‘Easter Witness’
- Apr 25, 2025
- 5 min read
I do hope you had a blessed Easter. I guess it was full of wonder at how God could love us so much to allow His son to die for us, and then the amazing celebration of Easter day, of Jesus rising again. He’s alive!
But then what?
Today, I want us to consider the consequences of the resurrection.
There’s a story of a painting called ‘Checkmate’ that used to hang in an art museum before being sold to a private collector.
The painting shows a chess game where the devil has seemingly beaten a young man, leaving him with no possible moves. However, a famous chess master, began to study the board and all of a sudden, he shouted: "the king has one more move!” It wasn’t ‘checkmate’ after all.
Matt 28:10, MSG:“Go tell my brothers that they are to go to Galilee, and that I’ll meet them there.”
The context: Jesus has risen. All that's about to happen is rooted in the glorious resurrection of Jesus. It's the same with us today, all that is about to happen in our lives is rooted in this event. Tell my brothers to go to Galilee. There’s always another move!
The disciples were about to undergo a radical transformation; they were to be witnesses of all that Jesus had said and done. By the way, witnessing is not something that we do for the Lord; it is something that He does through us.
Power to be a witness for Him - "But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes on you; and you will be my witnesses" (Acts 1:8). This is what resurrection life should be like.
“Why Galilee?" Galilee was the starting place. It was in Galilee that disciples like Peter, James and John heard Jesus say, "Come, follow Me, and I will make you fishers of men," and now, it is in Galilee where Jesus will once again call the disciples, this time to an even greater ministry! There is the victory of Galilee and subsequent Galilees. If my first Galilee was one of acceptance, the following ones are those of recovery and receiving the commission and recommission. Always 'another move!'
This was a rendezvous with Jesus. He'd forward-planned the event and said, if you come, I'll be there. Just think what it could mean. One more move!! It's the call of love on your life, and Jesus longs for the response of your heart.
Jerry Bridges said, "Without the motive of love my apparent obedience may be essentially self-serving. May have an outward form of obedience, but it is not obedience from the heart. Our behaviour may appear outstanding to other people but not be acceptable to God because it does not spring from a motive of love to him. Only conduct that arises from love is worthy of the name of obedience."
Verse16 says, "Then the eleven disciples went to Galilee, to the mountain where Jesus had told them to go." When was the last time you kept a rendezvous with the risen Lord?
Do you realise it was in their Galilee that the reality and power of the resurrection became real? It wasn't at the tomb, it's empty!
It's comforting to know that Easter can become real to us in other places. Indeed, to live for Jesus this is precisely it. I need to constantly hear the words of Jesus: come I'll be there. That place may be a home, work place, or college. I can claim the power of His resurrection in that place. It may be a broken relationship, a frightening experience, it may be with your private battles in your Christian life, or in church life. We each have a Galilee full of stuff!
Do you know, Jesus said "if you come to Galilee I'll be there." The place of familiarity becomes a place that is transformed by the resurrection power of Jesus.
Of all the greatest things that can happen, none are so essential today than this. Jesus says, come, I will be there!
Where's your Galilee? Can I ask what would it mean to you if you were to accept the reality of resurrection right now in your Galilee? You see, to accept the resurrection is to awaken into God's Kingdom; a realm where, contrary to so many of our experiences, life is not defeated by death.
Marjorie Thomas says, "It's to recognise that the resurrection is to awake in a new kind of morning one in which the bleak human landscape of sin seems more the fading dream than encompassing reality. In its eternal light a whole new order of life is born."
'Easter Witness’ begins. We who believe the resurrection, must live the resurrection.
The disciples are on the threshold of an important new chapter they cannot imagine, it could be the same for you too!
Why Galilee? Because that's where Jesus is, and that's where His next exciting episode for their lives will be launched.
No longer ‘checkmate’, there’s one more move to be an Easter Witness for Him!
As Jesus gave the great commission to His disciples, it’s in that same authority that we have the privilege and responsibility to declare Jesus to be the Saviour of the world in our generation, right where we are!
Jesus declared that all authority had been given to Him (Matt 28:28). This authority began in heaven and extends to earth today, actually to you and I, right now where we are!
The most glorious news today is that there is now no power or authority that can ever overthrow the Kingdom of God, because Jesus has won the victory and He reigns supreme! Hallelujah!!
The Good News of Easter is not a message contained or confined to one weekend in the church calendar, but to be declared through us wherever we are!
N.T. Wright says, “The resurrection… is the decisive event demonstrating that God’s kingdom really has been launched on earth as it is in heaven. The message of Easter is that God’s new world has been unveiled in Jesus Christ and that you’re now invited to belong to it.”
Amazing! Just let that thought sink in for a while.
We need to know that God is forever in the business of Easter, of turning darkness towards the dawn, of death to the outburst of new life.
In verses 18-19 we’re called to go and make disciples with, and in, the authority of Jesus. Now, all powers, principalities, thrones, dominions are subject to Him. He now has the final word.
“Go” actually means, "as you are going." It implies a continuation of movement, an action on our part. There are times when I think we haven’t been doing a very good job as Christians, we seem to have quit going! Perhaps we’re in ‘checkmate,’ not realising there’s another move to make!
You see, our ‘Easter Witness’ means we have been conquered in our Galilee and commissioned to go to others in theirs.
N. T. Wright said, “Jesus's resurrection is the beginning of God's new project, not to snatch people away from earth to heaven but to colonise earth with the life of heaven.”
Easter - ‘life of heaven’ continues, and you and I are witnesses to it! Hallelujah!
Reading this I have been filled with a heart of joy, because of Jesus. I have been captured that there is always another move, and to colonise earth with heaven, is the most wonderful picture.