Our God is an awesome God
who reigns from heaven above,
with wisdom power and love.
Our God is an awesome God!

Peter, in our first reading,
give us the Cliff Notes version of the Gospel.
He had been invited into the home of Cornelius,
a Gentile, who never worshiped the God of Israel.
Cornelius and his family had already received the Holy Spirit,
but didn’t know much about Jesus or his teachings.

Our God is an awesome God!

God blessed Cornelius and his family
before they believe in Jesus.
they did nothing to deserve the outpouring of the Holy Spirit,
but somehow God chose them
and blessed them.

Our God is an awesome God!

This morning,
as we celebrate the Resurrection of the Lord,
we are equally blessed.
We did nothing to deserve the redemption
given us through the Passion, death and resurrection of Jesus.

Peter’s message to Cornelius and his family
is a message for us, as well.
All that God did for Jesus,
all that Jesus did to save us,
all that Peter proclaimed that day so long ago,
enables us to rejoice today,
and we are, like Peter,
“commissioned to preach to the people
and testify [by our lives] that Jesus is the one anointed by God
as judge of the living and the dead.”

Our God is an awesome God
who reigns from heaven above,
with wisdom, power and might,
our God is an awesome God!

Paul, in our second reading, writes to the Colossians,
that they, and we after them,
“were raised with Christ.”
We “have died, and our lives are hidden with Christ in God.”
And one day, we “too will appear with him in Glory.”

What we celebrate today
will happen to us.
We will rise to new life in God
and share in God’s glory.

Our God is an awesome God
who reigns from heaven above,
with wisdom, power and might,
our God is an awesome God!

And the gospel story is not just something that happened some two thousand years ago.
It is not just something Mary of Magdala witnessed.
It is not just what the Peter and the other disciple whom Jesus loved saw
when they approached the empty tomb.
It is something that is happening right here and right now.
The tomb in Jerusalem is still empty,
and whether we’ve been there or not,
we “saw and believed,”
just as the other disciple did,
not because we saw the burial cloths there,
but because we’ve seen the results of that day.

Our God is an awesome God!

I’ve often believed that we were not saved by Easter.
we were saved by what happened on Good Friday.
We were saved as he died on the cross,
as he offered forgiveness to those who crucified him,
as he welcomed the repentant thief into paradise,
as he cried out “My God. My God, why have you forsaken me,”
and “Into your hands I commend my spirit.”

We were saved by his blood poured out for us
and for our salvation.

But Easter is important,
because without the resurrection
we might never have known
what he did for us
before they pierced his side
and blood and water poured out for our salvation.

Our God is an awesome God!

Today, everything he taught,
every miracle he performed,
every person he touched with God’s grace
and his healing hands
is confirmed.
We know God,
we know the Father, Son and Spirit,
because of what happened that day
when a stone was rolled away
and a dead man came back to life.

And “though they did not yet understand the Scripture
that he had to rise form the dead,”
We know it all,
because like Cornelius in the first reading,
like the Christians of Colossia who receive a letter from Paul
and like the disciples gathered in the upper room
fifty days later,
we have received the Holy Spirit
by the grace of God.

It wasn’t our doing.
It was simply the awesome wisdom, power and might
of our God!

Our God is an awesome God
who reigns from heaven above,
with wisdom, power and might,
our God is an awesome God!