Check out this collection of posts celebrating Easter

The Power of the Resurrection

And as the women were terrified and bowed their faces to the ground, the men said to them, “Why do you seek the living One among the dead?” Luke 24:5

The journey that began in the garden of Gethsemane with surrender and continued through the cross with sacrifice now culminates at an empty tomb with victory. The resurrection of Jesus Christ stands as the central claim of Christianity—the definitive declaration that the power of death is broken. What appeared to be defeat on Friday becomes triumph on Sunday. The path that seemed to end at a sealed tomb opens into endless possibilities as the stone is rolled away.

Luke’s account of that first Easter morning captures the bewilderment and wonder of Jesus’ followers. The women came prepared for death, bringing spices to anoint a corpse. Instead, they encountered life beyond their imagination. Their question—”Where is the body?”—is met with a greater question from the angels: “Why do you look for the living among the dead?” This gentle rebuke reminds us that we too often search for Jesus in places of death and endings when He has moved into resurrection and new beginnings.

The resurrection isn’t merely a happy ending to a tragic story or a spiritual metaphor—it’s a world-altering event with profound implications for how we understand everything. The empty tomb declares that the power of sin has been broken, the sting of death has been removed, and the reign of fear has been overthrown. What happened to Jesus physically will happen to all who are united with Him spiritually. As Paul would later write, “Christ has indeed been raised from the dead, the firstfruits of those who have fallen asleep” (1 Corinthians 15:20).

What makes the resurrection account compelling is not just its theological significance but its historical credibility. Luke notes that women were the first witnesses—significant in a culture where female testimony wasn’t valued in court. If the disciples were fabricating the story, they wouldn’t have chosen women as the primary witnesses. Furthermore, the initial skepticism of the disciples themselves (“they did not believe the women, because their words seemed to them like nonsense”) suggests this wasn’t a story they were eager to believe but a reality they couldn’t deny.

The power of resurrection extends far beyond that first Easter morning.

It’s not just a past event we commemorate but a present reality we experience and a future hope we anticipate. Paul prayed that believers would know “his incomparably great power for us who believe. That power is the same as the mighty strength he exerted when he raised Christ from the dead” (Ephesians 1:19-20). The same divine energy that lifted Jesus from the grave is available to us now for transformed living.

The resurrection of Jesus Christ transforms everything—how we view suffering, how we face death, how we approach life, and how we envision the future. It assures us that the path of surrender and sacrifice doesn’t end in defeat but in victory. The cross was not God’s plan gone wrong but gone exactly right. What appeared to be the triumph of evil was actually its decisive defeat.

As we celebrate Easter, we don’t just commemorate a historical event but proclaim a living reality: Christ is risen! And because He lives, we too shall live—not just in some distant future but here and now, as we walk in the newness of life that His resurrection makes possible. The tomb is empty. The stone is rolled away. Death has been swallowed up in victory. This is the power of resurrection, and it changes everything.

The Path to the Cross

By Paula Wiseman

Th Path to the Cross title graphic featuring silhouette artwork of cross on a hill

Jesus went out as usual to the Mount of Olives, and his disciples followed him. On reaching the place, he said to them, ‘Pray that you will not fall into temptation.’ He withdrew about a stone’s throw beyond them, knelt down and prayed, ‘Father, if you are willing, take this cup from me; yet not my will, but yours be done.’ Luke 22: 39-42

As we look ahead to Easter, we find ourselves walking alongside Jesus on His final journey toward Jerusalem. The path that leads to Resurrections morning first winds through the garden of Gethsemane, the halls of judgment, and the hill of Calvary. It is a path marked not by triumph as the world defines it, but by surrender, sacrifice, and seeming defeat. Yet in God’s upside-down kingdom, this path of surrender becomes the very means of our salvation.

Luke’s account of Jesus in Gethsemane reveals the profound humanity of our Savior. Here we see Jesus—who calmed storms and raised the dead—kneeling in anguish, asking if there might be another way. The “cup” He references wasn’t merely physical suffering, though that would be excruciating. It represented the full weight of God’s judgment against human sin, the spiritual agony of bearing the world’s brokenness, and the relational devastation of being forsaken by the Father. Jesus, who had never known separation from the Father, faced the prospect of experiencing the full force of divine abandonment.

