Dearest of friends, I hope you had a great Resurrection Weekend,
I was left with this thought after our Easter Weekend, “what do you think it was like for Jesus to breath His first breath after being dead for three days?” Do you think He just went back to breathing? Do you think maybe there was a big gasp for breath? Could it be that the Father gently touched him and said, “Wake Up Son”? Did it happen as he heard the Roman guards talking outside the borrowed tomb and He just woke up?
Let’s take a look at what happened one more time, just to remind ourselves of the fact, “Death could not hold Him”.
MATTHEW 27
62-64 After sundown, the high priests and Pharisees arranged a meeting with Pilate. They said, “Sir, we just remembered that that liar announced while he was still alive, ‘After three days I will be raised.’ We’ve got to get that tomb sealed until the third day. There’s a good chance his disciples will come and steal the corpse and then go around saying, ‘He’s risen from the dead.’ Then we’ll be worse off than before, the final deceit surpassing the first.”
65-66 Pilate told them, “You will have a guard. Go ahead and secure it the best you can.” So, they went out and secured the tomb, sealing the stone and posting guards.
THIS IS A PICTURE OF WHEN, MAN’S BEST IS NOT GOOD ENOUGH
If government could not keep Him in the grave, government should not be able to keep us quiet. Don’t think they could not seal a tomb for it to stay sealed. Once again, we see mankind doing all it can to bury Christianity but God has a plan that includes resurrection of the just and the unjust. I have walked among the ancient Roman ruins that are more beautiful than modern man can manufacture or build. Herod the Great was a master builder and his accomplishments are tourist sites even until today. He was a jealous megalomaniac, the monster who tried to kill Jesus at His birth, when he could not find him he killed off every male child of that age in Bethlehem. This terrible abortion of young lives is sometimes called “The Massacre of Innocents”. Pilate was the Roman Ruler of Israel when Jesus was crucified.
John 19:12 The Message Translation
12 At this, Pilate tried his best to pardon him, but the Jews shouted him down: “If you pardon this man, you’re no friend of Caesar’s. Anyone setting himself up as ‘king’ defies Caesar.” Did you know that Pilate was referred to as ‘The Perfect’ and that after the death of Jesus he was ordered back to Rome to stand trial for executing men without a proper trial? Did you know that Pilate died like Judas? It is taught that Pilate’s life ended when he committed suicide. Do you
remember that Pilates wife had a dream and while the trial was still in session, “sent him this message don’t get mixed up in judging this noble man? I’ve just been through a long and troubled night because of a dream about him.”
Matthew 27:19
I can say that the story leaves you breathless, two thousand years later. I cannot remember my first breath when I was born but I can remember my first breath when I was born again. It was as though I was raised from the dead and sixty-one years later, I am still breathing the fresh breath of heaven on my life. “In Him we live and move and have our being”. One of the types of the Holy Spirit is ‘Pneuma’, the Wind or Breath. Can you see the picture?
The major verse of the resurrection of Christ from sets the stage for my letter today. Paul writes to the Church in Rome about this and the Message Translation reads like this in Romans 8:11 “It stands to reason, doesn’t it, that if the alive-and-present God who raised Jesus from the dead moves into your life, he’ll do the same thing in you that he did in Jesus, bringing you alive to himself? When God lives and breathes in you (and he does, as surely as he did in Jesus), you are delivered from that dead life. With his Spirit living in you, your body will be as alive as Christ’s!”
Because He took a fresh new breath at the Resurrection we can say we are breathing Resurrection
Life, 365 days a year.
Alive in Christ,
Pastor Cleddie and GayNell
Still celebrating a wonderful Easter 2022, because of our Heritage Church family.