Easter: The Ultimate Message of Hope

Photo Source: churchofjesuschrist.org

When the women set off that morning, they surely expected a long day of sorrow. After all, their destination was the tomb of the one they believed to be their Messiah. Now He was dead. Everything they had expected, all the glory they had waited to see, all the hope He had given them seemed as lost to them as He was.

What inklings might they have had that the day was no normal day? That even as they walked solemnly toward the garden tomb, the day had already superseded every other day in the history of the world?

How could they have expected to find an empty tomb?

Of course, they knew that death could be overcome. They had seen it, only days before, when Lazarus was called out of his own tomb by Jesus.

But Jesus was the one with the power to raise the dead, and He was gone. Maybe it seemed impossible that death could be overcome when Jesus Himself had succumbed to that final fate of all humanity.

I can’t think of a better time to be proven wrong.

Because the tomb was empty when those women came to it. The burial clothes were folded. Angels stood ready to announce the good news.

The best news.

He was not there.

He is risen.

He lives – He was alive that very day and He lives TODAY.

The day of sorrow turned to a day of shock and joy. To learn that death wasn’t all-powerful, that Christ had all power over death – it was a moment that shook the foundations of human experience.

Until that day, death was the end. Until that day, death was inevitable. Until that day, death was a final goodbye.

Until Jesus.

He rose from the dead, His body perfected and immortal, resurrected to His full glory. Jesus lives, and because He lives, we have the promise that we will also live again.

Everyone we know and love, all those we have lost, each and every one of us, will be resurrected just as Jesus Christ was resurrected. He made it possible for us by leading the way.

It was a day of ultimate hope. And each day since then has been filled with that same hope and promise.

He lives.

“We testify that Jesus Christ lives! “He is risen” (Matthew 28:6). Because of Him, we can be guided and strengthened as we bear the burdens we face in mortality. Through our faith in the Savior’s atoning sacrifice, the bonds of sin cannot hold us and the trials that we experience in life will have no lasting power over us. “The sting of death is swallowed up in Christ” (Mosiah 16:8).”

The First Presidency’s 2024 Easter Message

The Easter Collection

The Expectations and Realities of Christ

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