Matt 28:5-7, And the angel answered and said to the women, "Do not be afraid; for I know that you are looking for Jesus who has been crucified. "He is not here, for He has risen, just as He said. Come, see the place where He was lying. "And go quickly and tell His disciples that He has risen from the dead; and behold, He is going before you into Galilee, there you will see Him; behold, I have told you." 
We rejoice today in the exact same truth as was declared to those who came to the tomb of Jesus more than 2000 years ago. The words of the angel of the Lord are the very reason that we are gathered together as the family of God, celebrating the Life of Jesus that has been given to us by the working power of God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. 
"He is not here, for He has risen, just as He said. It is because of the fact that Jesus died and then was raised from that death through the miraculous power of the Omnipotence of the Triune Deity that our lives have been changed from eternal death and damnation unto eternal life and glorification. That life is everlasting, brilliant, and awesome in the abiding power and presence of Our Lord and Savior.
"He is not here, for He has risen, just as He said. This declaration caught these women off guard. They were expecting to anoint His dead body and prepare His remains for eventual interment after the traditions of the Jewish culture. They were in mourning, utterly lost in the aftereffects of Jesus’ horrible crucifixion. 
His faithful disciples had no clue what they would do for the rest of their lives now that their teacher, their friend, their hope for some better way of life had been so brutally and viciously snatched away from them. They were cowering in the fear of the same horrible death being so savagely thrust upon them. All hope was gone. All joy had been smashed. All the words of Christ had been stifled as His disciples were so fraught with despair and anguish and hopelessness.
Such has been the condition of so many of us in our lives before God revealed to us the truth of this statement. He is not here, for He has risen, just as He said. 
We, too, were without hope, lost in our sin and trespasses, seeking after any way to bring some sense of substance and meaning into our lives. We might have lost ourselves in work, or drugs, or drink, or any course of action which would indicate that we mattered, that we were worth something to somebody. 
Our lives were the continual description of heart ache and woeful searching for success and glory and fame and meaning. We were utterly despairing of ever finding satisfaction and joy and peace and comfort and rest. It was a continual need to meet our perpetual dissatisfaction and failure to fill the void that can only be satiated by a living relationship with the Lord God Almighty. This is solely possible through the gift of His salvation in His Only Begotten Son.
Therefore, let us spend the remainder of our time this morning, discovering that which the angel brought to the remembrance of those beloved disciples. The fact was that Jesus was so lovingly faithful to make known to His followers the truth of what would have to take place. He had to die before He could be resurrected. This was in order for this gift of His eternal salvation to be ushered in for the sake of all those who would believe upon Him and be covered by His atoning death and His redemptive resurrection life. He has risen, just as He said…
Please open to Matt 12:38-40 where Jesus detailed to the scribes and Pharisees, through the very use of their most cherished scriptures of God’s Word, the significance of what the Prophet Jonah had undergone. That was not just an event in the history of the prophets. It was the foretelling of what would happen to the very Son of God for the sake of those whom He would bring into salvation.
Matt 12:38-40, Then some of the scribes and Pharisees answered Him, saying, "Teacher, we want to see a sign from You." But He answered and said to them, "An evil and adulterous generation craves for a sign; and yet no sign shall be given to it but the sign of Jonah the prophet; for just as Jonah was three days and three nights in the belly of the sea monster, so shall the Son of Man be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth. 
In dealing directly with His disciples, Jesus did not hesitate to instruct them over and over again that this was the course that He needed to take. He wanted them to know what was going to happen in order to prepare them for the hardest time of their journey with Him. He did not waver in teaching them of the ways of the Lord, including the necessity of His own death. He encouraged them with the reality that the grave would not hold Him but that He would rise triumphantly on the third day.
Please consider Matt 16:21. Matt 16:21, From that time Jesus Christ began to show His disciples that He must go to Jerusalem, and suffer many things from the elders and chief priests and scribes, and be killed, and be raised up on the third day. 
Jesus was a loving teacher and did not want His immediate friends and followers to be caught unawares. Even though the Lord did not withhold that truth from them, they still were caught off guard and in despair when what He taught them came to fruition with His crucifixion. 
It is difficult for us to think that, particularly Peter and James and John should have been set in the knowledge of what was necessary. They had been included in a most special and extraordinary event in which the Father declared, on the Mount of Transfiguration, that Jesus was His Beloved Son. They had witnessed Moses and Elijah talking with Jesus, so they knew that their friend and their teacher was to be counted among the greatest of the prophets of the Lord. 
Please turn to Matt 17:1- 9. We want to read together the account of this phenomenal event. 
Matt 17:1-9, And six days later Jesus took with Him Peter and James and John his brother, and brought them up to a high mountain by themselves. And He was transfigured before them; and His face shone like the sun, and His garments became as white as light. And behold, Moses and Elijah appeared to them, talking with Him. And Peter answered and said to Jesus, "Lord, it is good for us to be here; if You wish, I will make three tabernacles here, one for You, and one for Moses, and one for Elijah." While he was still speaking, behold, a bright cloud overshadowed them; and behold, a voice out of the cloud, saying, "This is My beloved Son, with whom I am well-pleased; listen to Him!" And when the disciples heard this, they fell on their faces and were much afraid. And Jesus came to them and touched them and said, "Arise, and do not be afraid." And lifting up their eyes, they saw no one, except Jesus Himself alone. And as they were coming down from the mountain, Jesus commanded them, saying, "Tell the vision to no one until the Son of Man has risen from the dead." 
    	Encouragingly and very specifically, Jesus told these three disciples that He would rise from the dead. This meant that He had to die. Jesus did not withhold the truth from them. 
