Written by Marco Velasco, Academic Vice President, Nazarene Seminary of the Americas<\/p>\n
There is no resurrection without the cross!\u00a0 The four gospels include the retelling of the crucifixion of Jesus.\u00a0 This has to do with the heart of the good news.\u00a0 Death and resurrection are two sides of the same coin.<\/p>\n
It surprises me that often my thoughts and sermons express incorrectly that the most important part of the Christian message is the resurrection of Jesus more than his death on the cross.\u00a0 Faith and Christian life are combined and they impact both truths that belong equally to the gospel.\u00a0 In fact, the crucifixion and the resurrection are one truth that should be proclaimed and lived.<\/p>\n
The Apostle Paul in his letters shows us and demonstrates the centrality of the cross of Jesus both in his message and in his ethical Christian demands.\u00a0 Standing before the Jewish threat, Paul confirms in Galatians that \u201cI have been crucified with Christ\u00a0and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me.\u00a0The life I now live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God,\u00a0who loved me\u00a0and gave himself for me\u201d (Galatians 2:20).\u00a0 In the middle of the conflict with the Corinthians and their attacks against Paul\u2019s apostleship, he expresses, \u201cFor I resolved to know nothing while I was with you except Jesus Christ and him crucified\u201d (1 Corinthians 2:2a).\u00a0 This had an effect on the way that Paul preached.\u00a0 \u201cMy message and my preaching were not with wise and persuasive words,\u00a0but with a demonstration of the Spirit\u2019s power\u201d (1 Corinthians 2:4).\u00a0 In the letter to the Colossians he says, \u201cWhen you were dead in your sins\u00a0and in the uncircumcision of your flesh, God made you alive with Christ. He forgave us all our sins,\u00a0having canceled the charge of our legal indebtedness,\u00a0which stood against us and condemned us; he has taken it away, nailing it to the cross.\u00a0<\/sup><\/strong>And having disarmed the powers and authorities,\u00a0he made a public spectacle of them, triumphing over them\u00a0by the cross\u201d (Colossians 2:13-15).<\/p>\n The cross is a place of victory for the faithful Christian even in the middle of weakness and the attacks of Satan. \u201cTherefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ\u2019s power may rest on me\u201d (2 Corinthians 12:9b).\u00a0 What Jesus did on the cross broke the power of sin that enslaved us.\u00a0 The suffering of Good Friday with the crucifixion and death of Christ is the beginning of the Christian celebration of the victory of Christ over evil.<\/p>\n Now!\u00a0 Brothers and sisters, let\u2019s celebrate, live and share this message of victory over sin in the world. \u201c\u2026because it is the power of God\u00a0that brings salvation to everyone who believes\u201d (Romans 1:16b).<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Written by Marco Velasco, Academic Vice President, Nazarene Seminary of the Americas There is no resurrection without the cross!\u00a0 The four gospels include the retelling of the crucifixion of Jesus.\u00a0 This has to do with the heart of the good news.\u00a0 Death and resurrection are two sides of the same coin. It surprises me that <\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":55468,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3380],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-55467","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-articles"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.mesonaz.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/55467","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.mesonaz.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.mesonaz.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.mesonaz.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.mesonaz.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=55467"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.mesonaz.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/55467\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.mesonaz.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/55468"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.mesonaz.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=55467"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.mesonaz.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=55467"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.mesonaz.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=55467"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}