Witnesses to Eternity - Apr 5, 2026
The recording captures an Easter Sunday worship service at the Witnesses to Eternity church. The service opens with a celebratory prayer referencing Revelation 1:7 and the resurrection, followed by congregational singing of hymns praising the risen Christ. A reading of the Emmaus road narrative is performed, after which Pastor Paul Condrell delivers a lengthy sermon. Condrell contrasts personal (eyewitness) and second‑hand (ancestral) witnesses, explaining that faith is the ability to receive truth without seeing it, and that Scripture is the “vocabulary of the Spirit.” He interprets the Emmaus encounter as Jesus teaching the disciples through the Old Testament, using a “prequel” analogy: stories of Abraham, Joseph, Jonah, Samson, Daniel, and others foreshadow the Messiah’s suffering and victory. He emphasizes that understanding these typologies turns second‑hand testimony into living faith. An object lesson with a crown of thorns is introduced (though not enacted), leading into an open communion where participants share bread and wine while recalling Thomas’s doubt and belief. The service includes corporate prayers for the congregation, global concerns, and personal needs, followed by announcements about Easter activities, volunteer needs, upcoming Bible study, and community events. The service concludes with a benediction and a pastoral blessing invoking the Emmaus disciples’ burning hearts.
Chapters
Good morning, everyone. I see a big smile in everyone's face this morning. For a reason. Because today we are celebrating Easter. In Jesus' name, we begin today's worship. In the book of Revelation chapter 1, verse 7, we read, "I," that's John, "was in the spirit of the Lord's day." By the time John wrote the Revelation, Christians already were celebrating Lord's day. That is Sunday, the day Jesus Christ resurrected from the dead. Because of Jesus' resurrection, we gain eternal life. We see eggs, rabbits, the spring's Budding flowers and leaves, we know it is the vigorous flourishing of life. We will be like Jesus in the future, have eternal life. What a day that is worth celebration! Let's pray. Thank you, Jesus, for your sacrifice for our sins. Because of your sacrifice on the cross and especially your resurrection, we can have the hope of eternal life just like you. The Lord lives and blessed be my Rock, and exalted be the God of my salvation. In Jesus' name we pray.
Amen.
Good morning, everyone. Could you all please rise and join us as we worship? Sing Christ the Lord.
Christ the Lord is risen today.
Hallelujah!
Sons of men and angels say hallelujah! Raise your joys and triumphs high, hallelujah! Sing ye, heavens and earth, Glorious King. Hallelujah. Where old death is now lasting. Hallelujah.
Hallelujah!
Once he died, our souls do say hallelujah! Where thy victory, oh, great hallelujah! The Lamb's redeeming work is done.
Alleluia!
Father, fight the battle won.
Alleluia!
Death in vain, for bids his rise. Alleluia! Christ hath opened men's eyes.
Hallelujah!
So we now where Christ hath led. Hallelujah!
Hallelujah!
Oh, exalted King! Hallelujah! May like Him, like Him, we rise! Hallelujah! Arms across the grave, the skies! Hallelujah!
Hallelujah! Hallelujah! My Jesus, my Savior, Lord, there is none like you. All of my days I want to praise the wonders of your might. My comfort, my shelter, tower of refuge and strength. At every breath, all that I am never cease to praise. of your reign. I sing for joy at the work of your hands. Forever I'll love you, forever I'll stand. Nothing compares to the promise I have in you. My, my comfort, my shelter, our refuge and strength. Let every breath, all that I am, never cease to worship you. Shout to the Lord, all the earth, let us sing. Power and majesty, praise to the King. Mountains bow down and the seas will roar. At the sound of your name. I sing for joy at the work of your hands. Forever I'll love you, forever I'll stand. Nothing compares to the promise I have. Nothing compares to the promise I have. Nothing compares to the promise I have in you.
Come on, this is the reason we're singing today.
Death could not hold you. The veil tore before you. You silence the boast of sin and grave. The heavens are roaring the praise of your glory, for you are raised to life again. You have no rival, you have no equal, now and forever, God, you reign. Yours is the kingdom, yours is the glory, yours is the name above all names. What a powerful name it is, what a powerful name it is, the name of Jesus Christ my King. What a powerful name it is, nothing can stand against. What a powerful name it is, the name of Jesus. Death could not hold you, the veil tore before you. You silenced the boast of sin and grave. The heavens are roaring the praise of your glory, for you are raised to life again. You have, you have no rival, you have no equal, now and forever, God, you reign. Yours is the kingdom, yours is the glory, yours is the name above all names. What a powerful name it is, what a powerful name it is, the name of Jesus Christ my King. What a powerful name it is, Nothing can stand against what a powerful name it is, the name of Jesus. What a powerful name it is, the name of Jesus. What a powerful name it is, the name of Jesus.
