The Power of Christ's Resurrection Bursts through Obstacles

Tim Keller, pastor of Redeemer Presbyterian Church in New York City, tells the following story about the power of Christ's resurrection:

“A minister was in Italy, and there he saw the grave of a man who had died centuries before who was an unbeliever and completely against Christianity, but a little afraid of it too. So the man had a huge stone slab put over his grave so he would not have to be raised from the dead in case there is a resurrection from the dead. He had insignias put all over the slab saying, "I do not want to be raised from the dead. I don't believe in it." Evidently, when he was buried, an acorn must have fallen into the grave. So a hundred years later the acorn had grown up through the grave and split that slab. It was now a tall towering oak tree. The minister looked at it and asked, ‘If an acorn, which has power of biological life in it, can split a slab of that magnitude, what can the acorn of God's resurrection power do in a person's life?’"

As you read the New Testament accounts of Jesus’ resurrection and the effect it had on the lives of Jesus’ followers, you can see this resurrection power at work in their lives. Consider these examples:

• Peter denied Jesus three times during his trials, but became the powerful preacher who proclaimed the message of the resurrection on the Day of Pentecost.
• Thomas insisted on seeing the nail prints in Jesus’ hands and feet before he would believe. When he did, he responded, “My Lord and my God.”
• Paul persecuted the church until he met the living Christ, and then took the Gospel across the Roman empire.
• Then there was a woman out of whom Jesus drove seven demons who became one of his most faithful disciples and one of the first witnesses to his resurrection. We will meet her through my message on Easter.

Keller comments that Jesus’ resurrection can have the same effect on our lives.

“The minute you decide to receive Jesus as Savior and Lord, the power of the Holy Spirit comes into your life. It's the power of the resurrection—the same thing that raised Jesus from the dead …. Think of the things you see as immovable slabs in your life—your bitterness, your insecurity, your fears, your self-doubts. Those things can be split and rolled off. The more you know him, the more you grow into the power of the resurrection.”

This is the message we will consider again on Easter Sunday, but it is a message that needs to mark our lives everyday. Let Jesus’ resurrection burst through the obstacles in your life.