In and For
As Christians who are in and for Christ, we can't simply stand by as culture crumbles. We must be more than just "in" culture. We must also be "for" its ultimate good. Join us as we look at current cultural trends and apply ideas from apologetics and evangelism to equip you to impact those around you with compassion, truth, and grace.
In and For
The Reality of the Resurrection for You
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Explore the profound significance of Easter through the eyes of Mary Magdalene, emphasizing its personal impact and historical evidence for you today. Discover how the resurrection transforms understanding from mere knowledge to a living relationship with Jesus.
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Introduction: The Significance of Easter
SPEAKER_00What if the most important moment in history involved your name?
SPEAKER_01And what if the most important person in history was the one who spoke it?
SPEAKER_00It actually happened that way on the very first Easter morning. And here's the wild part. Most of us know the story.
SPEAKER_01But we've rushed right past that moment.
SPEAKER_00And today we're slowing down long enough to see it. We're so glad you're here. I'm Shelly Komashewski.
SPEAKER_01Anderson, and we're both here on behalf of Sightlion Ministry and a podcast that is developed to help people see what it looks like to live in and for Christ and in and for culture for its ultimate good. Today we're talking about something that, well, for honest, most of us feel like we already know.
SPEAKER_00Uh-huh. We've heard it, we've celebrated it. We could probably explain it.
SPEAKER_01And you know, for a for a lot of us, it kind of sits in one of two categories. It's either something to affirm or it's something to defend.
SPEAKER_00Sure. I mean, I believe that it happened, or on the other hand, let me give you evidence for why it's true. And indeed, both of those do matter.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, they do. But if we stop uh short uh at just accepting the resurrection at face value as just a well-reasoned historical fact, we can pigeonhold Easter in the category of just trustworthy information. Something that is simply good to acknowledge is true.
SPEAKER_00That's where the tension comes in, I think, because we live in a culture that doesn't really reject Jesus. It just redefines him. Culture is comfortable with Jesus as a good teacher, a moral example. They love the Jesus who stood up for the weak.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, even the idea of a miraculous event like a resurrection is on the table as a possibility, as long as it's a mysterious, unexplainable event that is contained in the past. But the moment you start talking about Jesus as alive today and personally intervening in the lives of others to rescue us from God's wrath because of our sin, well, that's when the conversation starts shifting.
SPEAKER_00It sure does. And here's the question underneath all of this: do we just know about Easter or have we actually experienced it?
SPEAKER_01Yeah, listeners, lean in here because those are not the same thing. You or your neighbor or your coworker or family member or even the person next to you at church on Easter Sunday can know every detail of the resurrection story and still be standing outside the tomb, so to speak. And we'll explain what we mean by that in just a moment.
SPEAKER_00So today that is exactly where we're going. We're gonna go back and look at one moment in the Easter story through the eyes of Mary Magdalene and ask what happens when Easter becomes intensely personal.
Setting the Scene: Mary Magdalene at the Tomb
SPEAKER_01Shelley's actually written an amazing article on this as well. And you can you can find her article on Sightline Ministry.org. Highly encourage you to go check it out and read it. We're gonna talk a little bit about it here, but there's so much more in the article that's worth reading. So be sure to check that out.
SPEAKER_00That was actually pretty smooth, Brock. Thanks. All right, Brock, let's set the scene. It's Easter morning, but they don't know it's Easter yet.
SPEAKER_01Yes, that that that is true. Jesus is dead by crucifixion, his disciples are in hiding, his followers are inconsolable, uh, their plans for the future uh are thwarted, uh they think. They are doubting everything. Uh the core question they're struggling with is had they gotten Jesus wrong? So we need to put ourselves in their shoes. We know the end of the story, and sometimes we miss the weight of this moment. Uh they had watched him speak to a storm and the storm obeyed, to speak to a crowd's hunger and watched the crowd's hunger disappear, and to speak to a dead man, Lazarus come forth, and they watched death submit to the author of life.