Let's bow our heads in prayer. Dear Lord Jesus, thank you, Lord, that we can gather here today in remembrance and celebration of what you accomplished on that cross, what you accomplished by overcoming the grave, by taking the debt and sin of the world upon your own shoulders because we couldn't do it on our own. Lord, thank you. Thank you that we can call Friday good because we know that today, today, 2,000 years ago, you rose from the dead, and with it you have conquered death forever. That we, many of us, may die, or that we have the hope of resurrection, that we have the hope of heaven, the hope that one day we will too will join and rise you in glorious resurrection life, that we might be able to join with you forever, singing with the song of the saints and of all the angels, glory to our God, hallelujah. Lord, help us to not forget the joy that comes with this day, and help us to not lose sight of it even as this day passes and the rest of the world comes roaring back at us, when the regular week comes back to us, Lord. Would you remind us that this day, this day in history, wasn't just a day that happened 2 years ago, 2,000 years ago, but it's still a day that resounds throughout history today, and it still has meaning for us today, Lord, that we can live out of this joy, we can live out of this hope that you've given us and that you've won for us. Thank you, Lord. Thank you, Lord. So would you be with us this morning As we once again look upon that empty tomb, as we once again join together and sing your praises, Lord, thank you. Would you be with us this morning? In Jesus' name we pray. Okay, before you're seated, could you please spend a few minutes and greet those around you?
We are going to read the Mr. Scottias, please rise.
Let's read together.
The first day of the week, two disciples were going to the—
Jesus himself drew near, but their eyes were kept from recognizing him. He asked, "What are you discussing as you walk in this desert looking?" One answered, "Are you the only loser today?" 'Who does not know the things that have happened there in the day?' And he said to them, 'What things?' They said to him, 'Young Jesus of Nazareth, a man who was a prophet mighty in deed and words before God and all the people, and how achieved he the glory of God.' But we had hope that he was the one who did this. And this is now the third day since these events happened. However, some women of our company were at the hotel early in the morning and they heard that they came back and said that they had seen the police. And some of those who were with us went to the— and he said to them, "O foolish ones," and so on.
What a hard reception.
Was it not necessary that Christ should be slain? And it began with Moses and all the prophets. He interpreted all the things that have come. So they knew him to be a saint, a prophet. He stayed with us. So he went in. He took the bread and blessed and broke it. And he went to find some. They said to each other, "They're not our husband, really." Now he opened the arrows, left some, and returned to town. And they found the disciples. And they were talking about this Jesus and so on.
I said to you, there was a—
why don't you ask in your heart what means is this spirit does not have cancer? And he said, I have no other thing here. Then he said to them, "These are my words that I spoke to you." That written. Then he opened their understanding and said to them, "Thus it is written that Christ should die and rise from the dead. You are witnesses of these things." Priest.