In this very same Chapter 17, verses 22+23, Jesus once more made it very clear to His followers that which was going to happen to Him. He was not going to die a natural death from old age or from disease or illness or accident. He was going to be put to death. He was going to be deliberately killed. However, He was going to rise victoriously from that death. In so doing, He was going to deal with the greatest fear that plagues humanity in the victory of overcoming death with life. We know that they heard Jesus because after He told them this, they were emotional wrought.
Matt 17:22+23, And while they were gathering together in Galilee, Jesus said to them, "The Son of Man is going to be delivered into the hands of men; and they will kill Him, and He will be raised on the third day." And they were deeply grieved. 
    	And then, as the time was drawing nearer for all that the Lord God had planned and purposed in being born of a woman and taking upon Himself our burdens of guilt and trespass and sin, He once more informed His disciples of this in Matt 20:18+19. He went into even greater detail infused with gruesome clarity that His death would not be quick and painless. 
This was the necessary means of dealing with all the sin and faithlessness of humanity. The Holy and Righteous Lord God had suffered all the infidelity and the selfish abusiveness of humanity. Still, He held true to His covenant Promise in all His faithful dealings with His Chosen Nation, whom He so loved.
As a result, Jesus, the Son of God, would have to suffer the ultimate death for the sake of His beloved human creation. He would be the physical expression of the infinite love and mercy and grace of God by bearing, upon His body, the full weight and punishment and abuse of our sin which was our separation from any fellowship with Our Creator. There was no other way of it!
	Matt 20:18+19, "Behold, we are going up to Jerusalem; and the Son of Man will be delivered to the chief priests and scribes, and they will condemn Him to death, and will deliver Him to the Gentiles to mock and scourge and crucify Him, and on the third day He will be raised up. " 
    	The disciples understood the brutal and sadistic manner of this Roman scourging and crucifixion. There was no more terrifying and painful and humiliating way to die. It would so disfigure and violate Jesus’ physical being; leaving Him an utterly and almost unrecognizable mass of raw muscle and bone. His skin would be ripped asunder from His body after all the whipping and the mocking scourging of those Roman soldiers was exhausted upon Him. 
Then, He would be nailed to the rough hewn cross of wood. There, He would eventually suffocate because of the inability to hold His body upright to breathe. It was the harshest and most despicable means of execution known to man.
That abusive and vile means of the sacrifice of His life was what Jesus told His disciples awaited Him, the Perfect Lamb of God, in Jerusalem. And again, after suffering all the foulness of man’s inhumanity to man, He, Jesus, the Only Begotten of the Father, would be raised up, by the Omnipotence of God, on the third day.
	Once more, on the very night that He was betrayed, He again detailed exactly what would happen as recorded in Matt 26:31+32. All along, He made it very clear that His death was imminent and that afterward He would be raised up from that death. He made no effort to hide the truth from them. Neither did He try to sugar coat it in any manner. He was very plain and distinct and direct in His instructing with them for the sake of their comfort for that time when His presence would be so violently ripped asunder from them.
	Matt 26:31+32, Then Jesus said to them, "You will all fall away because of Me this night, for it is written, 'I will strike down the shepherd, and the sheep of the flock shall be scattered.' "But after I have been raised, I will go before you to Galilee." 
    	The fact is that Jesus made His death and resurrection so very clear, so very often, that the priests and Pharisees knew all about it. They were so concerned that, as is detailed in Matt 27:62-66, they wanted to do anything and everything that would prevent even any rumor of His resurrection from being promoted and spread abroad. 
Please open to these verses so we can read exactly how they responded and reacted. This was in order to try to prevent the disciples from staging the resurrection that Jesus of Nazareth had spoken of so freely to all those who would listen.
	Matt 27:62-66, Now on the next day, which is the one after the preparation, the chief priests and the Pharisees gathered together with Pilate, and said, "Sir, we remember that when He was still alive that deceiver said, 'After three days I am to rise again.' "Therefore, give orders for the grave to be made secure until the third day, lest the disciples come and steal Him away and say to the people, 'He has risen from the dead,' and the last deception will be worse than the first." Pilate said to them, "You have a guard; go, make it as secure as you know how." And they went and made the grave secure, and along with the guard they set a seal on the stone. 
    	Yet, despite the very best efforts by all the forces of the opposition manifestly determined to keep Jesus in the grave, He arose the Victor of that dark domain, as the old hymn declares and He lives forever with His saints to reign. He arose! He arose! Hallelujah Christ arose, just as He said He would all along to any and to all who would listen to Him and believe Him.  
	Our last reading of this wondrous and glorious Easter truth is found in the Gospel of John, Chapter 10, verses 14-18. Herein, the Lord lay before His listeners and before each one of us exactly why He had to die and then be raised up again. Through His resurrection power, because He obeyed the eternal plan and purpose of God, eternal salvation was instituted not just for the Jews, but for the Gentiles as well. God’s free gift of life in Jesus was opened to every tongue and tribe and nation. To all who would choose to believe in Him and in His wonderful work of love, He would become the Good Shepherd. 
	John 10:14-18, "I am the good shepherd; and I know My own, and My own know Me, even as the Father knows Me and I know the Father; and I lay down My life for the sheep. "And I have other sheep, which are not of this fold; I must bring them also, and they shall hear My voice; and they shall become one flock with one shepherd. "For this reason the Father loves Me, because I lay down My life that I may take it again. "No one has taken it away from Me, but I lay it down on My own initiative. I have authority to lay it down, and I have authority to take it up again. This commandment I received from My Father." 
For this reason, because of the tremendous work of God so instituted in Jesus Christ, the Only Begotten Son of God, we are here as His Flock this Easter morning and every Sunday morning. We celebrate Jesus’ life, not just once a year, but every moment of every day because we are now indwelled by Him, just as He always taught for all who have ears to hear. So be it!
"Do not be afraid; for I know that you are looking for Jesus who has been crucified. "He is not here, for He has risen, just as He said. Amen. 

