Christ's Death & Resurrection in Prophecy

This is two quick videos on Christ's death/resurrection and how it fulfilled numerous prophecies in Scripture.

3 Days Later

This powerful video takes a look at the death and resurrection of Christ as one of Jesus' disciples would have experienced it. It demonstrates how hopeless Jesus' death would have left them, and how amazing Jesus' resurrection would have been to them on the first Easter Morning. This video is a wonderful way to open your Easter Service, Sunrise Service, or a sermon about the power and hope found in Jesus' resurrection.

Movie 3min 10sec

Easter Drawing

This moving, reflective piece is great for Easter. Or use it any time to reflect on Jesus with this unique line drawing video.

I think this is brilliant and we may well use this next Easter Sunday.

Video 4min 16sec

The Tomb

We hang the cross on the walls of our homes, use it to decorate our churches and memorialize our fallen heroes, but the empty tomb seldom receives the same recognition. While the cross was the end of death, the empty tomb represents the beginning of life.

Video 1min 32sec

Did Jesus die on the cross?

I read about a person who wrote the following to a local newspaper advice columnist: Dear Uticus, Our preacher said on Easter that Jesus just swooned on the cross and that His disciples nursed Him back to health. What do you think? Sincerely, Bewildered.

The columnist replied, Dear Bewildered, Beat your preacher with a cat of nine tails with 39 heavy strokes, nail him to a cross, hang him in the sun for six hours, run a spear through his heart, embalm him, put him in an airless tomb for 36 hours, and see what happens. Sincerely, Uticus.

It's Friday, but Sunday’s a comin’

Tony Campolo tells the story of a black Baptist preacher in the inner city of Philadelphia who preached a sermon Tony says he’ll never forget. Tony preached first. He was "hot," so "hot" he says, that he even stopped and listened to himself. He sat down and said to his pastor: "Now see if you can top that one!"

"Son," said the black pastor, "you ain’t seen nothin’ yet." For an hour and a half the pastor repeated these words over and over again: "It's Friday, but Sunday’s a comin’."

"I've never heard anything like it," Tony said. "He just kept saying it. The congregation was spellbound by the power of it."

"It’s Friday. Mary, Jesus’ mother is crying her eyes out. That’s her son up there on the cross. He’s dying the agonizing death of crucifixion as a criminal. But it’s only Friday," the preacher said. "Sunday's a comin’."

"The apostles were really down and out. Jesus, their leader, was being killed by evil men. But it was only Friday. Sunday is a comin’.

"The Devil thought he had won. ‘You thought you could outwit me,’ he said, ‘but I’ve got you now.’ But it was only Friday. Sunday is a comin’."

"He went on like that for 30 minutes, 40 minutes, an hour. Each time he said, ‘It's Friday,’ the crowd began to respond, ‘but Sunday’s comin’. An hour and 15 minutes.

"It's Friday and evil has triumphed over good. Jesus is dying up there on the cross. The world is turned upside down. This shouldn’t happen. But it’s only Friday. Sunday’s a comin’.

"It’s Friday. But Sunday is comin’. Mary Magdalene was out of her mind with grief.

Her Lord was being killed. Jesus had turned her life from sin to grace. Now he was dead. But it’s only Friday. Sunday is a comin’."

The place was rocking. For an hour and a half. "Friday! But Sunday is a comin’.

Friday. But Sunday is a comin’.

"The sisters and the brothers are suffering. It just isn’t fair...all they have to go through, but it’s only Friday. Sunday is comin’."

"I was exhausted," Tony said. "It was the best sermon I’ve ever heard. The old preacher was saying it and the people were with him. ‘It's Friday, but Sunday is a comin’. It was powerful," Tony said. "It was personal."

Tony Campolo, loosely quoted by Ronald J. Lavin in, "I Am the Resurrection and the Life."
Quoted from www.mthollywood.org/sermon12.htm

Some of us stay at the cross

Some of us stay at the cross,
some of us wait at the tomb,
Quickened and raised with Christ
yet lingering still in the gloom.
Some of us 'bide at the Passover feast
with Pentecost all unknown,
The triumphs of grace in the heavenly place
that our Lord has made His own.
If the Christ who died had stopped at the cross,
His work had been incomplete.
If the Christ who was buried had stayed in the tomb,
He had only known defeat,
But the way of the cross never stops at the cross
and the way of the tomb leads on
To victorious grace in the heavenly place
where the risen Lord has gone.

