The resurrection Message
17th April Trevor Withers
Today is Resurrection Sunday
Luke 24 why do you look for the living one among the dead.
Reminder from Trevor that we are resurrection people, people of the stone which was rolled away, not of the cross.
Story of the father and the child, the father embraced his daughter gleefully even though she was in a yucky mess. How much more does God love us, even when we were dead in our sin he loved us, and even when we're in a really yucky state, he still loves us.
What Jesus did for us has been interpreted in different ways through the ages, all of which are helpful in their own way:-
RANSOM
In the early days of Christianity the most common crime was kidnapping and holding for ransom. Hence the analogy that we've been kidnapped by Satan and Jesus is the ransom paid.
Matt 20 v 28 Jesus gave his life as a ransom for many.
PROPITIATION
In the Medieval period in Europe people were concerned with honour, honour was everything, a challenge to your honour or something dishonourable done to you resulted in a duel. If a serf (slave) offended someone above him in status, there would be a gift, a propitition, to restore the highrer person's honour rather than duelling. This is another way of understanding the cross.
Another way of looking at honour restored: As a mother might make sure her son looks OK before leaving the house, so what we do reflects on Jesus because we belong to him. Jesus' sacrifice restores God's honour.
1 John 2 v 2 he is the atoning sacrifice or our sins
THE COURT DFENDER
Before courts were instigated, guilt or innocence was determined by a ducking stool or trial by fire – being burnt at the stake. Eventually the court system was brought in to determine guilt or innocence. We have from this the idea of Jesus being our defence, arguing on our behalf, saying we are innocent because Jesus takes the punishment which is ours.
1 John 2 v 1 he speaks to the father in our defence
CHRISTUS VICTOR
The idea of Christus Victor is more popular in the orthodox East than the West. It covers the idea that there is a battle going on in the heavenly realms, which we are a part of. In wars there is always a decisive point which determines the outcome of the whole war, like D Day in the 2nd world war, but the number of casualties was higher after D Day than before, even though the outcome was decided by that point.
There is a cosmic war going on in the heavenlies between Satan and his demons, and Jesus and the angels. God is always more powerful but he has given permission for Satan to try to do as he will over the Earth. The powers of darkness finally get Jesus on the cross and think they've killed him, but as he rises again he overcomes all of them. That decisive moment means that the war is won but there will be lots of battles still to be fought.
THE BIG PICTURE
It's not so much what he's done for me, although of course that's important, but what he's done for the world, the big picture.
Col 2 v 13-15 triumphing over principalities and powers
That's the Jesus we celebrate, and we can live in the power that rose him from the dead. | 