The Personal Call: Jesus Knows Your Name
SPEAKER_00That's so good. Mary Magdalene heads to the tomb in the early dawn. She's not looking for a miracle, she's looking for a body to anoint for burial. She had just watched Jesus die. She'd seen the place where they laid him, and she had watched the grave sealed with the stone. And when she arrives at the tomb and finds it empty, she did not think resurrection. She thought someone took him. She is grieving deeply. She stands outside the tomb weeping, snot nose, grief-soaked, utterly confused, not yet understanding that the story had not ended. It had barely begun. And it was there in the midst of her pain and confusion that someone simply spoke her name. Mary. One word. Her name. She knew immediately who it was. She turns and standing before her is the risen Christ, the death-defeating, sin-conquering Son of God, stood right there in the garden in the early morning light, saying the name of one grieving woman who thought everything was lost. Think about this. He wasn't addressing a crowd. He wasn't making an announcement or a proclamation. He just said one word, her name. Just her name. Just his presence. Just enough.
SPEAKER_01Mary.
SPEAKER_00If that doesn't make you lose your breath, listen to this again. In her deepest pain, her utter confusion. One word spoken by the risen Christ changed everything.
The Evidence for the Resurrection
SPEAKER_01Yeah. When we slow down and we hear that, that really changes our approach to everything surrounding Easter and the way we think about Easter. And it's it's why we said earlier about we can we can view Easter and and still be standing outside the tomb. And the way Mary is, you know, weeping and sad because she hadn't known the full story was for her. And the resurrection of Jesus was for her. And if we're not careful, we should fall in into this in this trap as well. And there are several people that we know, friends, coworkers, others, that can be in this area of knowing about the resurrection, but not knowing that that occurred for them. So sometimes we can approach Easter as a historical event to affirm. And it is that the resurrection of Jesus is the most well-attested miracle in the ancient world, the cornerstone of the Christian faith. It's the hinge on which all history turns. In 1 Corinthians 15, 9, Paul 19, Paul tells us that we are to be the most pitied among all people if the resurrection is false.
SPEAKER_00Absolutely. Other times we approach Easter as a fact to be defended, and we should know the evidence. It's staggering. For those of you who've been around for a while, you know that our founder of Sightline Ministry was actually Josh McDowell. And the resurrection played such a key part in Josh's story and actually the foundation of our ministry. So if it's okay, Brock, I think we should just retell the story because it's it's worth it's worth retelling. Josh grew up in an extremely dysfunctional home. His dad was the town drunk and watched his dad beat his mother bloody. He was sexually abused as a farmhand, his sister committed suicide. He watched his brother sue his parents for everything. I mean, talk about pain and dysfunction. And as a young boy, Josh raised his fist to the God of the universe. Now he gets to the university and he sees a group of kids and professors that met together and he wanted what they had. There was something different about them. And so he'd sit at the table and watch them interact. Finally, one day he said, All right, I give up. What's different about you? And the young girl looked at him and she said, Jesus Christ. And Josh, that set him off. You remember the story. He looks at her, don't give me any of that religion. And the young girl didn't miss a beat. She said, Mister, I didn't say religion. I said the person of Jesus Christ. And Josh backed down. He didn't want to hear that, but he wanted what they had. So he kept coming to the table, poking at him. Finally, one day, a young man says, Josh, disapprove the resurrection. And all of Christianity topples. And Josh looked him in the eye and said, You're on. And that started a two-year search, looking at evidence, reasons he traveled to Europe and looked at original manuscripts. And in the midst of this project and in the midst of all of this research, he's sitting in the middle of a library in Europe and he leans back and says, It's true. It's true. All the evidence, all the reasons that Josh set out to disprove were actually true. The evidence was overwhelming. Most of you know that that two years worth of evidence actually went into a book called Evidence That Demands a Verdict, a little 900-page thick book that lays out all of Josh's research. So for some of you who need to learn a little more or want to dig into some of the gritty facts, that's that's available to you. Evidence that demands a verdict. Turn Josh to see the risen Christ. And through that, gave his life to missions and to ministry. And he started the Josh McDonald ministry, now called Sightline. And we're here to help you know not only what you believe, but why you believe it, to have that anchored evidence, to know that you can stand that you have reasons for your faith, and there's evidence, and you can stand strong knowing why you believe what you believe, and then engage the world around you with that truth. Sorry, I got a little excited there. I love Josh's story, and it's so critical to who we are as a ministry, but also this uh this subject. All right, sorry.
