In the Christian Year, we celebrate several major Festivals—Christmas, Epiphany, Ascension Day, Pentecost/Whitsuntide—but none of these compares in strategic importance with the Easter Festival, which is the Feast of the bodily Resurrection of Jesus the Christ from the dead, and for which we prepare in the forty days of Lent. What we call the Gospel of God the Father concerning his Son, Jesus Christ, majestically arises out of the wonderful, divine Event of Easter Day morning.

Jesus was crucified on Good Friday at Golgotha, also known as Calvary, and after he expired he was placed in a tomb where his body lay though Holy Saturday (the Jewish Sabbath). By early morning on the Sunday the body was gone, and the cloth in which he had been wrapped was neatly folded in the tomb.

The unexpected, the unbelievable, the stupendous had occurred! Jesus had been raised from the dead by his Father in heaven through the mighty power of the Holy Spirit. What Jesus had promised would be the case had become the great Fact of Redemption.

It was not resuscitation, a being raised in order to die again later; and it was not immortality, the existence after death of his personhood in spirit form (with his body being stolen and buried elsewhere).

Truly and really, it was the resurrection of the whole body of Jesus, that is of the soul and body, the spirit and the flesh; and the raising was of such a supernatural manner that the soul/body went through a marvelous transformation so that the resurrected body was a new kind of body, an immortal body, and a glorious body. It was/is a body truly fit to live in the courts of heaven, and to be the first fruit and prototype of the resurrection at the last day of the faithful followers of this same Jesus. He became the New Adam, the head of a new people, a new creation. And in this body he will return at the end of the age to judge the living and the dead.

But what is the real importance of the Resurrection for Christian Faith? It is the ringing and clear confirmation from God the Father in heaven that he has accepted the saving and reconciling work of Jesus as the Messiah and Saviour. His perfect life of obedience, trust and love and his perfect sacrifice for sin on the Cross are completed; and he has done all that the Father asked him to do for the salvation of the world. “It is finished” he cried out on the Cross as he expired and handed over his spirit to the Father.

Thus the message of the Resurrection is one of great joy. Notice how the apostles and disciples became both joyful and fearless after the resurrected Lord Jesus visited them. Notice also that the basic message of the preaching recorded in the Acts of the Apostles is that Jesus, who was crucified for our sins, is now raised from the dead and that through and in him are the gifts from God of the forgiveness of sins and eternal life. But, let us not forget, that what is made wonderfully available by the Resurrection of Jesus and the presence of the Holy Spirit (acting in the Name of Jesus) in the proclamation of the Gospel is not merely individual salvation for you and for me, but also and importantly the creation of a new race, a new humanity, a people who are united in one spiritual Body and one holy Household in one covenant of grace.

Why not take time to read the accounts in the Gospels of what happened on the first Easter Day? Look up: Matthew 28; Mark 16; Luke 24 & John 20. Thank God the Father for the glorious Resurrection of his Incarnate Son and pray:

O God our Father, who for our redemption gave thy only-begotten Son to die for us on the Cross, and by his glorious resurrection delivered us from the power of sin and Satan; Grant us thy constant help to die daily to sin so that we may evermore live with Christ in the joy of his resurrection; through the same, thy Son, our Lord Jesus Christ. Amen.

For forty days, the Lord Jesus made himself known regularly to his disciples in order to prepare them for his departure on what we now call Ascension Day. In this period he taught them how to read the Scriptures where his life and ministry, atonement and exaltation were predicted as the saving work of the God of Abraham, Moses and David. So they were prepared, on receipt of the Holy Spirit fifty days after the Resurrection to proclaim the Gospel first to the Jews and then to the whole world.