Thank you, Michael, and thank you everyone for reading. That was a little bit longer than usual passage, and I want to remind us that there's really two kinds of witnesses out there. There's one kind of witness that has personal experience or eyewitness, and then there's people who have a witness as secondhand, they've got information from someone else. So you could say we have the evidence of when we can touch and feel, and then evidence that's passed down to us from others, like from our parents. In Chinese, do you know the word for truth in Chinese? Zhen. If you take apart the pieces of the character, the character in the middle, it means ancestors. In other words, where do you get truth in Chinese? You get it from your ancestors. You don't rely just on what you've experienced. You haven't lived long enough to have experienced everything that you need to know. And so it's actually more important the information we get secondhand than information that we get firsthand. And in the church we talk about this thing called faith, and faith is when we're able to receive receive a lot of information and truth secondhand. Basically, that's what it means. Am I doing— yes, here we are. Faith is able— the ability to learn without seeing. And it says in Hebrews, faith— to have faith is to be sure of things we hope for and certain of things that we cannot see. Now, when I was younger, in my teens, and first became a Christian, a born-again Christian, I had a brother who thought it sounded like I was getting brainwashed. So I ask you, if we have faith, does it require us to become brainwashed or foolish? Quite the contrary. But it does require us to become educated. We have to learn before we can understand. So where do we get this education? It says in Romans that faith comes by hearing, and hearing— something very specific— hearing by the word of God. In order to be educated in things of God, we have to speak his language, and the scriptures are the vocabulary of the Spirit. When I learned Chinese, the first lesson, "Here is the vocabulary list." You can't get through the first dialogue without it. And so we're going to look in the Scriptures today and we're going to beef up a little bit on our vocabulary. And the story began, if you remember, with two disciples. It didn't as we just read. But this is moments after the resurrection took place, the very day. But of course, they hadn't seen, they hadn't been there, but they had heard about it through these women and what others had told them. But they, they were walking away from Jerusalem and they were sad. And isn't this a great picture of the human condition? We're in the presence of this great reality, but we can't see it. We don't believe it. We're disappointed. We're wounded. And we are walking in the wrong direction. But suddenly in this story, Jesus walks up beside them. And they don't recognize right away what's going on. And that's kind of a picture of this whole Christmas story, isn't it? Jesus suddenly— came down from heaven, as we learned, and he appeared on earth. But of course, no one recognized this baby except, of course, if they'd heard from the angels saying, "This is the one." They didn't recognize him. How could they? And so here is another picture of the human condition. We're sad, and yet we're right in the presence of the resurrected Jesus. He asks them, "What's on your mind?" And they shake their heads. It's a great time in history, and yet they've heard this, they've heard that, they don't know what to think. Now, I've often wondered, why didn't Jesus just sort of rip off the robes, "It's me!" He could have like put them out, pulled them out of their funk, like right away, just by— he could have just showed the wounds, right? That would have been a very fun and different way of telling the story. But no, instead he looks at him, he raises one eyebrow. I don't know if this is a totally— not a historical photograph, obviously. But he raises one eyebrow and says, "You find it so hard to believe all the prophets written in the scriptures?" And so instead of showing, he's living out what we just read, that faith comes by hearing the word of God. So he's going to remind them, because they're obviously educated, they're disciples, they've been around the scriptures for a lifetime. And yet he's going to have to reacquaint them with what he says here. "Jesus took them through the writings of Moses and all the prophets, explaining all the scriptures— from the scriptures all the things concerning himself." So in a minute, I'm going to try to recreate this— of course, they did it in 2 hours, I suppose. It was a 7-mile walk. But we're going to only have a lot less time than that to do it, to recreate this conversation and to try to look at which scriptures might he have been explaining to them. Well, when they got to where they were going, they invited him to come in. They wanted to hear more from him. But when it got time to share the meal, he broke bread and they recognized him. And so suddenly they went from being that second kind of witness where they were hearing things secondhand to now they are become eyewitnesses of the resurrection. It didn't last long. It says he, he disappeared very quickly at after that. But that was enough. And today, after the message and another song, we are going to share communion, which if you've been in this church for a while, you know that every month we try to recreate this encounter with the Son of God or encounter with God to try to— like that touch in the picture of, I think it's Michelangelo or somebody, of God touching Adam's finger. And we're going to do that in a few minutes, but I just wanted to, before we get there, to zero in on this verse where the two disciples are reflecting, Jesus now having disappeared, "Did not our hearts burn within us while he talked to us on the road and while he opened to us the scriptures?" So that food that they had eaten had given them heartburn. No, the witness, the things that they had heard about the word from Jesus that touched their hearts before they saw him, that was the learning that they were able to gain from Jesus, didn't come from when they witnessed him, when they recognized him, but before they recognized him. In other words, their understanding of the scripture helped them to recognize him and not the other way. Around. So what did Jesus share with them that day? Now, they weren't ignorant, as I said. They knew a lot, and they probably knew very well that the Messiah was going to be a prophet just like Moses. They sometimes called him that prophet, the new prophet that Moses had said, God would raise up a prophet like me from among you, from your brothers. This was known, well known among all Jews. So this probably wasn't what he was going to just repeat things they already knew. And of course, they would have known that the new— the Messiah is going to be on the throne of David. He's going to be of the line of David. They knew the Messiah was going to be a new king. And surely they would have known the very beginning in Genesis when at the fall of man, when God curses the the serpent who had deceived Adam and Eve and says to him, "I will put hostility between your offspring and the woman's offspring. He shall bruise your head." That this record in Genesis is understood as the earliest prophecy of the Messiah who's going to come and crush the serpent, who's going to overcome evil, who's going to snuff out Satan. So they would know all of that.
