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After the Sabbath, at dawn on the first day of the week, Mary Magdalene and the other Mary went to look at the tomb. There was a violent earthquake, for an angel of the Lord came down from heaven and, going to the tomb, rolled back the stone and sat on it. His appearance was like lightning, and his clothes were white as snow. The guards were so afraid of him that they shook and became like dead men. The angel said to the women, “Do not be afraid, for I know that you are looking for Jesus, who was...

Each Easter, I post this “chronological account” of the resurrection appearances, tough I tweak it as others offer insights I might have missed. It is helpful to try and weave the many strands together for the reasons I state below. When we encounter the resurrection accounts in the New Testament, we face a challenge in putting all the pieces together in such a way that the sequence of events flows in logical order. This is due to the fact that no one Gospel presents all or even most of the information. Some of the accounts seem to conflict. I have...

We live in a dark hour of human history. The COVID-19 pandemic demands we distinguish between that which is essential and that which is not. With that being said, I am reminded that more than 2,000 years ago, a woman named Mary ran, while it was still dark, towards an empty tomb. She ran not when things were pristine or perfect. She ran while things were still dark. It's what we do in the darkest hour that truly defines us. The darkness of depression cannot impede us from running towards the empty tomb of joy. The darkness of despair cannot...

For many years, scholars and skeptics and psychologists and sociologists have told us that the disciples experienced a form of cognitive dissonance after Jesus died. It so rocked their world and crushed their expectations that they went into deep denial to the point of believing that Jesus really rose from the dead. To be sure, other scholars have attacked this theory from a number of powerful and persuasive angles, but my book Resurrection tackles it from a different angle. Specifically, I focus on a modern-day, parallel test case that completely demolishes this argument. To give the relevant background, in 1994,...

From the day Mary Magdalene met Jesus in the Garden of Gethsemane after Jesus arose from the dead to her pounding on the door of the upper room where Jesus’s disciples were hiding from the Jewish leaders and Roman authorities these three words “He is Risen” have been the heartbeat of every Christian.Jesus’s promise of His resurrection to His followers while He was alive came crashing down when he died on the cross. For 3 1/2 years of Jesus’s ministry, He engrained into His disciples “destroy this temple,” speaking of himself, “and in 3 days I will raise it up”...

We all gathered as a family the day we celebrated the life of our father with friends and people who had known my dad. That day was beautiful as the sun shone and I had spent the morning crying and admittedly even had a few shots with my brother in law. I was chosen to be one who would speak to the crowd that gathered and really didn’t know what I was going to say. I remember talking about each of my siblings and making people laugh because that’s what my dad would have wanted but I know I was...

I would like to broaden your understanding of the book Jesus read from while in the synagogue of His home town, Luke_4:16-30 so that you may better appreciate the book written by the Fifth Evangelist.Isaiah is the most often quoted prophet in the New Testament, yet his book can be as obscure as it is interesting. Even many Christians will admit they know very little about the book and what it has to offer for their walk with Christ. Other than being familiar with a few famous passages that foretold the advent of Christ Isa_9:6 and his suffering Isa_53:1-12, most...

Good Friday—a holiday in just 10 states—is celebrated by most Christian denominations, with fasting and somber worship services that often end in silence.Before Christians joyously celebrate the Resurrection of Jesus Christ on Easter Sunday, they first must make a gruesome stop at a hill called Calvary. Two days before the trumpets sound, and churches—many opening for the first time in a year—fill their sanctuaries with lilies, dogwood, and alleluias, we first must witness the hideous trial of the sinless Lord, the bloody brutal scourging by Roman soldiers and his anguishing suffering and suffocating death on the cross, a day called...

I believe that there is a real possibility that Wednesday, January 20, 2021, God might offer to Trump a type of PALM SUNDAY, which will help to spiritually wake up and lead back to God many people. But shortly afterwards there will be the CRUCIFIXION. Those who pray and live their prayer (“THY will be done”, not “MY will be done”), will receive the grace of final perseverance in this period of the purification of the Church (CCC 675-677), and of the “great tribulation” (Mt 24:21) so as to arrive to the eternal RESURRECTION (Zech 13:7-9). Father Joseph Dwight http://josephdwight.blogspot.com...

I am having problem to understand and reconcile the storm against president Trump: 1. Is Donald Trump still president of the USA? 2. Is he still in charge of present government? 3. Is he being accused of sedition, treason, whatever, against government? So he is inciting "overthrow" of his own government??? Against himself??? Impeach, impeach, impeach for what?

