EasterC22.     Acts of the Apostles 10:34a, 37-43.     “God anointed Jesus of Nazareth with the Holy Spirit and power.”  Jesus, who to the naked-eye seemed to be just another human being was given a ministry that showed he was “Lord of all.” (AA 10:36c)  The Apostles were witnesses to Jesus’ resurrection and so were commissioned “to preach and testify” that Jesus was “appointed by God as judge of the living and the dead.”  Jesus is the Messiah, our Savior.

Psalm 118: “The stone which the builders rejected has become the cornerstone.  By the Lord has this been done; it is wonderful in our eyes.”  What human beings build will one day crumble.  What God builds lasts forever.

John 20:1-9.   When Mary of Magdala saw the tombstone removed, she assumed someone had taken Jesus’ body away.  When she told Peter and John, they ran to see but did not find the body but only the burial cloths with the head cloth “rolled up in a separate place.”  Apparently what John saw and believed was that the body was not there, since “they did not yet understand the Scripture that he had to rise from the dead.”   Although Jesus had told them before that he was to suffer, die and rise from the dead, they were not able to grasp what he had said to them.  To fully take in the reality of the risen Christ is to live so that Christ may be risen in us, giving us his life as the source of our daily life.  “Remain in me, as I remain in you.” (John 15:4a)

Colossians 3:1-4.   To embrace Christianity means to die to everything that is not of Christ so to rise to a life that lives in Christ.  To be Christian, that is, ‘of Christ’ means to belong to him from the depths of our being.  Outwardly we look like anyone else; inwardly, we are totally new and different.  While we are here on earth we do not belong to this world but to God.  Jesus said in John 17:16a, “They do not belong to the world any more than I belong to the world.” “Jesus also said in John 18:36a: “My kingdom does not belong to this world.”  We are his now and forever.