This.
But if they had looked more closely, in that very verse there's another little clause tucked in there that says, "And you shall bruise his heel." Jesus the Messiah would crush the head of the serpent, but the serpent would get in a lick before he could, so his heel would be bruised. Now, had they read that before? I suppose they had, but they hadn't focused on What does that mean? And so this, I'm guessing, is the sort of place that Jesus might have begun to explain that this thing we've heard out, the new king, the new Moses, the new David, the new conqueror, the new prophet, is going to have to go through something before the victory is won. And it's first mentioned that he will have his heel bruised. Now, in Isaiah, there's this one chapter, very poetic, that's often quoted in Christian circles, not so much in Jewish circles, where it says— and you'll hear this in the, the music called "The Messiah"— "Surely he has borne our griefs and carried our sorrows. He was pierced for our transgressions. He was crushed for our iniquities. His chastisement brought us peace, and with his wounds we are healed." And this passage describes how the Christ, the suffering servant, will have to suffer. And if they had focused on that, they might have had an inkling. But I suppose this is another record that Jesus might have brought. You know how when you read the Bible and you see something you don't quite understand, you just sort of skip over, right? Well, this is probably something that they skipped over. And so he might have brought that to their attention. And now in retrospect, they'd say, yeah, yeah, yeah, we know that. Now previously, Jesus had mentioned that the story of Jonah— there's not just direct prophecies in Scripture, but there are stories in the Scripture that are also themselves a kind of prophecy. So there's the story of Jonah being swallowed up by a fish. And if you remember, there's this big storm, and the sailors are all thinking, "We're all gonna die." And Jonah said, "Don't worry. If you toss me off, you'll live. I'll be the only one to die." And they didn't want to do it, but he convinced them to do it. So they threw Jonah off, and all the soldiers lived. But what happened to Jonah? He was drowning, but he prayed while he was drowning, and God sent a fish to swallow him up and to keep his body and spit it out on dry land 3 days later. Now, Jesus had already taught that as Jonah was 3 days and 3 nights in the belly of the great fish, So will the Son of Man, meaning himself, be 3 days and 3 nights in the heart of the earth. He called it the sign of Jonah, so that the story was a picture of what they could expect. So obviously there's a case of some suffering, a death coming before new life. And so that must have been one of the things that Jesus shared on that walk. Now, also in Genesis, everyone— well, one of the famous stories is about how Abraham was told to sacrifice his son Isaac, which was incomprehensible for him for a moment. But he figured out and explains this in Hebrews that the reason God wanted him to kill his son was not to kill his son for good, but that after he sacrificed Isaac, God was intending to raise him from the dead, that Abraham had figured out that God was going to raise Isaac and that that was why he asked him to make the sacrifice. But as you know the story, just as he was about to do it, the angel stopped him and said, "Here, there's a ram over there in the woods, in a thicket, in a bush. Sacrifice him in place of Isaac." And in Hebrews it says that was like being raised from the dead. Isaac, who was surely a goner, he was raised from the dead because of this other animal that was sacrificed in his place. And we all know the story of Joseph, who actually twice went down before he could come up. The first time when his brothers buried him in a pit out of jealousy. And some of the brothers sounded like they wanted to kill him, but in the end they brought him up and they sold him into slavery. In Egypt instead. Another picture of going down before you could be raised back up. And then this one that's pictured, Joseph, if you remember the story, was unjustly accused of attempted rape and landed in jail in an underground dungeon for years. But while he was in there, he met some people and he was able to discern and interpret the dreams of these two particular gentlemen, one he discerned was going to be favored by God while one was not. And later, when those two were released, the word got out, "There is a man in prison who can interpret dreams." And when Pharaoh had a bad dream, he called Joseph up. And this Joseph that had been in prison with no hope was then raised, not only alive again, but actually the number two. Seated at the right hand of Pharaoh himself. These are the kind of stories I imagine Jesus was sharing with the disciples and making them feel warm all over. Then there's the story of Samson. And Samson is sometimes, you know, he's given a bad rap, I think. But there is this moment after he is because he loved this girl Delilah so much, he revealed the secret of his strength. But she betrayed him, and he got his eyes poked out and became— he was turned over to the Dagon worshipers. But one day after his hair had grown back, he had brought him