PASTOR MEL MCGINNIS

Pastor Mel McGinnis, from Kiantone Congregational Church, said his favorite Easter passage is the encounter of Jesus with two of his “dispirited disciples” on the road to Emmaus in Luke 24:25-27.

The passage in Luke reads, “How foolish you are and how slow to believe all that the prophets have spoken! Did not the Christ have to suffer these things and then enter his glory? And beginning with Moses and all the Prophets, he explained to them what was in all the Scriptures concerning himself.”

McGinnis said the resurrection of Jesus Christ put an “exclamation point” on the crucifixion as “God’s plan” to save humanity after the fall of mankind following the creation in the beginning of the book of Genesis.

Pictured is a replica display of the empty tomb at the Institute for Creation Research Discovery Center in Dallas, Texas. P-J photo by Timothy Frudd

“It’s my favorite because the passage punctuates the centrality of God’s written word in communicating the truth of that exceptional event in history as the exclusive narrative crucial for redeeming depraved man from sin,” he said. “Easter is about Jesus risen from the dead as the champion over the last enemy of man: death, and without his resurrection, our faith in him is most pitiful and a worthless exercise of bottomless futility.”

PASTOR LUKE FODOR

Pastor Luke Fodor, from St. Luke’s Episcopal Church shared that his perspective of Easter is shaped by what he described as a “paradoxical play” of presence and absence that can be seen in the way the universe is “constantly in motion.”

“Life is a really a play between absence and presence,” he said. “The life of faith is equally a journey into the juxtaposition between absence and presence of the divine. This is clearly apparent on Easter Sunday when we hear the story of Jesus’ disciples going to the tomb and finding it empty. Usually, discovering emptiness is bad news, like when you go to the freezer to discover the ice-cream container empty, but in this case, it is very good news.”

Fodor said the image he loves the most from the account of the resurrection is a passage in John 20:11-13. In the passage, Mary Magdalene is standing outside of the tomb crying. As she is crying, she sees two angels where Jesus’ body had been in the tomb. Asked why she is crying, Mary tells the angels, “They have taken my Lord away…and I don’t know where they have put him.” Later in John chapter 20, the risen Jesus appears to Mary, and she is able to spread the joyous news of his resurrection to his disciples.

“Overwhelmed with emotion, Mary is not sure what to think,” Fodor said. “Through her tears, Mary finally sees this absence as presence. As former Archbishop of Canterbury, Rowan Williams, has powerfully suggested, this image from the Gospel of John re-presents an image from Hebrew Scriptures: the space on the top of the ark of the covenant, which was flanked by the statues of two cherubim. The ancient Israelites called this space on top of the ark ‘the mercy seat,’ as this empty space between the cherubim is where God was said to dwell.”

Fodor said the imagery seen between the Old Testament passages regarding the ark of the covenant and the New Testament account of the Gospel of John represents a “paradox” that can change the way a person lives by recognizing how God is present even in the times of apparent absence. Fodor added that the resurrection is of “utmost significance” because of how God is present even in the difficult moments of life.

“God is both fully ‘there’ in absence and presence,” he said. “In Jesus, God is with us in this life and into the next. The true meaning of Easter is that Jesus can never be pinned down. He’s always on the move and calling us to live out his loving presence because of his present absence. The power of the resurrection means that Jesus remains present–as we, the Church, manifest him to the world.”

PASTOR BOB BENSON

Pastor Bob Benson, from Christ Church LCMC, said his favorite Easter verse is Matthew 28:6, which states, “He is not here; he has risen, just as he said. Come and see the place where he lay.”

Benson shared that the resurrection described in Matthew 28:6 is where “our hope lies.” He explained that 1 Corinthians 15:20-22 describes the “hope” that “in Christ all will be made alive.”

“This life is a test; it’s only a test,” Benson said. “We were created for Eternity. Hell was not created for mankind; it was created for Satan and his fallen angels. The fact that some of mankind have chosen their own eternity by not accepting the free gift of God through Jesus Christ, his one and only son, grieves not only me, but also the God who created them.”

PASTOR MARK HANSON

Pastor Mark Hanson, from the Jamestown Church of the Nazarene, shared 1 Peter 1:3-5 as his favorite Easter passage.

The passage reads, “Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. According to his great mercy, he has caused us to be born again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, to an inheritance that is imperishable, undefiled, and unfading, kept in heaven for you, who by God’s power are being guarded through faith for a salvation ready to be revealed in the last time.”

Although the book of 1 Peter is not one of the traditional Easter accounts, Hanson said this passage reflects how God has the “power to change” situations that may seem hopeless. He added that 1 Peter 1:3-5 “sums up” the entire reason why Jesus came and the “whole point” of Holy Week.

“We have new life, a new hope, a new inheritance and a new relationship with God,” he said. “Jesus’s death seemed to be the end but it was not. Our hopeless situation of brokenness and sin can be changed through Jesus Christ. We can participate in the resurrection of Jesus Christ and be raised to new life right now.”