What makes this moment so powerful is not just Jesus’ anguish but His response to it. “Yet not my will, but yours be done.” These words represent the culmination of Jesus’ earthly ministry—a life lived in perfect submission to the Father’s will. From His baptism to His temptation in the wilderness, from His teaching to His miracles, Jesus consistently demonstrated that His purpose was to fulfill the Father’s plan. Now, facing His greatest test, He reaffirms this commitment, choosing obedience even when it leads through suffering.

This surrender wasn’t passive resignation but active trust. Jesus knew the Father’s character and purposes. He understood that the path through suffering led to resurrection and redemption. His submission wasn’t blind but was grounded in the certainty that the Father’s will, however painful in the moment, would ultimately bring life and restoration. The writer of Hebrews tells us that Jesus endured the cross “for the joy set before him” (Hebrews 12:2)—the joy of accomplishing our salvation and being restored to His rightful place with the Father.

The path Jesus walked from Gethsemane to Golgotha reveals the true nature of love. It wasn’t a feeling or sentiment but a costly choice to put others before Himself. As He told His disciples earlier, “Greater love has no one than this: to lay down one’s life for one’s friends” (John 15:13). On the cross, Jesus demonstrated this love not just for His friends but for His enemies—for all who have rebelled against God, including us.

As we contemplate Jesus’ journey to the cross, we’re invited not just to observe His sacrifice but to join Him on the path of surrender. “Whoever wants to be my disciple must deny themselves and take up their cross daily and follow me,” Jesus told His followers (Luke 9:23). The way of the cross, the way of surrender, isn’t just Jesus’ path; it’s ours as well.

Next week, we’ll explore “The Power of Resurrection” and discover how Christ’s victory over death transforms not just our eternal destiny but our daily lives as well. The path that begins with surrender culminates in resurrection power, a power available to us even now as we walk in newness of life.

They Recognized

By Paula Wiseman

And their eyes were opened, and they recognized him. And he vanished from their sight. Luke 24:31

A careful reading of the gospel accounts of Jesus’s crucifixion gives a probable identity to the disciples on the road to Emmaus – Cleopas and his wife, Mary.

She had stood at the foot of the cross with Jesus’s mother, Mary, with John, with Mary Magdalene and Salome.
She had watched Him suffer.
She heard the blasphemous insults hurled at Him.
She felt the earthquake and the darkness.
But it didn’t click.

Jesus joined them as they walked home.
They rehearsed for Him all that had happened.
Jesus a Prophet, mighty in word and deed …
We were hoping He was the Redeemer …
There is a rumor He was alive …
But it didn’t click.

Jesus explained the Old Testament to them.
The prophecies.
The types.
The fulfillment.
It still didn’t click.

Until they invited Him to stay.
Until He broke the bread.
Until the moment of intimate fellowship.

If we are only observing, no matter how closely …
If we are only discussing, no matter how passionately …
If we are only hearing, no matter how attentively …

It is only in intimate fellowship that we recognize Jesus for who He truly is.

One Last Object Lesson

By Paula Wiseman

On a night not unlike this one, the Son of God, God Incarnate had one last meal with the men He had taught and trained for the previous three years. Before the meal, He gave them one final object lesson. After countless other meals, after countless other opportunities, He chose this moment for this object lesson. He washed their feet. Once.

Peter protested. Jesus answered and said to him, “What I am doing you do not understand now, but you will know after this.” (John 13:7)

Certainly, it was a lesson in humility and service, and the rest of the conversation in the upper room focused on the love the followers should exhibit for each other, but it was more than that.

The Teacher took on the role of the lowest household servant, not because He had to, but because He chose to.
The Anointed One took on flesh and became a man, not because He had to, but because He chose to.

It was an act of pure grace. Imagine being in the room, realizing what Jesus intended to do. Flushing with shame because it never occurred to you to wash your own feet, much less anyone else’s. Jesus may have started with James the son of Alphaeus or John, who were likely the youngest of the disciples. Some speculate He began with Judas. As He worked His way around the room, the awkward silence was broken up by only the water dripping back into the basin. The recipients of this gift became noticeably more uncomfortable. As Jesus worked, the towel became more and more soiled.