to— he was in the temple, and though he was in chains, he asked his keeper to put him near the main pillar that's that supported the temple. And by a miracle, he was able to push down the pillar or pillars, and it collapsed the whole temple with 3,000 idol worshippers inside. And it summarizes saying that Samson did more in his death— he killed more bad guys in his death than he had in his life. And here again, is a picture of how the crucifixion, while it looked like a terrible defeat, was actually— and it did bring Jesus down just as it brought Samson down— it was also a great victory and perhaps amounted for more in his death than some of the miracles and other things that he had done in his life. And who hasn't gone to Sunday school school without knowing the story of Daniel, a high-ranking government official who did so well that he made other people jealous, and they made a special law just to get him hooked, to frame him, and ended up getting him sentenced to death by lion's den. And he suffered through a night praying and wondering, "Is God going to come through for me like He did for Shadrach, Meshach, Nebuchadnezzar or not. But the next morning, when the king went, "Was your king— was your God able to save you, Daniel?" The answer was yes, and he raised him up out of the pit, a kind of resurrection, if you will. And the last example I wanted to share is that of Mordecai. You've heard of the book of Esther and Queen Esther. But a lot of people are so focused on Esther, you forget what Mordecai did. Mordecai was her adopted father. And he also worked among the— some of the government people. And he had done a good thing for the king, but the prime minister named Haman hated him because Mordecai would not bow down for Haman, the prime minister. So Haman made a plot and he built a gallows. This gallows was made by Haman. To hang Mordecai. The evil guy is going to hang the good guy on it. But what happened was, just the day before, the same day he was planning to do it, the king discovered Mordecai had done something good for him. He decides to honor Mordecai, and instead Haman got exposed. And Haman was hung on the very gallows that he intended for Mordecai. Mordecai, the good man. And so we can see kind of a picture, can't we, of how Satan thought, "Oh, I got Jesus now," and he put him on the cross. Little did he know that he was signing his own death warrant. And so Jesus walking and just casually retelling the stories that they had known so well, but looking at it through a different lens and saying, "Wow, this is what it really— the story is really all about." Now I've shared this picture with— in the past and in previous sermons, but I thought it bore repeating, which is when we see all of these Bible stories and we kind of lay them on top of each other, we get a composite picture of what the Messiah is all about. And if— I used to be in my former career involved in printing, and if you know how printing works, how do you get color printing? Well, it only takes 4 colors of dots, and when you put them together, you can get all the colors of the rainbow, except gold. So that shows us how all of those Bible stories are kind of like a setup or prequels prequels to the Messiah. I didn't even know what a prequel was until Star Wars. Remember seeing the first— I was old enough to see the first Star Wars and it was a 3 or 4 or 5. Does anybody know which was the very first Star Wars? 4? And it said, you know, Star Wars number 4 and I was like, "Huh?" And later someone explained they're going to roll out the the earlier ones after the later ones. Okay, whatever. But that's what happened in the Bible. So we got all these prequels first, and then we got the story of the Messiah. Now what's kind of cool is if you flip this around, we now have and we can learn about what Jesus did, what he was, what he is, and all of its full color. And now we can imitate— we're supposed to be Christ like, right? We can't. How could we possibly? We might only have— I'm only yellow. I don't know about you. Actually, I have olive skin. That was the wrong color to choose for me. There's no olive up there. I'm Greek, and the Greeks are supposed to have olive skin. So I only have olive. So I can't possibly do a full-color representation of the Messiah, but I can do olive. And so, okay, can we have someone out there to do pink? Hey, Esther, will you be our pink, please? That's her favorite color. And so between all of us, we can put all the colors together and we can represent Christ in this world. We are like the sequels of the Messiah. And another way to look at it, I was— this is another image. You know when you hear a whole orchestra, you've got all these parts all playing at once, and if you're the conductor, your score looks like that score. It's got all these rows on it, one row for each instrument. And if you ever watch the conductor, the poor guy's got to be turning his pages just every few seconds. He's turning another page because his score has to fit so much music. But here, this is the bassoon, part. If you're the bassoon part, you only need one piece of paper for the whole, the whole piece, because you can just have a bunch of rows that are just for you. So there he is, the one bassoon is just that one line. So