Tag Archives: the resurrection of Jesus

Ravi Zacharias

Ravi Zacharias Ministry –   Ascending Creatures

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Most of us would likely miss it. Couched between Wednesday’s building crescendo of assignments and Friday’s promise of their demise, Thursday hardly seems more than a means to an end. Though the day is every bit as holy as Easter Sunday, most of the world moves through it unsuspectingly—unfortunately, even those who have confessed the momentous lines of the Apostles’ Creed: “On the third day he rose again from the dead. He ascended to heaven and is seated at the right hand of God the Father almighty.”

Today is Ascension Day, the day marking the ascension of Jesus Christ. Forty days after the celebration of Easter and the resurrection of Jesus, the church around the world holds in remembrance this eventful day. The gospel writer records: “Then [Jesus] said to his disciples…. ‘See, I am sending upon you what my Father promised; so stay here in the city until you have been clothed with power from on high.’ Then he led them out as far as Bethany, and, lifting up his hands, he blessed them. While he was blessing them, he withdrew from them and was carried up into heaven. And they worshiped him, and returned to Jerusalem with great joy; and they were continually in the temple blessing God.”(1)

The ascension of Christ may not seem as momentous to the Christian story as the resurrection or as rousing as the image of Jesus on the cross. After the death and resurrection, in fact, the ascension might even seem somewhat anti-climatic. The resurrection and ascension statements of the Apostles’ Creed are essentially treated as one in the same: On the third day he rose again from the dead. He ascended to heaven and is seated at the right hand of God the Father almighty. One might even think that the one miraculous act flowed immediately into the other: as if the death of the body of Jesus was answered in the resurrection, a presence who then floated onto heaven. Unfortunately, the result of this impression is that many think of the ascension as somehow casting off of Christ’s human nature, as if Jesus is a presence that only used to be human. Hence, Jesus seems one more fit to memorialize than one we might expect to actually see face-to-face one day.

But in fact, this couldn’t be farther from the experience of the disciples, to whom Jesus appeared repeatedly in the days following the resurrection. To them it was abundantly clear that Jesus was not any sort of spiritual ghost or remote presence. He ate with them; he talked with them; he instructed them as to the ministries they would lead and the deaths they would face because of him. He was in fact more fully human than they ever realized, and it was this holy body, this divine person that they held near as they lived and died to proclaim his kingdom.

Consequently, the ascension they remembered was no different than the future they envisioned with him: he was raised as a human, fully human. As the disciples were watching and Jesus was taken up before their very eyes, a cloud hid him from their sight. The text then refers to them “looking intently up into the sky as he was going” when suddenly two men dressed in white stood beside them: “‘Men of Galilee,’ they said, ‘why do you stand here looking into the sky? This same Jesus, who has been taken from you into heaven, will come back in the same way you have seen him go’”(3) In this resurrected body, Christ ascended to heaven, fully human, fully divine, entirely glorified.

For the Christian, no action of Jesus is without weight, and this, his last action on earth, is weighed with far more hope than is often realized. Ascending to heaven, the work God sent him to accomplish was finally completed. The ascension was a living and public declaration of his dying words on the Cross: It is finished. In the ascension, Jesus furthered the victory of Easter—the victory of a physical body in whom God had conquered death. Because of the ascension, the incarnation is not a past or throwaway event. Because of the ascension, we know that the incarnate Son who was raised from the dead is sharing in our humanity even now. And just as the men in white informed the disciples, so we carry in our own flesh a guarantee that Christ will one day bring us to himself. It is for these reasons that N.T. Wright affirms, “To embrace the Ascension is to heave a sigh of relief, to give up the struggle to be God (and with it the inevitable despair at our constant failure), and to enjoy our status as creatures: image-bearing creatures, but creatures nonetheless.”(3)

Ascension Day, a holy day falling inconspicuously on a Thursday in May, is the conspicuous declaration that we are not left as orphans. In the same post-resurrection body that he invited Thomas to touch, Jesus invites us to full humanity even today. He ascended with a body, he shares in our humanity, extending his own body even now, promising to return for our own bodies. Christ is preparing a room for us, and we know it is real because he himself is real.

