The Resurrection and the Sacrifice

A man and his ever-nagging wife went on vacation to Jerusalem .  While they were there, the wife passed away. The undertaker told the husband, "You can have her shipped home for $5,000, or you can bury her here, in the Holy Land , for $150."  The man thought about it and told him he would just have her shipped home.  
 
The undertaker asked, "Why would you spend $5,000 to ship your wife home, when it would be wonderful to be buried here and you  would spend only $150?"

The man replied, "Long ago a man died here, was buried here, and three days later he rose from the dead.  I just can't take that chance

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What does Easter mean to you?(From Yahoo! Answers)

• Best Answer - Chosen by Asker
• For me it means getting together with family,eat plenty of food and traditional homemade desserts,going to church!
• EGGS TO EAT
• A long weekend break.
• A great excuse for consumerism to run rampant and drag more money out of my pocket needlesly as people expect gifts based on a pagan tradition perverted by christianity.
• It means that Jesus rose from the grave and saved us!!!! also you get candy from relatives!!! YAY
• Nothing
• Not a lot - but it's nice to see the Spring blossom on the trees...
• Jellybeans, jujubes and chocolate. Actually, the week after Easter means more, because all the candy goes on clearance.
• paid time off of work...relaxing, shopping, eating out, a few wines, a lay-in, all of lifes nice things!
• Telling my Grand children about the Easter Bunny..again & again
• Eating lots of chocolate eggs
• absolutely nothing
  but a great day because of the chocolate
• Easter, to me, is a day that was set aside, before there were Christians, to honor the mythological, goddess of fertility, Ishtar.
• Nothing for me. I don't believe in the religious affiliations of Easter. However, my kids do get an Easter basket from the Easter bunny. We tell our children that we are celebrating rebirth of the Earth.
• The plan of salvation was complete Jesus rising from the grave. Jesus Lives!!!!!!!!!!!!

The Harvest is great - the workers are few. Our work is cut out for us!

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Chronicles of Narnia. Aslan, after he returns: "If the Witch knew the true meaning of sacrifice, she might have interpreted the Deep Magic differently. That when a willing victim who has committed no treachery is killed in a traitor’s stead, the Stone Table will crack and even Death itself will turn backwards."

In Narnia, Aslan is the prince and the witch wants to be rid of him so she can rule the land. Through deception and temptations, she lures a boy, Edmund, to the point where she can legally take his life. However, Aslan chooses to take his place and so the witch kills Aslan instead. This is where we pick up in the film “The Chronicles of Narnia”. Aslan has been sacrificed on the Stone Table and the witch believes that she will now be able to take over the entire land. However, Aslan, though he was dead, comes back to life. Aslan explains, “ That when a willing victim who has committed no treachery is killed in a traitor’s stead, the Stone Table will crack and even Death itself will turn backwards.”

Aslan was that willing victim. He had not committed any treachery (sin) and he was killed in place of a traitor (sinner).

In the real world, the witch is Satan and Aslan is Jesus. Satan wants to be rid of Jesus so he can rule the world. He thinks that if Jesus is crucified, that he will be able to take over. So Jesus is sacrificed. But in Jeremiah 31:31-34, we read:

31 "The time is coming," declares the LORD,
       "when I will make a new covenant
       with the house of Israel
       and with the house of Judah.

  32 It will not be like the covenant
       I made with their forefathers
       when I took them by the hand
       to lead them out of Egypt,
       because they broke my covenant,
       though I was a husband to them, "
       declares the LORD.

  33 "This is the covenant I will make with the house of Israel
       after that time," declares the LORD.
       "I will put my law in their minds
       and write it on their hearts.
       I will be their God,
       and they will be my people.

  34 No longer will a man teach his neighbor,
       or a man his brother, saying, 'Know the LORD,'
       because they will all know me,
       from the least of them to the greatest,"
       declares the LORD.
       "For I will forgive their wickedness
       and will remember their sins no more."

When Jesus came and died, that was the fulfillment of this prophecy. This was the beginning of this New Covenant. This new covenant is not like the Old Covenant. The Old Covenant was the Mosaic Law, typified by the Ten Commandments. These laws, written in stone, would no longer have a hold over anyone and instead, God would write his new law in our hearts. This New Covenant would be characterized by the forgiveness of sins.

Let’s look again at Aslan. He was innocent, but took the place of someone who was sinful. He is killed, or sacrificed, but after he dies, he comes back to life. Additionally, the Stone Table is broken. We can see that Aslan is Jesus. Jesus was innocent but he took the place of all of us. We all have sinned, we all fall short. Jesus is killed, or sacrificed, but after he dies, he comes back to life. The Old Covenant, represented by the stone tablets that had the Ten Commandments written on them, has been broken. Jeremiah’s prophecy is fulfilled.