each Bible story is like part of this great symphony, and they make an amazing harmony. And then on the counter side, each of us, we don't have to play the whole, every part. We're not all like Jonathan, and we can play every instrument that's ever been invented. We only have to play one or two. Isn't that nice? And it makes beautiful music. And so the men who had begun that afternoon sad, depressed, disappointed are now very excited and so joyful. They've just walked 2 hours in one direction. They had their meal and now they're going to walk 2 hours back because they can't wait to tell the other disciples, "We saw him!" They can't wait to tell them, so they zip back to Jerusalem. And this is the new human condition, because we have seen— at least the eyes of our hearts have seen— something that is so special. Amazing, full colors, more pretty than a butterfly. It makes us no more disappointed and sad, but excited and joyful because we are witnesses, witnesses of the truth that God, the invisible God, is just behind what you can't see, behind the curtain, if you will. And the symphony is being played. And everywhere around us is the beauty of his creation. After this, they get back to Jerusalem, they see the disciples, and Jesus shows up right there among them. And yes, they had their little moment of excitement and touching and, and experiencing the eyewitness part. But then Jesus goes right back to the Scriptures and it says, "He opened their minds to understand the Scriptures and said to them, 'Thus is it written, that Christ should suffer and on the third day rise from the dead. You are witnesses of these things.'" The Scripture is our witness. We learn things from our parents, but we also learn from our parents' parents. But then there's our parents' parents' parents who we've never met, but their words, their thoughts are still being passed down. And ultimately, the scripture is our— like our spiritual ancestors that have passed on to us if we are willing to learn, to be educated, and to have our hearts burn with the joy that we get when we can see in our mind's eye what it's all about. Let's pray. Father, we are thankful indeed and joyful indeed. There is a whole cloud of witnesses, our spiritual ancestors who have lived years ago in different parts of the world and history, but also like different parts of the symphony, Let us receive your word and your music. Jesus Christ, he, he tied it all together. He interpreted the dream like Joseph, so clearly, so wisely, so beautifully. It's a masterpiece, so perfect that we can believe it. Without having to see with our own eyes. Father, thank you for the life within us and the talents that we do have to play our own part with gladness, side by side with our brothers and sisters doing their part. Together, let us rejoice that Christ is risen indeed.
Okay, could you all please rise and join us?
through the fiercest drought and storm. What heights of love, what depths of peace, when fears are stilled, when striving ceases. My Comforter, my All in All, here in the love of Christ I stand.
They're in the ground.
They're in the ground. His body lay, light of the world. Covered by darkness late, and burst in gold, in glorious day. Up from the grave he rose again, and as he stands in victory, sin's curse has lost its grip on me, for I am his. He is mine, bought with the precious blood of Christ. No guilt in life, no fear in death. This is the power of Christ in me. From life's first cry to final breath, Jesus commands my destiny. No power of hell, no scheme of man can ever pluck me from his hand. When he returns or calls me home, here in the power of Christ I'll stand. <LYRICS>I find my strength, I find my hope, I find my help in Christ alone. When fear assails, when darkness falls, I find my peace in Christ alone. I give my life, I give my all, I sing my song</LYRICS>— to Christ alone. The King of Kings, the Lord of Lords, all heaven sings to Christ alone. In Christ alone. Till he returns or calls me home. Here in the power of Christ I'll stand. Here in the power of Christ we stand.
Amen.
You may be seated.
This morning we have an opportunity to do an object lesson with this crown of thorns, real thorns put together by Caitlin, my daughter-in-law. Thank you, Caitlin. So I'm going to ask for a volunteer to come forward, and I'm going to put this crown of thorns on you. Okay. No, I'm sorry. I want to be just like Abraham. I'm going to just put it like 1 inch away from your head and then I'm going to take it off. It's real thorns, so I don't want to draw blood.
Okay.
I'm standing here. Do you really want to? I wasn't intending to actually do it. I was intending to say we didn't really have any volunteers, but now that we do have a volunteer— Now I'm stuck. What am I going to do? I really don't want to put this on. He's actually a doctor, so he can medicate himself immediately afterwards. It wasn't intended to be. It's not gentle. So I don't want to put it on you.
You don't want to put it on?
OK, do you want to? You can take it back to your— I'm going to put it on my neck. Oh, Caitlin, you made it too big. Oh well, so I guess we won't have to put it on you after all. It could become a— You're welcome to come up afterwards and inspect. Yes, it really is.
Wow.
