Renew our trust in your Son, whom you raised from the dead; strengthen our faith that all who have died in the love of Christ will share in his resurrection.
The minister is saying that death is not the end for those who believe in Jesus as it means that you will rise again just like Jesus did.
Also, baptisms bring people into a new life, in the Christian Church with Christ.
In addition, every Sunday, Christians recite the Nicene Creed. It is a statement of Christian belief concerning the Resurrection. It states:
On the third day he rose again in accordance with the Scriptures; He ascended into heaven and is seated on the right hand of the Father.
(Nicene Creed)
Christians believe that they should care for the dying and that they can always look for signs of new life breaking in on any “bad” experience.
The Hospice Movement aims to seek the best quality of life for patients with terminal illness, to care for the whole family both before and after bereavement and to provide a dignified way of death. The Catholic Church says that pain is sharing in Christ’s passion; ‘death has lost it’s sting’, and people can die knowing that there is something else.
Easter celebrates the Resurrection of Jesus and it is the most important festival of the Christian year. Empty crosses are hung up in churches to show that Christ has risen from the dead.
Christians believe that Jesus died on the cross for their sins therefore when they are forgiven of their sins they make a fresh start and start a “new life” just like Jesus did when he resurrected from the cross.
The Resurrection softens the feel of death. For example, Maximilian Kolbe, a Polish Catholic priest, offered to die in the place of a fellow-prisoner who had been condemned to death as a reprisal for the escape of three prisoners from Auschwitz in 1941. He believed that there was life after death as he said:
Every man has an aim in life. For most men it is to return home to their wives and family, or to their mothers. For my part, I give my life for the good of all men.
In 1981, the centre of a town called Lisburn in Northern Ireland was devastated by a bomb. The Presbyterian church was one of the buildings most severely damaged as its stained-glass windows were blown out. However, some of the pieces of missing glass could not be restored. The shattered pieces of glass which could not be replaced were not wasted. They built a new window representing the Resurrection, an expression of hope.
After three years, there was another bomb in the town which again blew out several windows, including the resurrection window. There were discussions about what would happened now and the minister, Gordon Gray, said, “It will be the first to be replaced.” Therefore, today the church has a second resurrection window. This is what the Resurrection means to Christians, not something that happened two thousand years ago but something which offers power to overcome evil. To a Christian the resurrection means that when evil has done its worst, God can still create something beautiful out of the ruins.