Jill Carattini is managing editor of A Slice of Infinity at Ravi Zacharias International Ministries in Atlanta, Georgia.

(1) Luke 24:49-53.

(2) Acts 1:9-11.

(3) N.T. Wright, Surprised by Hope: Rethinking Heaven, the Resurrection, and the Mission of the Church (New York: Harper Collins, 2008), 114.

Presidential Prayer Team

Presidential Prayer Team; J.K. – Directives

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Salvation is the beginning of a personal relationship with God through Jesus Christ. If He is your Savior, you can have joy that is founded on realities that are unaffected by conditions around you. But there is more.

You believe in him and rejoice with joy that is inexpressible and filled with glory.

I Peter 1:8

Tried and tested by fire, the genuineness of your faith may result in praise, honor and glory. Peter assures his readers that they and you have a “living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ…to an inheritance that is imperishable, undefiled, and unfading.” (I Peter 1:3-4) If you know Christ, you have hope, and if you have hope, you can walk in holiness and harmony with the Lord.

Follow these directives: Love Christ – get to know Him better through God’s Word. Trust Christ – believe that all things work together for good even if you don’t see how (Romans 8:28). Rejoice in Christ – center your heart and mind on Him in all circumstances. You will learn something new and wonderful about your Savior. And your joy will be inexpressible, no matter the circumstance. Then intercede for those who lead this nation to follow Jesus and have hope and joy in Him.

Recommended Reading: I Peter 3:13-4:1

Ravi Zacharias

Ravi Zacharias Ministry – A Sigh of Relief

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Ravi Z

Most of us likely missed it. Couched between Wednesday’s building crescendo of assignments and Friday’s promise of their demise, Thursday hardly seems more than a means to an end. So even though it is every bit as holy as Easter Sunday, most of the world moved through it unsuspectingly—even those who have confessed the momentous lines of the Apostles’ Creed: “On the third day he rose again from the dead. He ascended to heaven and is seated at the right hand of God the Father almighty.”

Yesterday was Ascension Day, the day that marks the ascension of Jesus Christ. Forty days after the celebration of Easter and the resurrection of Jesus, the church around the world holds in remembrance this eventful day. The gospel writer records: “Then [Jesus] said to his disciples…. ‘See, I am sending upon you what my Father promised; so stay here in the city until you have been clothed with power from on high.’ Then he led them out as far as Bethany, and, lifting up his hands, he blessed them.  While he was blessing them, he withdrew from them and was carried up into heaven. And they worshiped him, and returned to Jerusalem with great joy; and they were continually in the temple blessing God.”(1)

The ascension of Christ may not seem as momentous to the world as the resurrection or as rousing as the image of Jesus on the cross. In fact, after the death and resurrection, the ascension might even seem somewhat anti-climatic. The resurrection and ascension statements of the Apostles’ Creed are essentially treated as one in the same: On the third day he rose again from the dead. He ascended to heaven and is seated at the right hand of God the Father almighty. One might even think that the one miraculous act flowed immediately into the other: the death of the body of Jesus was answered in the resurrection of Christ, a presence who then floated on to heaven. Unfortunately, the result of this impression is that many think that the ascension somehow points to the casting off of Christ’s human nature, as if Jesus is now a presence that only used to be human, one we see far more fit to memorialize than we expect one day to see actually face to face.

But in fact, this is far from the experience of the disciples, to whom Jesus appeared repeatedly in the days following the resurrection. To them it was abundantly clear that Jesus was not any sort of spiritual ghost or remote presence. He ate with them; he talked with them; he instructed them as to the ministries they would lead and the deaths they would face because of him. He was in fact more fully human than they ever before realized, and it was this holy body, this divine person that they held near as they lived and died to proclaim his kingdom.