Annie Johnson Flint

God’s "Amen!"

The resurrection is God’s "Amen!" to Christ’s statement, "It is finished."

S. Lewis Johnson

Red Square

For some 70 years, the people in the Soviet Union had been taught God is no God, or is dead.  Jesus is not real, and certainly not alive.    It was OK for old ladies to venerate a buried corpse, but for two generations the power of the State had tried to stamp out any living faith in the living Lord.  The history had been re-written…

It was May Day, in Moscow’s Red Square, in 1990, just a few months before the final dissolution of the Soviet Union.  

“Is it straight, Father?” one Orthodox priest asked another, as he hefted a heavy, eight-foot crucifix onto his shoulder.

“Yes, it is straight,” said the other to him.

Together the two priests walked the parade route, along with a group of parishioners holding ropes which steadied the beams of the huge cross.  They were right in the midst of all the official might of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, in the usual May Day procession of tanks, missiles, troops, and salutes to the Communist party elite.

Behind all the tanks and military hardware surged a giant crowd of protesters, shouting up as they approached Mikhail Gorbachev, “Bread…Freedom…Truth!”

As the parade passed, this throng finally passed directly in front of the Soviet leader, standing in his place of honor.  At that moment the priests hoisted their heavy burden toward the sky.  The cross emerged up out of the crowd, now standing upright.  The figure of Jesus Christ towered over the giant poster faces of Marx, and Engels, and Lenin behind Gorbachev’s reviewing stand.

“Mikhail Serveyevich!” one of the protesters shouted, his deep voice cleaving the clamor of the protesters, and piercing straight toward the angry Soviet leader.  “Mikhail Sergeyevich!  Christ is risen!” 

From The Body, by Chuck Colson

The Garden Tomb of Jesus is famous because it is empty!

The pyramids of Egypt are famous because they contain the mummified bodies of ancient Egyptian kings. Westminster Abbey is noted because within its walls there are contained the remains of many nobles and notables. Muhammad’s tomb is visited because of the stone coffin and the bones there. Arlington National Cemetery in Washington, D. C. is revered because it is a resting place for many outstanding Americans. But, the Garden Tomb of Jesus is famous because it is empty!

The Robe

In his classic novel, "The Robe," Lloyd C. Douglas has a character called Marcellus, who had become enamored of Jesus. He wrote letters to his fiancè Diana in Rome. He told her about Jesus' teachings, about his miracles, then about his crucifixion, and then about his resurrection. Finally he informed her that he had decided to become a disciple of Jesus. In her letter of response, Diana said, "What I feared was that it might affect you. It is a beautiful story. Let it remain so. We don't have to do anything about it, do we?"

Oh yes, we do, Diana.

Collected Sermons, Dr. Bill Bouknight, ChristianGlobe Network, 2002

Benjamin Franklin's Epitaph

In one of his lighter moments, Benjamin Franklin penned his own epitaph. Franklin didn't profess to be an orthodox Christian; he was more a deist, a believer in a clock-maker God than in the personal God of Jesus Christ. But it seems he must have been influenced by the Church's teaching of the resurrection. Here's the epitaph he wrote for himself:

"The body of B. Franklin, printer, like the cover of an old book its contents torn out, And stripped of its lettering and guilding, lies here, food for worms, but the work shall not be wholly lost: For it will, as he believ'd, appear once more in a new & more perfect edition, corrected and amended by the author."

"Easter Is A Joke," by Rev. Dr. C. Eric Funston

Because He Lives

This is a video from Igniter Media www.ignitermedia.com

I used this video during a baptism service and it was very powerful.

This song was born out of trying times for Bill and Gloria Gaither. Each day was becoming a struggle. They faced huge uncertainty in the days ahead. But through it all, they were reminded that life, in both the good and bad times, is worth the living because Jesus lives.