Title: Resurrection in Galilee / Matthew 28:1-10
Stanley Jones was preaching in India, and a Muslim said, "We have what you don't have. We go to Medina and there is a coffin with Muhammad's body and there is a tomb. There really was a man named Muhammad. Go to Jerusalem, there is nothing but an empty tomb." Then Dr. Stanley Jones said, "Thank you. Your words are true and that's what makes Christianity different from other religions. Jesus is risen. That's why there is nothing but an empty tomb."
The heart of Christianity is the crucifixion and resurrection of Jesus. How can a dead person come back to life? It is difficult to think with the human scientific brain. As a result, as many as a million people were mobilized to find the body of Jesus. Among them, high priests, Pharisees, philosophers, archaeologists, physicists, astronomers, radiation scientists, and many others tried to find the body of Jesus, but they could not find it.
However, the event of the resurrection of Jesus is an event performed by God. Man cannot do it, but God can. “There was a great earthquake, and an angel of the Lord came down from heaven and rolled down the stone and sat on it, and his image was like lightning, and his clothes were white as silk.” How can a limited human brain comprehend the resurrection of Jesus? I hope you have the grace to believe in the great resurrection event that God has performed.
I firmly believe in the resurrection of Jesus. Of course, not only do you believe in the resurrection event because it is recorded in the Bible, but see the news of the resurrection of Jesus Christ spread all over the world today. Because of the vitality, the gospel of the resurrection spread and took root throughout the world. According to 1999 statistics, the Bible has been translated into 2233 languages and many people are reading the Bible because it contains the vitality of the resurrection of Jesus.
The resurrection of Jesus is the event of life raised from the dead. It is not something that remains with us as a single spiritual thing. We say that the spirit of the Samil Movement must live on in us. 4.19 It says that the mind must be alive. This is to hope that a good spirit will be passed on to us. But the resurrection of Jesus is not the extent to which a spirit is passed on to us. It is an event that directly affects me because I am resurrected because of the resurrection of Jesus.
Paul compares these things to fruit. Christ rose from the dead and became the firstfruits of them that slept. (1 Corinthians 15:20) An apple-bearing tree is bound to produce apples continuously. At first, the apples open, but after a while, the pears open, and then the persimmons? If apples start to open at first, the tree will continue to open apples. Since Jesus' resurrection became the first fruits of eternal life for us, I believe that the fruits of life will be opened to us as well.
So, the resurrection of Jesus, my resurrection. Jesus' victory will be my victory. Jesus said to them, I am the resurrection and the life. Whoever believes in me will live even if they die, and whoever lives and believes in me will never die. Do you believe this? As long as we believe in this fact, the resurrection of Jesus, my resurrection, the life of Jesus, my life, the victory of Jesus becomes my victory.
But, why did Jesus, who was resurrected in Jerusalem, say that we should meet in Galilee? The Roman government in Jerusalem harassed Jesus so much, so why did Jesus ask to meet in Galilee instead of going to the harassers and saying, “Look, I will surely avenge you in this way by resurrecting”? If Jesus had appeared in Jerusalem, where he was crucified, and showed them “salty”, the gospel could have been preached more effectively. Why did Jesus ask to meet in Galilee, and then why did he go to Galilee in the first place? Did he also ask us to go and meet him on a street 174 kilometers from Jerusalem to Galilee?
This has important implications. To find the reason, you need to know the characteristics of the place called Galilee. If Jerusalem was the center of the Jews, Galilee was the place where the Gentiles lived. Isaiah cried, "Galilee of the Gentiles, the people who sat in darkness have seen a great light, and to those who sat in the land and shadow of death light has shined." (Mt 4:15-16) The gospel of the resurrection of Jesus is not just for the Jews in Jerusalem. It is the news of victory and the news of life for all the Gentiles beyond Jerusalem. To make this clear, Jesus went to Galilee after His Resurrection. He went to preach the resurrection news to the Gentiles.
You don't know how much strength and courage it gives us when we hear these words. It is a gospel that affects even the Gentiles. That is why, even to me, this gospel has a great influence. The resurrection of Jesus is a great event that has a great impact beyond the space of Jerusalem and Galilee, and affects us beyond the time difference 2000 years ago. The resurrection of Jesus was not just a gospel for the privileged few who lived in Jerusalem.
It must be kept in mind that it is the event of the resurrection of Jesus that transcends the race, the era, the region, the level of education, and the gap between the rich and the poor. Therefore, even for people like me, the resurrection of Jesus can be my resurrection, the victory of Jesus can be my victory, and the life of Jesus can be my life.
As such, Galilee was not only a Gentile region, but Galilee was in many ways backward compared to Jerusalem. The people of Galilee lived with many wounds, failures, pains, and frustrations.