Again Peter protested. Jesus answered him, “If I do not wash you, you have no part with Me.” (John 13:8)

If this was just about hygiene or manners, that’s an inexplicably harsh penalty. However, for months, Jesus had been preparing these men for His death. Now He was illustrating the purpose, the necessity of His death. Within hours, Jesus was going to cross, not because He had to, but because He chose to. He would take not just the day’s road dirt making us fit to partake a meal, but He would take the blackness and rot of our sins and make us fit for eternal fellowship with Him in His kingdom.

Peter got it. Years later, he wrote, For Christ also suffered once for sins, the just for the unjust, that He might bring us to God, being put to death in the flesh but made alive by the Spirit. 1 Peter 3:18.

Hallelujah! What a Savior!

Still Hosanna

By Paula Wiseman

Then the multitudes who went before and those who followed cried out, saying: “Hosanna to the Son of David! ‘Blessed is He who comes in the name of the Lord!’ Hosanna in the highest!” Matthew 21:9

Hosanna is a Hebrew word, a prayer.

Save now.

It is a call for God to do what only He can do.

In the first century the Jews cried out for Jesus to deliver them from political corruption and oppression, from the curse of sickness and disability, from a religious system that replaced intimacy with God with ritual and formalism.

But Jesus came to deliver them from sin, not Rome. From sin, not disease. From sin and not religion.

The crowds couldn’t grasp that their biggest problem was not the world around them. It was much closer to home.

It was sin within their own individual hearts.

Like the crowds, we cry out for the same things. Deliverance. Relief. Restoration.

Good things, serious needful things.

Could it be that we also miss the fact that our greatest need is deliverance from our sin and not our situations?

Hosanna! Blessed is He who comes in the name of the Lord.

Let These Words Sink Down into Your Ears

By Paula Wiseman

“Let these WORDS sink down into your ears, for the Son of Man is about to be betrayed into the hands of men.” But they did not understand this saying, and it was hidden from them so that they did not perceive it; and they were afraid to ask Him about this saying. Luke 9:44-45

Before His death, Jesus spoke very frankly with His disciples about the coming events. He was going to be betrayed, handed over, and crucified, but He would rise again after three days. Everyone who heard Him understood the WORDS He was saying, but none of them grasped the reality of them. Even as the events unfolded before them, the disciples struggled with how things played out. Instead of clinging to their faith in Christ, in who He is, and what they had already witnessed from Him, that faith gave way to fear for their very lives. They heard the hatred in the mob’s cries and the religious leaders’ hypocritical disdain. They saw the brutality and the scorn of the Romans. That very natural fear led to doubts about this man they had given up everything to follow. Had they misunderstood? Was this the way it was supposed to be?

Surely, some of the longest hours in their lives were those between the Upper Room and the empty tomb.

The Resurrection changed all that. The doubts and fears gave way to the boldness and fire at Pentecost and beyond. The WORDS that Jesus said became real. Things that they struggled to grasp in those hours in between made sense at last in ways that were beyond their imagination.

Even now, with the Holy Spirit living in us, with the completed canon of Scripture readily available to us, and with 2000 years of church history to draw upon, we have the same trouble grasping the WORDS of Jesus.

Toward the end of His earthly ministry, He said, “Then they will deliver you up to tribulation and kill you, and you will be hated by all nations for My name’s sake.” (Matthew 24:9) And we struggle to understand why culture is so hostile to our values.

For nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom. And there will be famines, pestilences, and earthquakes in various places. (Matthew 24:7) And yet we trust treaties and military buildups to protect us and depend on science and technology to fix everything else.

And because lawlessness will abound, the love of many will grow cold. (Matthew 24:12) We’re still shocked at scandals that reveal the depth of our self-absorption and misogyny.

Jesus told us these things would happen, and now we are living in the in-between time like the disciples in those hours between crucifixion and resurrection. We wrestle with questions – Why doesn’t God do something? Is He even paying attention? Why is everything a struggle?

But when He comes again, and He will just as surely as He resurrected, everything will make sense. The questions and the frustrations will melt into worship and affirmation that He is King of Kings and Lord of Lords. His words will be fulfilled in ways outside the bounds of our imagination.

“These things I have spoken to you, that in Me you may have peace. In the world you will have tribulation; but be of good cheer, I have overcome the world.” John 16:33

Peace. He has overcome. We’ll know exactly what those WORDS mean. Just a little longer.