Historical Facts Supporting the Resurrection
SPEAKER_01Definitely worth telling. I'm glad you you referenced evidence that demands a verdict and and the many, many, many hundreds of pages that are in that book because we do want to talk a little bit about some some of the reasons for the for the resurrection, but we can't even come close to to touching what we see uh in fullness of the reasons provided, evidence that demands a verdict. So there are reasons that we believe in the actual resurrection of Jesus. And we should briefly walk through some of them uh just just to give a good footing for the good reasons to believe Jesus has been raised from the dead. So first of all, first of all, his his torment was was fatal. Uh he really was dead. So thousands upon thousands of people have actually endured crucifixion throughout history, developed first by by the Persians and in a in a more simplistic form, and then perfected by Rome as as a as a killing tool. And it was designed to be the most painful way to die. And uh it was always fatal. And it's actually where we get the strongest word that we have for pain of excruciating, well, which means from the cross. Um seriously?
SPEAKER_00I mean, I don't doubt you. That came out wrong. Like, I didn't know that. That's really interesting.
The Global Impact of the Resurrection
SPEAKER_01That that's where we get that word from because uh crucifixion was was designed to kill and had a hundred percent success rate. It was depth by its asphyxiation, and we're not going to go into all the details of that. It's it's uh there for you all to look at definitely with Evidence Man's verdict, or if you go to Sideline Ministry.org, uh you'll find plenty of content about about that as well. But something something else that happened that's really important and talked about all across scholarly work is that the tomb was empty. No one could produce a body. And this is perhaps one of the most well-attested facts of history. The vast majority of scholars agree the tomb uh was empty. They only debate over one question why? Yeah. Where's the body? Yeah, where's where's the body? Like the tomb is empty. We all know that it's uh that's uh that's all there's only a few outlier scholars that would say that's not true. That uh the the uh claim that they they went to the wrong tomb. They forgot where they put Jesus, the most significant figure in their lives. They just forgot the next the next couple days later, like, where'd we put him again? Uh and it's it's kind of a silly stance. That's why the vast majority agree the tomb was empty. The only question is why. And when you investigate this for yourself, you'll find the competing explanations are not really that great, and they fall apart in in light of other evidence accepted as true by a vast majority of scholars. And in addition to Josh's phenomenal work, uh Michael Likona and Gary Havermas have done incredible work on the resurrection of Christ and and and Google that and and look, go get their book on the resurrection of Jesus, and it's that's a phenomenal read as well on all the substantial evidence of showing that the most reasonable explanation with the best available evidence on why the tomb was empty is that Jesus was raised from the dead. In addition, we have over 500 people saw him alive in the 40 days to follow. Paul mentions this in 1 Corinthians 15. He's boldly inviting any and all readers, any and all listeners that are hearing his letter to go talk to the eyewitnesses. And it says, quote, many of whom remain until now, saying, Hey, they're alive, go talk to them. Yep. And so 500 people are there to be to be talked to about that as well. And I think historians marvel at this at this last fact, this last fact, this small group of uneducated, untrained disciples um created this vast spread, this global movement that exploded around the world, including Jewish people who adhere to the to one of the strictest, they adhere to one of the strictest religious systems on the planet, immediately abandoned their traditions by the thousands to thrust in and follow Christ. Gentiles who had access to gods that would allow them to fulfill all of their fleshly desires and attain the goals that those gods said that they would attain, they abandoned it all to follow Jesus. And the reward persecution, isolation, torture, and death.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, the resurrection is not a leap of faith into the dark, it's a step of faith into the light of overwhelming evidence and reasons. But what if this year, in addition to that, we pause long enough to make it personal? Friend, has the risen Jesus ever called your name? Not in a vague spiritual sense, but have you had a moment, maybe quiet, maybe unexpected, where faith stopped being information about Jesus and started being a relationship with him?
SPEAKER_01Yeah, so it's entirely possible to have celebrated Easter your entire life and still be, as we said earlier, standing outside the tomb, um, like Mary before she entered in, not knowing the fullness of the resurrection for you. So close to Jesus, even devoted to him, but not fully understanding that he is alive, present, and here. So good. Because Mary did step forward into the tomb, into the discovery of the reality of the resurrection. And here's the thing: for her. Uh, we know the facts, we can know the facts. We know the story, we can know the story. Some of us can walk through the evidence for the resurrection without missing a beat. And all of that is true and worth knowing.
SPEAKER_00It is, but the resurrection was not just an event that happened for the world in the abstract, it happened for you specifically. The risen Jesus is not a historical figure to be studied at arm's length. He's a living person who knows your name, who knows your doubts. The prayers you've almost given up on. In one of my very favorite verses, the prophet Isaiah records God saying, I have redeemed you, I have called you by name, you are mine. That's Isaiah, as Isaiah 43.1. Did you get that? You are mine. And Easter, that's the proof of that.
