Easter: Tragic Mistake or Deeper Magic?

Here is a nice video that Stephen Altrogge put together for Easter, poetically discussing the deeper magic* of Easter.





*-Whenever you can invoke The Chronicles of Narnia, that's a winner in my book!

Why Does the Resurrection Matter?

This great video was put together by the folks at Central Presbyterian Church (EPC) in St. Louis. May it be a blessing to you this Easter.

Wednesday's Words of Wisdom...Jared Wilson on a Resurrection Gospel

“A resurrection gospel is a full gospel. What we are accustomed to is a simplistic, stripped down gospel, a gospel that suggests, ‘You have issues, but Jesus died for you; now be a good person.’ The full gospel says, ‘The problem is a radical one no less serious than death and it requires a radical intervention no less powerful than resurrection’ The full gospel says that the level and quality of your messed-up-ness is complete, exhaustive, and irreconcilable by you, but the gift of God's grace extends infinitely, eternally, covering it all. It reconciles us fully to God in a way that can only be described as bringing a dead person back to life.”

Jared Wilson
Your Jesus Is Too Safe

N.T. Wright on the Historicity of the Resurrection

Wednesday's Words of Wisdom...Mike Wittmer and a Christian Response to Death

"(At Lazarus's tomb), Jesus wept. He did not use the concept of Romans 8:28 as a club, telling Mary and Martha, 'All things work together for good so you should really look for the silver lining here. It's actually a good thing your brother is dead.' He didn't treat their loss as anything other than what it was -- a loss that triggered the tears of God.

"But Jesus did not weep as those who have no hope. He told Martha, 'I am the resurrection and the life. He who believes in me will live, even though he dies; and whoever lives and believes in me will never die. Do you believe this?' (John 11:25-26)...

"You may shiver as you walk through the shadows of death, but the shadow itself is cast by the bright light of the resurrection. 'Weeping may remain for a night, but rejoicing comes in the morning' (Psalm 30:5). One morning you will rise, and every tear will be wiped away from your eyes (Revelation 21:4). So go ahead and weep, but only as one who knows how your story ends. It doesn't."

Mike Wittmer
The Last Enemy: Preparing to Win the Fight of Your Life

Wednesday's Words of Wisdom

"Just as the caterpillar becomes a butterfly, as carbon is converted into diamond, as the grain of wheat upon dying in the ground produces other grains of wheat, as all of nature revives in the spring and dresses up in celebrative clothing, as the believing community is formed out of Adam’s fallen race, as the resurrection body is raised from the body that is dead and buried in the earth, so too, by the re-creating power of Christ, the new heaven and the new earth will one day emerge from the fire-purged elements of this world, radiant in enduring glory and forever set free from the 'bondage to decay.'"

Herman Bavinck, Reformed Dogmatics, Vol. IV, p. 720.