Go on, impress me! Dazzle me with your pitch! Convince me! Win me over! Tell me about this amazing thing that has happened! Tell me all the details and from the very beginning about Jesus of Nazareth and how God raised him from the dead.  I’m dying to hear it all!

Well, ok!  Here goes!  The tomb, it’s empty!  The linen clothes, they’re on the ground. The cloth around his head, that was neatly wrapped up in a bun.  That’s how it all began.

What do you mean “that’s how it all began?”  That’s where you starting? That’s how you begin to dazzle me, impress and convince me about life after death?  What do you expect me to do with that?  How am I supposed to make sense of that?  You’re kidding me, right?  There’s nothing in that.   That poses more questions than it answers.  Ah, yes and that’s the point!                                                                                                 

Jesus of Nazareth was condemned to death.  They hung him on a tree and his dead body was wrapped in cloths and laid in a tomb.  But he broke free.  So that empty tomb, those linen cloths in Jerusalem that first Easter Sunday morning, they are the signs of how God has redeemed us, set us free.  They are the signs of how God has taken the pain and suffering of this world, and not run away from it but has broken through that same pain and suffering and transformed it into something so awesome, so incredible that the human race has never been the same since whether you do or don’t believe.

The Resurrection demonstrates that God did not abandon Jesus on the cross.  And as a result, he will not abandon us either.   Jesus rising from the dead has transformed our world and if we let him in, he will transform us, our lives too!  Let the Risen Jesus into your life!  Allow him to transform you, heal you, redeem you and raise you up!

Christ is Risen Alleluia Alleluia!  Be filled with that joy!