Actor Jim Caviezel, who played Jesus in 2004’s “The Passion of the Christ,” said writer/director Mel Gibson has written a forthcoming sequel. “Mel Gibson just sent me the third picture, the third draft. It’s coming,” he told Breitbart. “It’s called ‘The Passion of the Christ: Resurrection.’ It’s going to be the biggest film in world history.”

The terrible Arizona coronavirus epidemic, reported by the media is quickly fading away, especially after the democratic major of Phoenix became a media darling by exaggerating its scale and blaming governor Ducey (R). Today, we have a Resurrection, number of deaths reported to be -1! Governor Ducey is a God, I guess! :-)

Andy Stanley, son of famous pastor Charles Stanley, is a serial blasphemer and idolater who twists God’s Word — whenever he even discusses it — and uses it to create a false church built around a false gospel and a false Jesus. Andy Stanly has made a number of dubious claims about the Christian faith and in particular, the Scriptures. Famously stating that Christianity needs to “unhitch” from the Old Testament, he told his audience that the Ten Commandments don’t apply to Christians. He’s flopped on homosexuality — telling the mother of an openly-gay and practicing girl that her daughter...

Friends, in today’s Gospel, Jesus appeared alive again to his followers. Upon seeing him, "they were startled and terrified." They are terrified because the one they abandoned and betrayed and left for dead is back—undoubtedly for revenge! Luke’s risen Jesus does two things in the presence of his shocked followers. The first thing is that he shows them his wounds. This move is a reiteration of the judgment of the cross: don’t forget, he tells them, what the world did when the Author of life appeared. But he does something else; he says, "Shalom"—"Peace be with you." In this, he...

Jesus received a rich Jew's burial, thanks to Nicodemus and Joseph of Arimathea: "Nicodemus brought a mixture of myrrh and aloes, about seventy-five pounds. Taking Jesus’ body, the two of them wrapped it, with the spices, in strips of linen." John 19:39-40 Seventy-five pounds, the Bible's "talent," of spices embedded in those linen strips would have created the first century equivalent of about 3" of fiberglass, with three days to harden and cure. It became a rock-hard cocoon or shell for Jesus' body, with a hole just large enough for his neck: Jewish custom was to cover the head with...

There are very few questions on which more depends than the question of whether or not Jesus Christ rose from the dead 2,000 years ago. If the Christian claim that He did is true, then there is good reason to believe that Christians truly know God. If Jesus did not rise, however, then more than 2 billion people are living a lie. To raise the stakes even further, most religions would agree that there is nothing more or less than billions of souls at stake given that the question of whether or not Jesus was resurrected ties directly into the...

These are very trying times. There is an enemy out there at the microscopic level, wreaking all kinds of havoc in people’s hearts and minds and lives. The economic consequences alone of the coronavirus could possibly be felt for years to come. The big problem in life, of course, is the threat of death. But the coronavirus is not going to cancel Easter – though it may cancel our traditional celebrations of it. But Easter hope defangs the threat of the coronavirus because Jesus has taken the sting out of death. After a bee stung a boy one day, his...

If any man be devout and love God, let him enjoy this fair and radiant triumphal feast. If any man be a wise servant, let him rejoicing enter into the joy of his Lord. If any have labored long in fasting, let him now receive his recompense. If any have wrought from the first hour, let him today receive his just reward. If any have come at the third hour, let him with thankfulness keep the feast. If any have arrived at the sixth hour, let him have no misgivings; because he shall in nowise be deprived thereof. If any...

April 12 2020 Easter Sunday of the Resurrection of the Lord Reading 1 Acts 10:34a, 37-43 Peter proceeded to speak and said: "You know what has happened all over Judea, beginning in Galilee after the baptism that John preached, how God anointed Jesus of Nazareth with the Holy Spirit and power. He went about doing good and healing all those oppressed by the devil, for God was with him. We are witnesses of all that he did both in the country of the Jews and in Jerusalem. They put him to death by hanging him on a tree. This...

When The Passion of the Christ opened in theaters on February 25th, 2004, it not only gave us the rawest, grittiest glimpse into the last 12 hours of Jesus Christ, but it would leave a lasting impression that would forever change the way we look at the events that transpired in human history, and get a stronger glimpse of the price that was paid for us so that we would not stay forever stuck in the habits, mindsets, condition of heart, and the consequences that all of them inevitably leads to. Isaiah 53:5--700 B.C. But He was wounded for our...