So as you know, we practice open communion in our church, so it doesn't matter where or when or how you were baptized. If you would like, you are welcome to share with us.
Now, uh-oh.
Okay, I can't see it on this monitor. Is it possible to make that work too? So the story picks up right where we left off at the end of the sermon when we saw how the disciples were assembled in Jesus' presence and he was explaining He showed them His resurrected body. He ate with them. But there was one disciple that didn't make it that day. That was Thomas. Someday we can ask him, "Where were you?" And of course, they all told Thomas, "Thomas, we saw Him. It was amazing. He ate food with us. This is what He said." And Thomas, he was very self-assured, confident. Intelligent, perhaps a little stubborn. He said, "Unless I place my finger into the marks of the nails and place my hand into His side, I will never believe." He had been around all of Jesus' miracles. He had seen everything He had done. And he knew a lot of the Scriptures, but this is where he stood. And you can't blame him really. I mean, a lot of people that would be in the same position. But it says that 8 days later, the disciples had another meeting. This time Thomas was with them, and Jesus came again, stood among them, and said, "Shalom." He went right to Thomas, and he said, "Put your finger here and see my hands. Put out your hand and place it in my side." He had heard or he knew that Thomas was the skeptical one. And immediately, I'm sure Thomas was a little bit set— let's see, he was a little bit off guard. And but here are some paintings that have been made of that moment where Jesus opened up, took off the top of his garment and welcomed Thomas to have a closer look. And here is another artist's rendition of what that might have looked like. And quoting what he had said in the other gospel, it says, "Touch me and see. A spirit does not have flesh and bones as you see that I have. Do not disbelieve." 'But believe.' It's hard to put ourselves in that situation, but you can imagine it was a little overwhelming. So Thomas has this aha moment, right? He exclaims, 'My Lord and my God.' And this is where we are today. We're sitting calmly in our hearts. We're about— in our seats. We're about to partake of the elements. But in this other— there's another picture of— little technical difficulties. Advance one slide, please.
No.
On the surface, everything is fine. And I suppose Thomas, the previous picture of Thomas was probably more historically accurate that he was kind of shocked and surprised and let out this, "My Lord and my God," and probably bow down to the ground. But this painting, I think, is more accurate of what's going on in his mind, right? Can you— you just can't imagine that touching the resurrected Jesus in that setting and having gone from the disciple to the unbelieving and now witnessing with your own hands and eyes. And perhaps sad that he had been doubting in the first place, perhaps sad at all the suffering that Jesus had to go through. But here he has encountering eternal life right in front of him. And now it's mealtime. Let's advance one more slide, please. So ushers, would you please come forward? The Apostle Paul writes, "Let a person examine himself and then eat of the bread and drink of the cup." So we're going to do that now. When you get the elements, please hold on to them and wait so we can do that together. Lord, hear our confession. We are unable to touch your wounds, but we have heard We have read, we believe, and we know that Christ is risen. Truly he is risen, and so we say hallelujah. Lord, look on this bread and look on this cup and remember Jesus' body broken for us and his blood spilled for us. At the Last Supper, Jesus told his disciples, do this in remembrance of me. This is— this bread is the body of Jesus. Eat it now in his memory. This cup is the The blood of Jesus. Drink it now in his memory. After Thomas made his declaration to Jesus, my Lord, and my God. Jesus said, blessed— he said, you have seen and believed, but blessed are those who have not seen and yet believed. Lord, this morning we have eaten true food and drunk true drink. We are satisfied. Let us hold to the words of scripture, your words, by which we are witnesses of your resurrection and of eternal life. I'm going to ask Paul Nettler to share a corporate prayer now.
Thank you. Hi.
There was a thief that was on the cross next to the cross that Christ was on, and he died. And he went to heaven and met— he was met at the gates, and they asked, "What are you doing here?" "Well, I'd like to get in." "But you've got a rap sheet a mile long. You've been convicted of a felony. You're sentenced to death." "Yes." "Have you kept the Ten Commandments?" "None of them." "Are you a member of the synagogue?" "No." "Have you been baptized?" "I don't even know what that is." "Well, why should we let you in?" "The guy on that center cross, he said he had my back, and he's gonna put in a good word for me." "Welcome to Paradise." Let us pray right now. Let's enter corporately, all minds, all hearts joined together. And as we come, let us bow our heads and come with an attitude of thanksgiving. Let's come before His presence with thanksgiving. Let's come into His courts with praise. We are thankful for that guy, that dude on the center cross. We are— thank You for His invitation.
