Sunday 4 Apr 2021

April 4: Mark 16:1-8
 
Key Verse: Mark 16:6
‘Don’t be alarmed,’ he said. ‘You are looking for Jesus the Nazarene, who was crucified. He has risen! He is not here. See the place where they laid him.
 
Devotion:
Around Easter I often try to think how the people in the stories felt about what was going on. This was a time of great sadness because they probably thought they had somehow lost the battle, but this was the moment when they would see just how much God loves us and how much Jesus had done for us! The ladies came prepared to dress up the body with the spices, probably dressed appropriately for mourning...
 
When they approached the tomb and finally looked up to see how they were going to try and roll the stone away from the entrance, it was already moved aside! The first thing Christ had done at the break of dawn was to complete His promise to the world, to defeat evil once and for all; just not in the way we think of defeating evil.
 
When we think of coming up against evil, we think of big battles, fights, superheroes and all manner of earthly things. What Christ did was to defeat death, or debt for the evil in the world. Christ paved the way for us to be able to avoid eternal death by rising up from death and showing the world He can and will do everything for us!
 
The ladies must have been in shock when they saw the tomb was empty. They must have been very afraid by the young man dressed in white sitting there as if everything was ok. And then to be told Jesus was no longer dead after they had seen Him die on the cross... weel, we can only imagine what they thought. They fled! They said nothing at first because they were too scared to say anything. We only know this now because this is all history and they figured things out.
 
Points to Ponder:
Jesus is our Saviour! Christ has risen! He has risen indeed!
 
Hallelujah!