And we can see more. Romans 3:23 For all has sinned and fallen short of the Glory of God and Romans 6:23 The wages of sin is death. We get an understanding of this from Genesis 2:16-17 And the LORD God commanded the man, "You are free to eat from any tree in the garden; but you must not eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, for when you eat of it you will surely die." Now of course we know that after Adam sinned, he did not die physically but he did die spiritually. However, we see in Hebrews 9:26: But now he has appeared once for all at the end of the ages to do away with sin by the sacrifice of himself. So if Jesus has done away with sin by the sacrifice of himself, then we no longer have spiritual death! Which is why the Bible tells us in 1 Cor 15:55 "Where, O death, is your victory?  Where, O death, is your sting?"

We get a better look at resurrection when we read 1 Corinthians 15 (The Message Bible):

  3-9The first thing I did was place before you what was placed so emphatically before me: that the Messiah died for our sins, exactly as Scripture tells it; that he was buried; that he was raised from death on the third day, again exactly as Scripture says; that he presented himself alive to Peter, then to his closest followers, and later to more than five hundred of his followers all at the same time, most of them still around (although a few have since died); that he then spent time with James and the rest of those he commissioned to represent him; and that he finally presented himself alive to me. It was fitting that I bring up the rear. I don't deserve to be included in that inner circle, as you well know, having spent all those early years trying my best to stamp God's church right out of existence.

  16-20If corpses can't be raised, then Christ wasn't, because he was indeed dead. And if Christ weren't raised, then all you're doing is wandering about in the dark, as lost as ever. It's even worse for those who died hoping in Christ and resurrection, because they're already in their graves. If all we get out of Christ is a little inspiration for a few short years, we're a pretty sorry lot. But the truth is that Christ has been raised up, the first in a long legacy of those who are going to leave the cemeteries.

Do you think I was just trying to act heroic when I fought the wild beasts at Ephesus, hoping it wouldn't be the end of me? Not on your life! It's resurrection, resurrection, always resurrection, that undergirds what I do and say, the way I live. If there's no resurrection, "We eat, we drink, the next day we die," and that's all there is to it. But don't fool yourselves. Don't let yourselves be poisoned by this anti-resurrection loose talk.

  35-38Some skeptic is sure to ask, "Show me how resurrection works. Give me a diagram; draw me a picture. What does this 'resurrection body' look like?" If you look at this question closely, you realize how absurd it is. There are no diagrams for this kind of thing.

  51-57But let me tell you something wonderful, a mystery I'll probably never fully understand. We're not all going to die—but we are all going to be changed. You hear a blast to end all blasts from a trumpet, and in the time that you look up and blink your eyes—it's over. On signal from that trumpet from heaven, the dead will be up and out of their graves, beyond the reach of death, never to die again. At the same moment and in the same way, we'll all be changed. In the resurrection scheme of things, this has to happen: everything perishable taken off the shelves and replaced by the imperishable, this mortal replaced by the immortal.

It was sin that made death so frightening and law-code guilt that gave sin its leverage, its destructive power. But now in a single victorious stroke of Life, all three—sin, guilt, death—are gone, the gift of our Master, Jesus Christ. Thank God!

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Symbols of Easter

• Eastre (or "Ostara"), the Anglo-Saxon Teutonic goddess of spring and fertility
• Rabbits are a symbol of new life and the rebirth that occurs during the spring season.
• Hot Cross Buns - These cakes were marked by the Saxons to honor Eastre, the fertility goddess. The crosses on the buns are said to represent the moon's quarters.
• The egg symbolizes the beginning of life or the universe. Eggs were painted different colors to represent the sunlight of spring.

The Easter Egg

• Christians of the Near East adopted this tradition and the egg became a religious symbol – it represented the tomb from which Jesus broke forth.
• In medieval times, eggs often were colored red to symbolize the blood of Christ.

Today, we take our egg and understand that the red-colored shell represents the blood Jesus shed for our sins. We understand that the egg itself represents the tomb in which Jesus was laid. However, Jesus is no longer in the tomb! So we take our eggs and break them open. When we do, we find inside a message. That message states: “Paid in Full”. Tetelistai, which we have translated in English as, “It is Finished”. When Jesus died on the cross, he said Tetelistai, knowing that his work was done, that he had taken the sins of the world upon himself and that our debt was now paid in full.

Send mail to david@TheArkNY.org with questions about the church or comments about this site.
Last modified: April 8, 2007

The Ark Church - Ronkonkoma, Suffolk County, NY - A non-denominational church for Jesus Christ