We are—
thank You for His having our back. Lord, we thank You for all of the members here today at WCEC, be they in the sanctuary now or sitting at home watching YouTube. We thank You for everybody that's here. We hope that they've all had a blessed— we've all had a blessed day. Lord, we thank You for all of the staff that's here. Paul and Ching Lee and David and Paul and James. We thank You for all of the elders and the deacons. We thank You for all of the volunteers. We thank You for the people that are in this congregation that need Your guidance, Your touch, be it health-wise or emotional-wise. We pray especially for Roberto this morning. This morning as a group, as a congregation, as a corporate body. Lord, let's pray for this nation, that there be a revival, awakening, a recognition of You as God, one nation under God. We pray for the conflict that's going on in Iran right now. We pray for the Iranian people. We pray for the Venezuelan people. We pray for the Chinese people, the Ukrainians, the Russians, all around the world. There's a revival going around everywhere, and we praise You for that. Lord, we ask Your blessing that Your nation will appear on this earth. We ask Your guidance for today. We thank You for Your love. We thank You for all of the visitors that are in this church today. Bless them. Thank You for having them come to us. May they experience your love through us. We ask this all in Jesus' name. Amen.
Speaking of visitors, if you're here for the first time, if you would raise your hand, we have a gift for you. And Dwight back there, I think, can bring you something. Just keep your hand raised again. He didn't see that. Dwight, here in the front.
Yeah.
I think it was Frank and Gloria— Sharon, sorry, Sharon. Frank and Sharon. Anybody else?
Okay.
All right, well, welcome and good to see some of you folks coming back. And I do recognize a lot of faces of people coming back. And Maybin, I see you hiding there.
Yeah.
So anyway, today we have a lot of things going on. And first, I have to mention something about moving chairs. What in the world is that? So due to To the weather and this Easter egg hunt that we have for the kids, we need folks, so a lot of able-bodied people to help us, so think youth, young college and young adults, to move the center chairs to the back of the room. And they do come apart pretty easily, so after everybody's more or less cleared out, we need your help. Secondly, we normally have Sunday school in the hour at 11:00 11 o'clock. Today is special. Many of us have started at 7:30 with a service, and we just, you know, just had another service. And so at 11 o'clock, instead of having a Sunday school, we're going to test a little bit of the knowledge that you might have picked up over the years in Sunday school with an Easter bingo. Then it's not the exact same kind of bingo that you've had before, but but it is under the auspices of bingo. Then also at around 12:10, 12:15, we have lunch. Yes? Oh, cookie. Cookie decorating. Oh, sorry. OK, there's some cookie decorating after the bingo. So the bingo won't take the whole time. There's some special cookies. I didn't know what they were for, but I saw them. And then lunch after that. Some people might be already full of Cantonese noodles, but there is lunch at 12:10. And then youth volunteers, youth, we need you guys back in the lounge at 12:45 to help out with the distribution of the Easter eggs and helping Ching Lee with the Easter egg hunt. Okay, we assume that it is going to rain, that's what the weatherman's been telling us. Then the— some of the normal things that we do weekly. Wednesday, 7:30, we have the prayer circle. Join us for that. Salt and Light Fellowship next Saturday. Momco on the 14th, keep that in your calendars. Don't forget the 25th, there's a great need for blood donors. And so Stacy's in the back. Stacy, would you raise your hand if you would like to give blood? She has forms in her hand right now. So we, we collect your donations, but we also like your blood. And so not us, it's the—
she—
this is something that Stacy does for the Red Cross. I was at a meeting last week of thousands of toxicologists. They had the Red Cross there to collect people's blood. They need people's blood just because of a great need for many in the country. And I did want to put a bug in your ear for the Memorial Day weekend. We will be having our regular retreat at Black Rock. Professor, Pastor Andrew Lee, I'll tell you more about him later on. Next slide is a little bit of a reveal for coming next Sunday. We'll be starting a series on Ephesians. So that's it. If you would stand now, please rise for the doxology.
Things flow. Praise him, all creatures here below. Praise him above, ye heavenly host. Praise Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.
Remain standing for the benediction.
May you be like the men on the road to Emmaus, and may your hearts burn within you as you walk with Christ today and every day, listening to his words and loving him.
Go in peace.
Thank you for coming.
Happy Easter.
God bless you.
