1st April 2026

1st April 2026


Pray (ACts)


Read (Luke 24:1-12)


Message (Alan Burke)


Did you hear about Gui Junmin, his frozen wife, and his new partner? Well, just in case you didn’t, I’ll tell you. Gui Junmin is a Chinese man whose wife died from lung cancer in 2017, aged 49. Junmin was so devastated that he got her cryogenically ‘preserved’. I don’t know what was going through his head at the time, but whatever it was, he is struggling to accept what has happened. Although the story got the attention of the media, and when he was interviewed, he revealed he had been dating someone else since 2020. 


Without knowing the ins and outs, I imagine that Junmin at the time was a broken man with the loss of his wife, and by getting her body cryogenically preserved, he hoped that some future medical advancement would see her revived and cured of the disease that caused her death. He had come to know the sting of death. But for the believer, there is hope, because death is just the transitional point from this life to the next, as Paul says in 1 Corinthians, “Death has been swallowed up in victory.” “Where, O death, is your victory?  Where, O death, is your sting?” The sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the law. 57 But thanks be to God! He gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ (1 Cor 15:54–57).


That victory came with the shadow of the cross weighing heavily on the followers of Jesus. That first Lord’s Day, they knew death’s sting; Jesus’s death would have been a painful reminder to them all that this life was far from how we would want it or desire it to be. They simply did not understand at this stage that the death of Jesus was a necessary part in God’s plan of salvation that was first announced in the Garden of Eden in the shadow of the fall as the Lord preached the gospel to the Satan of one who would come to crush the head of the serpent, who is Satan, the Devil himself (Gen 3:15, Rev 12:9). 


We come knowing the great and glorious hope, but for the disciples and followers of Jesus, that first resurrection Sunday was not a time of celebration, far from it. Instead, they were trying to comprehend the events of the past week. If the gospel accounts all finished with the burial of Jesus, as he was placed in a tomb cut into a rock, then the message that we proclaim would be worthless. It would be nothing more than an account of a good man who died for a good cause, but unlike every other person who has died, the grave did not hold Jesus; he rose, and for all who have and will repent of their sin and trust in him, then the message of the cross is not foolishness but it is the wisdom of God, and there is great hope. For Jesus is the firstfruits of those who have fallen asleep. While Death came through Adam, and because of Adam, all die, the resurrection of the dead comes through Christ. For as in Adam all die, so all in Christ will be made alive (1 Cor 15:20–22).


We are then told of how these women, Mary Magdalene, Joanna, Mary the mother of James, and the others, that they went and told all these things to the eleven and all the others. For those women in that moment, as they came to terms with what they had heard, recalling to their minds what they had been taught, the grief and dejection would be dispelled, with the glorious hope that Christ had risen from the dead and what that meant for them and all who believe in him. 


For many, the resurrection is nonsense; it shouldn’t surprise us when people struggle to comprehend the wonder of it, for humanly speaking, it is impossible. Paul in 1 Corinthians tells the church: …if Christ has not been raised, your faith is futile; you are still in your sins… …we are of all people most to be pitied (1 Cor 15:12-19). But Jesus has risen; the grave could not hold him, and for all who believe, we can have confidence that he lives, that he guides the church, and that he guides all who are his through the Holy Spirit, and that we have a guarantee that we, as heirs with him through faith, will one day go to be with him when this earthly journey ends. For nothing is impossible with God. If only Gui Junmin knew this hope, and his wife had known her body would not be cryogenically ‘preserved’, instead, he’d be looking forward with great hope to the LORD’s return. 


Pray (acTS)


Sing


WSC
Q30 How doth the Spirit apply to us the redemption purchased by Christ?
A. The Spirit applieth to us the redemption purchased by Christ, by working faith in us, and thereby uniting us to Christ in our effectual calling.
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