At that time, the Jews had the idea of "only us". There was a widespread sense of bullying against the Galileans and Samaritans. Jesus grew up in a town called Nazareth in Galilee. Since he was from Nazareth, how could anything good come from Nazareth? It also became a joke.
However, after the resurrection, Jesus did not stay in Jerusalem, but told him to go to Galilee and meet him. The Lord ran to Galilee to give them the courage to stand up again by visiting those who suffered, hurt, and experienced many injustices in the world. So, in Galilee when Jesus was active, there were many paralytics, lame patients, blind people, and many people who were hurt and oppressed in various ways. It was there that Jesus preached the gospel of the kingdom, and the resurrected Lord wanted to meet him there.
On the shore of the Sea of Galilee, he went to where Peter was fishing. Peter was the foremost disciple among the twelve, and he was a trusted disciple who had been promised to build a church on the basis of your confession of faith. However, Peter denied that he knew Jesus, and he was the one who confessed that he had nothing to do with me three times. Peter was a loser in the faith. He was a man who lost everything spiritually. It was Peter who suffered greatly from spiritual setbacks.
After a complete spiritual failure, Peter decided that he had to go back to his job and earn a living by fishing, and he set down his net on the shores of the Sea of Galilee. They lowered their nets all night long, but the night came when they could not catch any fish. The condition that Peter met was a spiritually dark night, and he met a dark night in which he had completely failed to catch fish.
However, at that time, Jesus came to Galilee and said to let down the nets on the right side of the boat. They caught so many fish that the nets could not be lifted. Call the disciples and raise the net together. I counted and caught one hundred fifty-three.
Jesus, who came to Galilee, came to meet those who had failed. He came to meet those who are frustrated and in despair. He came to give courage to those who are weary of lack of strength. After His Resurrection, Jesus came hastily to Galilee to raise up those who were weary of life and those who fell.
Dear saint! I hope it will be the resurrection we will meet in Galilee. The reality of our life is like Galilee, where there are many hardships, sorrows, failures, and setbacks, but the Lord came to Galilee to meet us.
Through the Holy Week, he visited the hospital beds of the saints. Many patients looked to the suffering saints. I prayed for a patient who was a high school girl who was suffering from bone marrow cancer. A certain Kwon prayed earnestly for a person who was suffering because cancer cells had spread to the bones. A deacon says that he is happy to be able to attend Easter Sunday after being discharged from the hospital after completing the first treatment. The place lying on the bed is like Galilee. A place where it is easy to get frustrated, a place where it is easy to despair, a place where it is easy to give up. But the resurrected Lord went right there. He came to give us courage and hope. In order to save “even people like me,” Jesus went to Galilee.
After the IMF, many people lose their stable jobs and are suffering. How frustrating it is to have nothing to do? The more time you have, the more money you have to spend. It hurts your self-esteem so easily. The pain of losing a job. It is like Galilee. The resurrected Lord came to this very site. I hope that you will receive the new strength and courage that the Lord gives you through the resurrection you will meet in Galilee.
We make plans in our own way in our lives. We work hard to make that plan work. Students work hard to get into a good school. But it may fail. You try to succeed in your business, but you may suffer from failure due to various circumstances. We can experience the pain of failure, but life does not end there. It is a place that experiences pain like Galilee, but the resurrected Lord came to that place to give us strength and strength.
give me courage
The reality we live in is how great a crime is happening? Every 18 seconds, a number of crimes are happening around us. Teenagers are unfairly dragged while walking and are beaten for no reason. money is stolen There are times when people who live a good life experience the pain of being unfairly deprived of what they have. In the real world we live in, absurd things like this often happen. Nevertheless, the reason we have hope is that Jesus was resurrected in this field, such as in Galilee.
Dear saint! Galilee was the place where Jesus first began the gospel, and Galilee was the place where he first met his disciples after his resurrection. Galilee is a place with many wounds, but the risen Lord has appeared. There the gospel of the resurrection began to be preached again.
Because of the resurrected Lord who came to Galilee, “even people like me have eternal life.” The Lord's visit to Galilee gave us the courage to start over. The Yeongdong area suffered a lot of damage due to wildfires. It is a desolate place, but the resurrected Lord appears to us right there, giving us the courage to start over. Although the farmhouse suffered a lot from foot-and-mouth disease, the resurrected Lord came to us and gave us the courage to start over. Although death seems like the end of our lives, we believe that the resurrected Lord has come to us and gave us the courage to begin our eternal life in heaven again.
I hope that the Lord of the Resurrection who came to Galilee will visit your field of life and give you the courage to start anew and the blessing to stand up again.