Moreover, the ascension they remembered was no different than the future they envisioned with him—he was raised as a human, fully human. As the disciples were watching and Jesus was taken up before their very eyes, a cloud hid him from their sight. The text then refers to them “looking intently up into the sky as he was going” when suddenly two men dressed in white stood beside them: “‘Men of Galilee,’ they said, ‘why do you stand here looking into the sky? This same Jesus, who has been taken from you into heaven, will come back in the same way you have seen him go’” (Acts 1:9-11). In this resurrected body, Christ ascended to heaven, fully human, fully divine, and entirely glorified.

For the Christian, no action of Christ is without weight, and this, his last action on earth, is weighed with far more hope than is often realized. On the day Jesus was taken into heaven, the work God sent him to accomplish was finally completed. The ascension was a living and public declaration of his dying words on the Cross: It is finished. Ascending to heaven, Jesus furthered the victory of Easter—the victory of a physical body in whom God had conquered death. Because of the ascension, the incarnation is not a past event. Because of the ascension, we know that the incarnate Christ who was raised from the dead is sharing in our humanity even now. And just as the men in white informed the disciples, so we carry in our own flesh a guarantee that Christ will one day bring us to himself.  It is for these reasons that N.T. Wright affirms, “To embrace the Ascension is to heave a sigh of relief, to give up the struggle to be God (and with it the inevitable despair at our constant failure), and to enjoy our status as creatures: image-bearing creatures, but creatures nonetheless.”(2)

Truly, Ascension Day, a holy day falling inconspicuously on a Thursday in May, is the conspicuous declaration that we are not left as orphans. In the same post-resurrection body he invited Thomas to touch, Jesus invites us to full humanity even today. He ascended with a body, he shares in our humanity, extending his own body even now, and he is coming back for those in bodies. Christ is preparing a room for us, and we know it is real because he himself is real.

Jill Carattini is managing editor of A Slice of Infinity at Ravi Zacharias International Ministries in Atlanta, Georgia.

(1) Luke 24:49-53.

(2) N.T. Wright, Surprised by Hope: Rethinking Heaven, the Resurrection, and the Mission of the Church (New York: Harper Collins, 2008), 114.

Ravi Zacharias

Ravi Zacharias Ministry – On the Third Day

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Ravi Z

The earliest creeds of the Christian church confess that Jesus “suffered under Pontius Pilate, was crucified, died, and was buried.” It is then confessed, “On the third day, he rose again.”(1) While modern presuppositions may tempt us to interpret the death and resurrection of Jesus as symbolic or spiritual in nature, there was nothing abstract about the events and details confessed by those who first beheld them. Jesus’s suffering was an actual, datable event in history, his crucifixion a sentence inflicted on an actual body; the proclamation of both was the remembrance of a cold reality, something akin to remembering the Holocaust or the Trail of Tears. Likewise, “the third day” was a tangible, historical occasion—albeit an occasion of unfathomable proportions.

Yet the resurrection of Jesus was not viewed as merely a static fact on this particular third day, a fixed event to remain in this history alone. “We believe that Jesus died and rose again” wrote the apostle Paul, “and so we believe that God will bring with Jesus those who have fallen asleep in him.”(2) For those who first beheld it, the resurrection was an event with inherent consequences for everything—for order and purpose, for what it means to be human itself. The earliest confessions of Christ’s death, burial, and third day rising from the dead are immediately followed by certain understood implications. As the Misfit in Flannery O’Connor’s short story observes of this resurrected one, Jesus went and “thrown everything off balance.”

In the eyes of Jesus’s contemporaries, the Misfit is exactly right. This rabbi who was accused of blasphemy for calling himself equal to God was immediately here shown by God to be speaking the truth. The resurrection verified Jesus’s ties with the Father and his claims to divine authority; the Sonship of Christ was visibly and unmistakably confirmed by the Father. “For God raised him from the dead” writes Paul in 1 Thessalonians 1:10. This connection was clear.