As far as announcements go, we are entering the digital age with great aplomb. We will be streaming our worship service every Sunday morning at 10 AM, such as we did today, until this pandemic gives way to our physically being joined again in worship. You can reach this stream through the Conejo Koinonia Church website. That is www.tenke.net  That is where you will as well find many of the Word files as well as most of the audio sermon files. 

For our beloved children, there should be a video file uploaded to our Youtube website especially for you. I will try to have one for you each week. I sure miss each one of you and the joy that you bring to all of us each Sunday morning. I especially miss your wonderful responses and your hugs and your loving smiles and sincere delight in the Bible time. Love you and miss you.
As well, we had our Men’s meeting on the Zoom platform this past Tuesday. It was a joy to see the brethren gathered together in the Word. If you would like to join that meeting, please send an email to Kip so he can add you to the invitation list in Zoom for our study of Isaiah. His email is kiplyche@yahoo.com
		
Concerning Zoom, please email me at ted.enke@gmail.com if you would like to have some help getting it to work with your computer or Smartphone. I will do my best to help you. 

We will be conducting our Wednesday Night Prayer Meetings via Zoom at 7:30. I am in the process of getting anyone interested in being part of the prayer meeting set up with Zoom and will be forwarding invitations via email. If you want to participate, please email me, again at ted.enke@gmail.com, for your invite.

Our prayer for this Easter morning is that in all our family interactions, we will cherish and acknowledge the grace and the mercy and the love with which we have been showered by the Lord God Almighty in the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ, Our Lord and Our Savior. He is our Good Shepherd. We have been loved into eternal life by God – Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Our attitudes and our demeanor and our interactions with all those in our families and our neighborhoods must reflect the truth of our new life in Jesus Christ. Thank You Lord for everyone whom You have chosen to be your witnesses of truth and love and peace in the midst of the chaos and the hopelessness of our current time. You are our hope and our salvation now and evermore, Amen. 

	This morning’s benediction is Gal 4:4-7. But when the fulness of the time came, God sent forth His Son, born of a woman, born under the Law, in order that He might redeem those who were under the Law, that we might receive the adoption as sons. And because you are sons, God has sent forth the Spirit of His Son into our hearts, crying, "Abba! Father!" Therefore you are no longer a slave, but a son; and if a son, then an heir through God. Amen.