{"id":250,"date":"2019-04-21T11:55:20","date_gmt":"2019-04-21T11:55:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.stpeterschestersprings.org\/wordpress\/?p=250"},"modified":"2019-04-22T13:57:45","modified_gmt":"2019-04-22T13:57:45","slug":"resurrection-of-our-lord","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.stpeterschestersprings.org\/wordpress\/2019\/04\/21\/resurrection-of-our-lord\/","title":{"rendered":"Resurrection of Our Lord"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Luke\n24:1-12<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

As I came in, I heard you, singing Jesus\u2019 praises. I heard you shouting your Hosanna\u2019s and Alleluia\u2019s. If you only knew as I know. If only, you too, could have been there. I was one of the men in the cohort of soldiers who saw to Jesus\u2019 scourging, who ridiculed Jesus, who marched Jesus to Golgotha, who crucified Jesus and who returned late into the night (each night) to guard Jesus\u2019 tomb. I was among the men who were put on high alert so as to protect Jesus\u2019 tomb. The religious leaders in Jerusalem put it into the governor\u2019s head that Jesus\u2019 followers were going to steal the body and claim he was resurrected. Honestly our watches were, for the most part, tiresome, and boring. No one, so much as came near the tomb. The threat was unfounded.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But\nas this one night folded into daylight, we experienced a great deal of\nexcitement; there was an earthquake, or so it seemed. Something happened and it\ncaused the stone that had been rolled up against the opening of the tomb (in\norder to keep it sealed), to roll away, leaving the tomb open. The Centurion,\nwho gave us our orders, was not going to be happy; the group of us went\nimmediately to the stone to roll it back. And then! Have you ever walked\nthrough a cemetery and thought that you saw something move? I looked toward the\ntomb and I saw movement, not outside the tomb but inside. When we went over to\nthe tomb, we saw that Jesus (the body) was no longer lying on the slab; his\nburial cloth was pushed to the side; the cover that went over his face was\nrolled up. Understand this, I was the one who pushed my lance into Jesus\u2019 side;\nI was there when they took him down off the cross; I checked him myself; he was\ndead.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I\u2019m\nnot paid to battle the dead. I was scared, more scared than I had ever been in\nbattle. Nobody of human origin pushed aside that stone; no one entered Jesus\u2019\ntomb to take away his body, yet the tomb was open and the body was gone. Again,\nfear took me over; we were all of us baffled and scared. It was like we were\nfrozen in place. A few women came to the empty tomb, carrying all kinds of\nburial stuff, they looked in and it was empty, and then they looked in again\nand there were two men in dazzling robes standing there. From what I could hear\nthese men were reassuring the women that Jesus had risen from the dead. I\nwatched, more scared than before, and as the women left the men disappeared. Finally,\nwe could move; we looked at each other, then we ran to report what had happened.\nWe were laughed at, by our fellow soldiers; the Centurion checked us to see if\nwe had been drinking. Thankfully, the Centurion was only mildly concerned about\nthis crucified Jewish prophet, Jesus; he saw the assignment as a nuisance\nassignment. He didn\u2019t even report us; I learned later that the Jewish leaders,\nwhen they were told what happened, paid the Centurion to report to the Governor\nthat the body had been stolen. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

I\nhave to admit it though; I was really shook-up by the whole experience. In my\noff time, I went looking for answers. I was told that Jesus had been seen by\nhis followers, that he had eaten with them and talked with them. As time passed\nand I heard more and more of these reports I found myself starting to believe; people\nwere telling me all about Jesus and after a time I even submitted to be baptized.\nI myself never saw the risen Jesus, except maybe for that movement I saw in the\ntomb, it might have been Jesus or an angel, I don\u2019t know, but I saw enough, I\nheard enough from the people, I met and learned to trust those who did see the\nrisen Jesus. After retiring from the military, I became a regular part of the\nChristian community; we called ourselves \u201cThe Way\u201d. Life is strange, I went\nfrom being a stranger to a persecutor, from persecutor to executioner, from\nexecutioner to witness. Yes, I shared my story as well. And from witness I\nbecame a kind of disciple and then a real follower of the Risen Jesus.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

God\nis good! Jesus forgave all that I had done to him and the community of faith\naccepted me. I helped put Jesus to death and Jesus saved me anyway. Jesus, God\u2019s\nSon, the preacher and prophet, the healer and miracle worker, cares even for\nme. He cares also for you. He died for us all. So, sing your hosanna\u2019s and alleluia\u2019s\nwith gusto!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And,\nthank the Risen Lord for all he has done for us. Jesus Christ is Risen today!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Luke 24:1-12 As I came in, I heard you, singing Jesus\u2019 praises. I heard you shouting your Hosanna\u2019s and Alleluia\u2019s. If you only knew as I know. If only, you too, could have been there. I was one of the men in the cohort of soldiers who saw to Jesus\u2019 Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-250","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-sermons-and-services"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.stpeterschestersprings.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/250","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.stpeterschestersprings.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.stpeterschestersprings.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.stpeterschestersprings.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.stpeterschestersprings.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=250"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.stpeterschestersprings.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/250\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":251,"href":"https:\/\/www.stpeterschestersprings.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/250\/revisions\/251"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.stpeterschestersprings.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=250"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.stpeterschestersprings.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=250"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.stpeterschestersprings.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=250"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}