Jesus is Risen! Believe and be blessed!

For the last six weeks, we have been thinking about the good news we believe as Christians and how to confess it with just seven words. And I’ve got to tell you, you’ve come up with some great confessions [share a few particularly insightful examples from the congregation]. On this Easter morning, let’s craft one more version of the gospel…the significance of Jesus’s victory over the grave using only seven words. When 10 disciples report seeing Jesus alive on Easter evening, Thomas proves the most unyielding skeptic. He refuses in the strongest possible way to believe that Jesus lives; he even puts a demand to God before he will believe for himself. 8 days later, Jesus appears to the 11 again and tells Thomas to put his fingers where his faith should be. The hardness of Thomas’s unbelief melts at the physical sight of Jesus, and Thomas professes Jesus as both Lord and God! Are believers today at any disadvantage from those first witnesses who got to see the resurrected Jesus with their own eyes? Not all all! In fact, Jesus pronounces every person since blessed who believes in Him solely on the basis of their eye-witness testimony. Do YOU believe their witness? Theme: when believing for us is not seeing, yet no less blessed!