Happy Resurrection Sunday!

1 Corinthians 15:55-57  New American Standard Bible (NASB)

55 O death, where is your victory? O death, where is your sting?” 56 The sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the law; 57 but thanks be to God, who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.

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He is Risen!  He is risen indeed.  Today is the day as Christians that we celebrate Jesus' victory over sin and death.  Because the tomb is empty, we know He rose again just as He said He would.  He is faithful and we can trust all that He said.  He also proclaimed that He was going to prepare a place for us and that He would come again to receive us - that where He is, we may be also!  That is great news.

Great news for troubled times.  We don't watch much TV at all, so I mostly get my news from Christian radio or talk radio.  Some days, the news is just so bad, so bleak that I just have to turn it off.  On Friday, I took a day off from work.  I stayed home and we did our chores a little later than usual.  After coming in from milking the cows, Tricia and I sat down to have coffee together.  We opened the Word and began to read the story in the Gospel of Mark of the death, burial and resurrection of our King.

Have you ever read something that all other times seemed like a minor point, but you read it again and it just jumped off the page to you?  We were reading and got to Mark 15:43:

Joseph of Arimathea came, a prominent member of the Council, who himself was waiting for the kingdom of God; and he gathered up courage and went in before Pilate, and asked for the body of Jesus.

Did you catch that?  Joseph of Arimathea was waiting for the kingdom of God! That meant he knew Jesus to be the promised Messiah.  Joseph of Arimathea was a man of faith.  He was a member of the Council, so he was a man of important and esteemed position.  He was also a brave man, because he had to summon great courage to go ask Pilate for Jesus' body.  He was a man of patience, because he was waiting for the kingdom of God.

I began to think about what this meant to be waiting for the kingdom of God.  A kingdom requires a King.  A kingdom also is the area in which a King's sovereignty or authority is established.  As believers, we can say that King Jesus rules within our hearts.

Strong's concordance from this link says that:

"the kingdom of heaven is spoken of as a future blessing, since its consummate establishment is to be looked for on Christ's solemn return from the skies, the dead being called to life again, the ills and wrongs which burden the present state of things being done away, the powers hostile to God being vanquished."

Are you waiting for that day?  I am unlike Joseph of Arimathea because I am NOT a man of position. Neither am I brave.  I've never been accused of being patient. But I AM like him in that I am waiting on the kingdom of God!  I know that He Lives and I eagerly await His return to establish the kingdom of God.

2 Timothy 1:12  New American Standard Bible (NASB)
12 For this reason I also suffer these things, but I am not ashamed; for I know whom I have believed and I am convinced that He is able to guard what I have entrusted to Him until that day.