Weekly Devotional: April 1, 2026

GOD’S WORD
Matthew 28:1-10, 16-20

The Lenten Series for this year will be excerpts from the late Commissioner Phil Needham’s book
“Lenten Awakening”
Daily Meditations from Ash Wednesday to Easter

Introduction to this week’s Devotional
“Walking The Last Week With Jesus”

We have arrived at the most significant week of Jesus’ life: his last on earth. I invite you to be present with Jesus on that final stage of His journey, to observe closely what he says and does. He still has so much to teach us about Himself and our calling to live as His disciples. And there is so much to grasp—and to gain—as we move toward the week’s climax and try to take in the enormity of Jesus’ suffering and the universal benefit of His crucifixion.

I have mentioned before that as I write these pages, the world is suffering from the coronavirus pandemic. People around the world are getting sick, and hundreds of thousands are dying. People are scared. We are fighting an enemy hidden from the naked eye. The best preventive for us all is isolation, but most of us are not used to such extended confinement. We become distracted and bored, fearful, even paranoid.

Considerating the last week of his life, what does Jesus offer us in the times of our uncertainty and even despair? He is facing His own enemies, and He knows this week will end with his own horrible death. Watching him this last week of his earthly life, we will see courage, humility, compassion, authenticity, and hope. He offers us, His disciples, these same gifts:

• Courage to act when fairness and judgment demand it
• Humility before God and each other
• Compassion for all who suffer and lose loved ones
• Authenticity as His followers, even if it calls us to suffer, and
• Sure hope in our future with Christ, come what may.

PERSONAL PRAYER
Dear Jesus of the human road, as we walk with You this final week of Your earthly life, open our eyes to see, our ears to hear, our minds to grasp, and our hearts to be grasped by Your every act of compassion and by the saving scope of Your suffering and death. We ask this in Your name, our worthy Savior and Lord. Amen.

DEVOTIONAL
RESURRECTION AWAKENING

Jesus has died, and Mary Magdalene and the other Mary have come to pay their last respects and anoint the body with precious spices. They are grieving. There had been so much promise for a new tomorrow, and now only memories. Only shattered dreams. Only lost hope.

Maybe people were right about Jesus' kingdom of God —the religious realists who dismissed it, the doubters who ridiculed it, the power structures who killed it, the ones who criminalized, condemned, and crucified the hope. They shattered the dream. Even Jesus’ closest followers seemed to be calling it quits. Still, the women came.

"Let's just anoint his body one last time." The Marys want to say a final farewell to their Lord, perhaps to keep the memories of what could have been and now seems lost. To honor the dream.

But perhaps there is still a thread of lingering confidence.

Perhaps the women see past the overwhelming evidence of failure to a glimmer of awakening hope, and they cling to it and nurture it deep down, in their quiet way. A part of them remains open to a different outcome, to a Jesus who will not let them down.

The tomb greets them in a most unsettling way: a violent earthquake accompanied by a powerful angel, who rolls away the huge stone blocking and sealing the tomb, and then seats himself on it and looks at the two ladies with a calming face. (The guards are cowering in fear.) "Don't be afraid," says the angel. "He isn't here because he's been raised from the dead, just as he said."

What is this? What does this strange person mean? "Come, see the place where they laid him," he says. The women follow him. They are aghast at what they see. Who has stolen the body — and where is it now? Wait, this angel just said the crucified Jesus has been raised from the dead. But where did he go? That, by the way, is the question they will from then on pursue and answer for the rest of their lives, as will we. But for the time being, "You'll see him in Galilee," says the angel. "Right now, your job is to go find his disciples, who are probably pitying themselves, and tell them the good news."

Suddenly realizing the importance of this shocking revelation, "with great fear and excitement," the women hurry off to tell the disciples. There's another surprise for them soon after they depart. A bigger surprise. Jesus is waiting for them along the way. Stunned by the sight of him, they fall, grab his feet, and worship him.

What is it like to be the first humans to worship the resurrected Jesus? What shall they do, and how shall they do it? Without the obstruction of theological rationale or debate, they simply follow their deepest instinct and largest love— they bow, they cling, they adore.

And thus begins this lifetime journey for all the awakened Easter people. The Easter people: those who wake up every day to the reality of a resurrected Jesus, wherever they may be on their journey. Those whose lives will now be changed over a lifetime by the Jesus they remember and study, who now lives. Those awakened with eyes to see their resurrected Lord and ears to hear his voice and hearts to resonate more and more with his.

Holy Week closes with a deceased Jesus. This first Easter day, the Christians new Sabbath, opens with a living Jesus—not a resuscitation, a resurrection! Jesus with an eternal body. The bonds of the grave are torn asunder and the burst of a new life emerges. Having lived our earthly life with us for over thirty years and having tasted death for us, he brings to life a new thing, a first, a resurrection. He awakens not as he fell asleep in death; he awakens clothed with eternity.

We have been on a Lenten journey over the past forty-six days. We have studied Jesus. We have allowed him to reveal who we are and who we need to become. We have been humbled by his humility. Our need for his healing and for his re-creating work in our lives has been exposed. We have seen how important to our holy humanity are our brothers and sisters in Christ, as well as those who are not in our fellowship. We have walked Jesus' last week with him, culminating with his life poured out for us on a cross and in his death. Where do we go from here?

We'll follow the story. We'll follow those disciples who obey and go to Galilee, to the place Jesus tells them to go. Like some of them, we may have doubts (28:17). But we still go looking to find him where he said he would be. He comes close to us because we take the risk of obedience and follow him. The obedience may be slow in coming, owing to our own unreadiness at first, or our uncertainty, or our doubt. But then, sooner or later, a peace comes, and then an awakening. We're now ready to meet our calling from Jesus:

I've received all authority in heaven and on earth. Therefore, go and make disciples of all nations [ethnicities], baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to obey everything that I've commanded you. Look, I myself will be with you every day until the end of this present age (28:18b-20).

This is the calling of every disciple of Jesus, every person who claims to be a Christian. Every follower of Jesus, in one way or another, follows him into the world, whether that world is as close as the neighbors on our street or as far away as the other side of the globe. We are all sent into the world to act like and speak for the living Christ.

During this Lenten season, we have been awakened by Jesus to see ourselves and one another. We have looked at the good in us as well as the bad. We have prayed for ourselves, one another, those we like and those we don't like, and for the world. What is the power of those prayers? We pray them in the name of our crucified, resurrected, and living Lord Jesus. The Cross releases the saving power of love, the resurrection brings the miracle of life eternal, and the Spirit gifts us with accessibility to the living Jesus and through him to the Father. This power, this miracle, and this intimacy with God are together the keys we've been given to live the life of Jesus in the world.

We are Christ's awakeners, called to lead the awakening wherever we live our lives. We heed the call: "Wake up, sleeper! Get up from the dead, and Christ will shine on you" (Ephesians 5:14b). We are bearers of the light, revealing-Light of the world.

We are driven by that same question on the minds of the two women: "Where has Jesus gone?" We, like they, really want to find the living Lord. We set out in faith, and on the way of our obedience, he appears, and as we love him and worship him, the way before us begins to become clear. So does our calling as his awakeners. Our lives, our words, become a wake-up call and an invitation to those we meet along the way. This is the fulfillment of our lives.

PERSONAL PRAYER
Living, loving Lord, I give myself to the joy of finding You in the unexpected places of my life, representing You where You are treated as unknown or misunderstood, speaking You where current words are unhelpful or demeaning, and being You where sin and hopelessness diminish our humanity. May my life help to awaken those I meet to Your presence and Your love. I pray this in your name and for your sake. Amen.