And therefore, the resurrection was recognized as being far more than an event. For if “God raised Jesus from the dead,” as Paul, the unlikely Jewish believer, testified, then history is a display of God’s movement among us, a glimpse of the profound and ongoing invitation of God. The resurrection provides ground for seeing Christ’s life in light of each and every prior act and Word of God, vindicating and verifying the ministry and person of Jesus and his vicarious humanity among us. The prophets’ words, like the whole of Scripture, take on new dimensions in light of this truly human one before us: “On the third day he will restore us, that we may live in his presence” (Hosea 6:2). “Surely he has borne our infirmities and carried our diseases; yet we accounted him stricken, struck down by God, and afflicted. 5But he was wounded for our transgressions, crushed for our iniquities; upon him was the punishment that made us whole” (Isaiah 53:4-5). Through the life of the risen Son, the resurrection directs us to the movement of the Father in all of history to nothing less than the uniting purpose of a redemptive God today.

For those who first confessed it, the identity of the risen Jesus was a pronouncement of divine authority, wisdom, messiahship, and humanity—in the present. As one New Testament scholar observes, “[F]or Paul and probably for most early Christians, it was precisely the resurrection of Jesus which declared that he was lord, saviour, and judge, and that Caesar was not.”(3) The risen Jesus is a pronouncement that it is God’s very Son who has come among us, bringing with him a very human means to the Father here and now. In the death and resurrection of the Son, humanity itself becomes the stuff of which God’s final assurance of life is once and for all established. The resurrection pours instant light on what it means to be fully human and what it means to truly live in the vicarious humanity of the Incarnate Son.

Thus, Paul is abundantly clear on the far-reaching, present significance of the third day. “If for this life only we have hoped in Christ, we are of all people most to be pitied. But in fact Christ has been raised from the dead, the first fruits of those who have died.”(4) With implications for both today and tomorrow—for bodies collective and individual, for lives and for deaths—the resurrected Christ has indeed “thrown it all off balance” in a world that may well prefer to “leave the dead lie,” as another O’Connor character suggests. In this mysterious space, Christians continue to discover what it means to live further into both the unfathomable and the real, the truly human and the gloriously divine:

We believe in Jesus Christ, God’s only Son, our Lord. He was crucified, died, and was buried. And on the third day he rose again.

Jill Carattini is managing editor of A Slice of Infinity at Ravi Zacharias International Ministries in Atlanta, Georgia.

(1) Excerpts from the Apostles’ Creed. Similar wording is found in both the Nicene Creed and the Creed of Athanasius.

(2) 1 Thessalonians 4:14.

(3) N.T. Wright, The Resurrection of the Son of God, (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2003), 371.

(4) 1 Corinthians 15:19-20.

Ravi Zacharias

Ravi Zacharias Ministry – Easter Present

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Ravi Z

An empty tomb, abandoned linen burial wrappings, and the reversal of all that was expected and anticipated—heralds the dawning of a new day. The resurrection of Jesus was the reason, the impetus for a new age—a new way of living and being in the world as residents and heralds of God’s new creation begun. Without this event, there would be no Christian faith and on its significance, the apostle Paul was clear: “But if there is no resurrection of the dead, not even Christ has been raised; and if Christ has not been raised, then our preaching is vain, your faith also is vain” (1 Corinthians 15:13-14).

As Christians emerge from worship services around the country, and indeed, the world, looking back on the historical significance of the resurrection, and looking forward to the promise of life after death for our eternal future, I wonder if we miss the significance of Easter present—and the significance of the resurrection of Jesus in our lives here and now. If we only associate the resurrection with life after death, something not for this age but for a spiritual age to come, we fail to see the resurrection as anything more than a symbolic promise for another time. But if the only significance of Easter is a spiritual metaphor for new life and re-birth in the future, this message is just as easily told through colored eggs rabbits, and spring flowers.(1) Similarly, if we only celebrate the resurrection as something that happened long ago, we fail to do the creative work of drawing conclusions about what resurrection means for the present day.

