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#resurrectionsunday
I just want to read from Mark 16 1 through 7. This is the traditional text that you would read through on Easter. I'm going to be doing my sermon later on from the book of Acts and somebody had asked me, book of Acts?
That's not the resurrection. It talks about the resurrection. That's what the sermon will be about. But I want to read Mark 16 1 through 7. It says, Now when the Sabbath was passed, Mary Magdalene, Mary the mother of James and Salome, brought spices that they might come and anoint him.
Very early in the morning, on the first day of the week, they came to the tomb when the sun had risen. And they said among themselves, Who will roll away the stone from the door of the tomb for us? But when they looked up, they saw that the stone had been rolled away, for it was very large.
And entering the tomb, they saw a young man clothed in a white robe sitting on the right side, and they were alarmed. We would recognize this as an angel of God. And he said to them, Do not be alarmed.
You seek Jesus of Nazareth, who is crucified. He is risen. He is not here. See the place where they laid him. Verse 7, But go and tell his disciples and Peter that he is going before you into Galilee.
And there you will see him, as he said to you. So if you notice in this passage, it says that the Sabbath, so the Jewish Sabbath was passed. That's Saturday. So the women came to the tomb early on Sunday morning.
Verse 2 says the first day of the week. So they came early on Sunday morning after the Sabbath to find that the tomb was empty. So I think most of us know that Jesus rose from the dead on Sunday morning.
This is what we celebrate, of course, on Easter. And I think it's important to point out, maybe this is something that you never really thought about it, but there is really no evidence at all in the Bible that the early disciples of Christ celebrated Easter or that they celebrated the resurrection of Jesus once a year on this special feast day.
This is why the Christian church gathers on Sunday. So we gather every week on Sunday morning because of the resurrection. So my whole approach and my argument, I think the Easter tradition, a time where people come together with families, and I think tradition is a good thing.
I like tradition, but really biblically, here's the point, biblically every Sunday is Easter Sunday. There was not one Sunday a year that was set aside for the early church to celebrate the resurrection.
They celebrated the resurrection every week. So this is why Christians, we don't gather on Saturday, Jewish Sabbath, we gather on Sunday, Sunday morning, because Sunday morning is the day, it's the time that Jesus rose from the dead.
So in conclusion, let me challenge you not to celebrate, not to think of it as celebrating Easter or the resurrection once a year, rather celebrate the resurrection once a week. This is the Lord's day.
And that's my encouragement to you. Let's continue to recognize that Easter Sunday in this sense is every week.
