It is Easter Sunday and I am using my blog as an extension of my sermon. I reference four New Testament verse today about the resurrection. Here they are, along with a much briefer explanation than the half hour sermon that accompanies them.

The first one is Romans 6:9-11.

We know that Christ, being raised from the dead, will never die again; death no longer has dominion over him. For the death he died he died to sin, once for all, but the life he lives he lives to God. so you must also consider yourselves dead to sin and alive to God in Christ Jesus. 

The key theme here is dominion — Jesus exercises dominion over death, which is on the same spectrum as sin in Pauline thought. Jesus dominion means we are liberated from sin and death. For the sermon, cue exciting allegories and correlations like Juneteenth and bell bottoms.

The second one is 1 Peter 1:3-5.

Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! According to his great mercy, he has caused us to be born again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Chris from the dead, an inheritance that is imperishable, undefiled, and unfading, kept in heaven for you.

In which I contrast a living hope with a dying wish. We don’t have dying wishes, we have a living hope that exhibits three attributes: imperishable, undefiled, and unfading.

The third is Philippians 3:10.

That I may know him and the power of his resurrection . . .  

Our power comes from Jesus’ resurrection. It is constructive power, not a destructive power like the overwrought example of power being the same word as dynamite, which, is a gross overstatement.

The fourth is the longest, coming out of Colossians 2:11-15.

In him also you were circumcised with a circumcision made without hands, by putting off the body of the flesh, by the circumcision of Christ, having been buried with him in baptism, in which you were also raised with him through faith in the powerful working of God, who raised him from. The dead. And you, who were dead in your trespasses and the uncircumcision of your flesh, God made alive together with him, having forgiven us all our trespasses, by canceling the record of debt that stood against us with its legal demands. This he set aside, nailing it the cross. He disarmed the rulers and authorities and put them to open shame, by triumphing over them in him.

Jesus disarmed the enemy. The rulers and authorities — spiritual entities which try and enslave us to sin and death, only have one tool. Jesus disarmed them and left them feckless. We have a supernatural savior who cannot be killed. Like Godzilla, except Godzilla swindled that from Jesus because he is the one and only.