God’s raising of Jesus is the sign in history that God had begun the work of new creation—namely, what began in the bodily resurrection of Jesus could now, and would now, continue in the present day. Indeed, Paul tells us in Romans 8 that “the anxious longing of the creation waits eagerly for the revealing of the children of God. For the creation was subjected to futility, not of its own will, but because of him who subjected it in hope that the creation itself also will be set free from slavery to corruption into the freedom of the glory of the children of God. For we know that the whole creation groans and suffers the pains of childbirth together until now. And not only this, but also we ourselves, having the first fruits of the Spirit, even we ourselves groan within ourselves, waiting eagerly for our adoption as sons, the redemption of our body” (8:19-23). God’s new creation has begun with the bodily resurrection of Jesus. As Paul writes in Colossians, Jesus is the first born of all creation. Thus even now our work in this world is the work of resurrection as we walk with Jesus into the consummation of God’s future.

N.T. Wright, who has written extensively on the central importance of Christ’s bodily resurrection for Christians, says it this way: “The resurrection of Jesus means that the present time is shot through with great significance. What is done to the glory of God in the present is genuinely building for God’s future. Acts of justice and mercy, the creation of beauty and the celebration of truth, deeds of love and the creation of communities of kindness and forgiveness—these all matter, and they matter forever. Take away the resurrection, and these things are important for the present but irrelevant for the future and hence not all that important after all even now. Enfolded in this vocation to build now, with gold, silver, and precious stones, the things that will last into God’s new age, is the vocation to holiness: to the fully human life, reflecting the image of God, that is made possible by Jesus’ victory on the cross and that is energized by the Spirit of the risen Jesus present within communities and persons.”(2)

Indeed, in Paul’s great exposition of the resurrection of Jesus in 1 Corinthians 15, he ends by telling the Corinthians, “Therefore, be steadfast, immovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, knowing that your toil is not in vain in the Lord” (15:58). The point of the resurrection, and why it must remain central to our entire Christian experience, is that entropy and death do not have the final word—either for humans or for God’s creation. God’s last word is resurrection.

And God declares it today. This final word gives great hope for our present existence with all its pains and struggles. In light of resurrection, our work, our toil, even our blood, sweat, and tears are far from in vain. For our present work brings the work of God in the past forward, as we live out of the power of the resurrection. Indeed, the historic event of the resurrection coupled with the hope of future resurrection fill our “today” with the fullest of human life.

Margaret Manning is a member of the speaking and writing team at Ravi Zacharias International Ministries in Seattle, Washington.

(1) Eggs were often used as a sign for the resurrection, the yolk representing new life, hidden within the shell. In addition, rabbits are always associated with fecundity. For additional information see http://www.history.com.

(2) N.T. Wright and Marcus Borg, The Meaning of Jesus: Two Visions (New York: HarperCollins, 1999), 126-127.

Greg Laurie

Greg Laurie – A Son Was Given

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“For unto us a Child is born, unto us a Son is given; and the government will be upon His shoulder. And His name will be called Wonderful, Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.”

—Isaiah 9:6

In a broad sense God is omnipresent, which means that everywhere we go, He is there. But if we really want God with us, and more specifically, if we want Christ living in our hearts, then we must turn from our sin and believe in Him.

The beautiful baby in the manger came with an express purpose, and that was to die for the sins of the world. The birth of Jesus was so there would be the death of Jesus and, ultimately, the resurrection of Jesus. He was born to die so that we might live.

I personally know the pain of losing a child. And I think, for a parent, there is no greater pain than this. God knows all about that. He knows what it is like to lose a child. We talk about the sacrifice of Jesus, and justly so, as He came to this earth, laid aside His privileges of deity, and voluntarily went to a cross and died for the sins of the world. But let’s not forget the sacrifice of the Father who watched His Son enter this world.

Isaiah 9:6 sums it up perfectly: “For unto us a Child is born, unto us a Son is given; and the government will be upon His shoulder. And His name will be called Wonderful, Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.”

That gives us the perspective of both heaven and earth. From earth’s perspective, unto us a child was born. That is what we celebrate at Christmas. But from heaven’s perspective, unto us a Son is given. The Father sent the Son. He did this because He loves all of us, because He wants us to have the ultimate gift: the gift of eternal life. It’s the only gift that keeps on giving.