SPEAKER_01And I really want to to park here for just a moment and and highlight that that this reality of Easter is for you and the difference between knowing about Jesus and knowing knowing Jesus died for you. So it's possible to know not just about Jesus, not just basic facts, but to know deep details about Jesus and about the Bible, so much so that you're able to impress others with knowledge and miss the fact that he died for you.
Making Easter Personal: Jesus Calls Your Name
SPEAKER_00Yeah, friends, perhaps you're in a season where faith feels more like a routine habit than a heartbeat you're depending on for life. Or maybe you are so heavily burdened by a relationship, a health scare, a prayer you've carried for years that makes God feel distanced or silent. And that's a really that's a real place to be. And it's worth saying out loud authentically. But here's what the resurrection insists. God does his most significant work precisely when things look the most finished. Think about it. Could Friday look like the end? The disciples were in hiding, the tomb was sealed, the dream was dead. And three days later, Jesus says a woman's name in a garden. The same Jesus who cried, it is finished from the cross said that payment for sin is finalized. The same Jesus who caused death itself to die walks out of the grave. And that same Jesus is present and alive today, not as a concept, but an actual person that longs for a relationship with you. He sees the full picture when you only see part of the story. He's working in chapters you can't read yet. And because of Easter, you can trust that the author of the story, even when you're stuck on a page that doesn't make sense.
SPEAKER_01He's still doing what he did that first Easter morning, meeting people in their grief, their confusion, their unanswered questions, showing up in moments when hope feels buried. He's still calling people by name. So let's make this really clear, Shelly.
SPEAKER_00Oh, I love this part where we get practical. Otherwise, we forget what we've learned. Or maybe that's just me.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, that I don't think it is. So there's three things to really hold on to. First, Easter is historically true, as Acts proclaimed in Acts 26, 26. Uh, when he's talking to Agrippa, he said, this was not done in a corner. It was there for all to see. Uh second, Easter is is deeply personal. Um the book of James says, even the demons believe. And so it's not enough to believe that it happened. What matters most is it happened for you. Christ was raised for you. And that that is a critical distinction. And and third, Jesus still calls people by name. You can put your name in a paraphrase of John 3.16, for God so loved your name is right there that he sent his one and only son for you.
Practical Steps to Encounter the Risen Christ
SPEAKER_00This isn't just something to believe, it's someone responding to you. So how do we not just hear this and just simply move on? Three simple things. First, stop pretending be honest about the unfinished parts of your life. Second, slow down and listen. When was the last time you actually asked Jesus to meet you personally? And third, pray. It doesn't have to be polished or perfect, just honest, honest and authentic.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, and we wanna we wanna have that moment right now. Ashelle closed out her article, if you go and check that out, with a very authentic prayer. And I've asked her to close our time today with it as well, because it's the very perfect moment to bring into this moment.
A Personal Prayer for Easter Reflection
SPEAKER_00Heavenly Father, if I'm honest, Easter has started to feel more like a calendar event than an encounter with the risen Lord. Forgive me. I need to hear Jesus call my name. Just as he called Mary by name when she thought everything was over. You knew exactly where she was and exactly what she needed. Needed, and you know where I am too, and what I need most, and that's to behold the risen Christ. I'm standing outside the tomb today with the unfinished parts of my life, the prayers I've stopped praying, the health scares that feel like a dead end, and the doubts I'm usually too polite to admit. Jesus, if you are who the empty tomb says you are, then I don't want to just study you at arm's length anymore. I want to hear you say my name in the middle of my mess. I'm listening. In the name of the risen, reigning, and one day returning name of Jesus. Amen.
SPEAKER_01Amen. If something just stirred in you hearing that prayer, do not brush past this moment. Don't let it just be another episode of a podcast you're listening to you.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, we encourage you to sit with it, stay in it.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, perhaps as you listened, you thought of someone who needed to hear this.
SPEAKER_00Please send it to them.
SPEAKER_01In in all seriousness, send it to them. This might be the moment that they need.
SPEAKER_00And we'd love to hear from you what resonated, what is God doing in your life?
SPEAKER_01Yeah, you can reach out, you can comment, you can connect with us.
SPEAKER_00Because at the end of the day, we're here for one reason.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, to help you see Jesus clearly.
SPEAKER_00I love this. Thanks for joining us. We'll see you next time on the In and For podcast.