-lenders and sellers of overpriced sacrifice animals, and clashes with religion scholars, priests and Jewish authorities.

Then there was that strange Passover celebration. What was it that he said? “This is my body...”

That night there was his arrest, and the next morning his trial, flogging and crucifixion. He was now buried and all these events were only memories.

The apostle John tells us that the disciples were locked in a room for fear of the very authorities that Jesus had clashed with in the temple courts only the previous week.

Not only had they lost their leader, but they had also lost hope. They were trying to process all this, and now he appears resurrected in front of them. Despair to glory. Nobody had suffered Roman execution and come back to life before. What was going on?

How do we process that fact? It’s a question we all need to consider.

NASA astronaut Jim Lovell, who flew in Geminis 7 and 12, Apollo 8 and the ill-fated Apollo 13, is quoted as saying that “from now on, we live in a world where man has walked on the moon”.

Much more significantly, we live in a world where Jesus has risen from the dead. If we accept that truth, we have also the hope of resurrection that it brings. Springbank Evangelical Church,

Campbeltown.