Easter Bodies

Harvest Pointe Methodist Church

According to Luke, chapter 24. The Gospel of Luke, chapter 24. Go with me there, and we're going to pick up at verse 38.

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And once you've found it, go ahead and stand with me. As we read our gospel reading this morning. Don't you love that prayer of illumination? I hope you hear that Justin read earlier, that all of our readers will read before we read it. And there's one part in it I love, which is, let us hear today with joy what you say to us.

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Wouldn't it be nice to leave here and say, you know what? I feel joy because God has spoken, right? Jesus loves me. This I know how. Cause the Bible tells me so.

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Right. All right. Let's jump in here and start with verse 36 here, and we'll go halfway into it. Jesus himself stood among the disciples and said to them, peace be with you. They were startled and terrified and thought that they were seeing a ghost.

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He said to them, why are you afraid or frightened? Sorry. And why did doubts arise in your hearts? Look at my hands and my feet. See that it is I myself.

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Touch me and see. For a ghost does not have flesh and bones as you see that I have. And when he had said this, he showed them his hands and his feet, while in their joy they were disbelieving and still wondering. He said to them, have you anything here to eat? They gave him a piece of broiled fish, and he took it and ate it in their presence.

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Then he said to them, these are my words that I spoke to you while I was still with you, that everything written about me in the law of Moses, the prophets and the psalms must be fulfilled. Then he opened their minds to understand the scriptures, and he said to them, thus it is written that the messiah is to suffer and to rise from the dead on the third day, and that repentance and forgiveness of sins is to be proclaimed in his name to all nations, beginning from Jerusalem. You are witnesses of these things. Jesus, help us today as you open our eyes and our minds to understand the scriptures. We pray in your name.

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Amen. And you can be seated.

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Well, chapter 24 is a big deal. It holds for us. I mean, in the gospel of Luke, chapter 24, huge deal. Resurrection, the road to Emmaus. Remember that.

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And then now this story on that very night of the road to Emmaus, which is the very day of the resurrection. Okay, lots of stuff going on here. And then finally, chapter 24 is gonna end also with the ascension of Jesus into the heavens. That's where he ends. And of course, Luke the author, remember, is the author also of what book acts.

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Right? And guess how acts begins the ascension of Jesus. So it's almost like when we watch a show and then season one is done, and then you're waiting, waiting, waiting. Season two comes out and then they recap for you. Remember, they show a little bit of what happened in the last season, even sometimes reshowing it.

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That's what Luke is doing. He's trying to say, listen, these go together, okay? When Jesus ascends, then the spirit descends, right? And so this Easter tide, as we call it, this time of Easter that we're in right now, represented with white, of course, for this resurrection and celebration and all of that that lasts for 50 days until Pentecost, which will change our season once again, right? And so 40 days, though, in Jesus ascends into heaven.

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So during that 40 days, he's going to appear to many. And so we get these appearings of Jesus here in the text. And so our readings, if you've noticed, have actually been about the day of the resurrection or the days following within that week. And so again, we're parked here. Luke parks us here on this one day.

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And there was a lot of things going on in that day. It started at dark, and it's still going at dark of that same, so to speak day. Right.