Jesus Defeat of Death

How many modern Christians consider dying to be the worst thing that can happen to them? We pray for safety, healing, and protection, and rightly so. However, do we live in the truth that death has tr...

An American pastor once asked an Indonesian missionary who works among Indonesians but with a different people group from his own, “Are you afraid you’ll get caught?” Christian mission work in Indones...

God of life, all that defeats life you have vanquished. All that opposes love you have overcome. We are in awe of your glory. We are in debt to your grace. We are in love with your Christ. Raise us up...

Though Christ was by nature divine, Christ did not cling to equality with God, but in utter self-emptying, took the form of a slave, and was born as a human. God have mercy. Appearing in h...

In the nighttime of our sin, the grace of God rises like the dawn. In the coldness of our hearts, hope rises like the sun. Into all that is cold and shadowed in our lives, the light of God shine...

Almighty God, in raising Jesus from the grave, you shattered the power of sin and death. We confess that we remain captive to doubt and fear, bound by the ways that lead to death. We are slow to perce...

In this life only? This passage begins with verse 19 of 1 Corinthians 15, but it is helpful to look at the bigger context and the argument that Paul has been making up to this point where the passage...

Pastor: Alleluia! Christ is risen! People: He is risen indeed! Alleluia!  Pastor: Oh sing to the Lord a new song; People: sing to the Lord, all the earth! Pastor: Sing to...

Pastor: Alleluia! Christ is risen! People: He is risen indeed! Alleluia!  Pastor: Oh give thanks to the Lord; call upon his name; People: make known his deeds among the people...

Pastor: Even in our Easter joy, we confess before our gracious God our failings and sin. ( Silence for reflection and personal confession) Pastor: Merciful Father, People: we con...

Leader: Why do you look for the living among the dead? People: He is not here; He has risen!   Leader: Alleluia! Christ is risen! People: He is risen indeed! Alleluia!

In Tim Keller’s sermon on John 2, he calls his hearers to think about their experiences of being guests at a wedding. If you are married, you are likely remembering your own wedding day. If you are un...

Pastor: In the mercy of almighty God, Jesus Christ was given to die for us, and for His sake God forgives us all our sins. To those who believe in Jesus Christ He gives the power to become the childre...

In this life only? The lectionary passage begins with verse 19 of 1 Corinthians 15, but it is helpful to look at the bigger context and the argument that Paul has been making up to this point where t...

Pastor: O Christ, our King, live forever! You have made peace for us by the blood of Your cross.  People: By Your death You destroyed the power of death and by Your resurrection You opened...

Pastor: Now, brothers and sisters, I want to remind you of the gospel I preached to you, which you received and on which you have taken your stand. By this gospel you are saved, if you hold firmly t...

Pastor: O Christ, our King, live forever! You have made peace for us by the blood of Your cross.   People: By Your death You destroyed the power of death and by Your resurrection You opened the ki...

Glory to you, O Christ Triumphant over death and injustice Victorious over fear and shame Glory to you, O Christ New life overflows Salvation reigns Glory to you, O Christ We proclaim you risen, jus...

Alleluia! Christ is risen! Christ is risen indeed! Death is defeated! Christ is risen! Christ is risen indeed! Hope is here! Christ is risen! Christ is risen indeed!

Alleluia. Christ our Passover has been sacrificed for us;     therefore let us keep the feast, Not with the old leaven, the leaven of malice and evil,     but with the unleavened bread of since...

In the testimony of Daniel and the apostle Paul, it is not just “premature death” but death itself—as that which would limit the life God shares with his people—that will be defeated. It is the final ...

On the final page of the final book of The Chronicles of Narnia, some of the children who have been to Narnia lament that they once again must return to their homeland—the Shadow-Lands. But Aslan (the...

But sometimes I think what the church needs most is to recover some of its weird. There’s no sense in sending her through the makeover montage of the chick flick when she’ll always be the strange, awk...

Thus the vocation of the baptized person is a simple thing: it is to live from day to day, whatever the day brings, in this extraordinary unity, in this reconciliation with all people and all things, ...

And so he was raised on a cross, and a title was fixed, indicating who it was who was being executed. Painful it is to say, but more terrible not to say. . . . He who suspended the earth is suspended,...

J. R. R. Tolkien coined the term "eucatastrophe" to refer to the unexpected happy ending at the end of a fairy tale, achieved by grace rather than effort. The consolation of fairy-stories,...