The Resurrection of Jesus Changes Everything

Excerpted from Easter Changes Everything by Lauren Groves.

What’s Next? 

From Luke 24:13–29 and John 20:24–29 

How could it be? Two of Jesus’s friends, Peter and John, raced to the tomb as fast as their feet would take them. Their friends had just told them Jesus wasn’t in the tomb anymore! Was He alive? Could it be true?  

Just two days ago, they saw Jesus’s lifeless body hanging on the cross. They were there when He was buried. Sure, Jesus told them He would die and “live again,” but wasn’t that just one of the stories He told? They didn’t always understand everything He said. When they arrived at the tomb, everything changed. He was gone. Peter and John went back to Jerusalem to tell their friends. They wondered what it could mean. 

Where is He? they thought. 

A few days later, everyone knew Jesus’s body was gone, and rumors were starting to spread. Jesus’s friends were terrified that the people who killed Jesus would come after them, too, so they hid in a locked room. That’s when they heard a voice. Chill bumps prickled their arms, and everyone went silent. They thought they would never hear that voice again. It was Him! How could it be?! The door was locked, but He was standing right there!  

“Don’t be afraid,” Jesus said. “It’s really me.”  

He held out His hands so that they could see where the nails held Him to the cross. He wasn’t a ghost; He was a real person! He was dead, and now He was alive! Jesus reminded them this was the plan all along. It had happened just as He said it would.  

But why did it have to happen that way? the disciples wondered. 

Jesus had told them before––a few times. He told them with His words, and He had been telling them through the Bible for thousands of years. No one can ever be good enough to earn their way to God. We are all infected with sin, and we can't get rid of it by ourselves. God’s punishment for sin is death. Only a human who has never been infected by sin can be the sacrifice for sin. Jesus, who is fully God and fully human, is the only human to never, ever be infected by sin. He willingly came to earth to take the punishment for sin.  

Any sin? All sin? How could this be? Jesus’s friends couldn't believe their ears. Their minds were confused, and their hearts were bursting with awe. Jesus smiled. He had been through a lot in the past four days, and His friends had been through a lot too. But Jesus knew that for His friends, this was just the beginning. Everything had changed. 

Discussion Questions -

• How would you have felt if you had gone into Jesus’s tomb that morning and seen it empty? 

• Why do you think Peter and John never understood Jesus when He said He was coming back to life? 

• How did Jesus’s coming back to life change everything for His friends? What has it changed for you?