For the Church

Anxious for Nothing

Addressing the Worry I Can’t Explain

It was a Saturday afternoon, and I was about forty-five minutes from preaching the closing session of the seminary’s annual student conference. Sitting in my office and scrolling through my phone while listening to the session before mine on the livestream, I suddenly felt something very wrong.

My heart rate began to surge. I had the overwhelming sensation of my body “shutting down.” I felt internally as though I was seizing up and was about to die. Beginning to panic, I decided I needed to exit my office and enter a public area where I might access help. I thought I might be having a heart attack.

Sitting down on a couch in the foyer, I signaled security that I was in distress. EMTs arrived, stretcher in tow. After being examined, I opted not to go to the hospital. My wife came to get me and took me home, and the next day we went to see the doctor.

Blood was drawn. My heart was scanned. My personal and family history was scoured.

It was determined I had not suffered a heart attack. The diagnosis? Anxiety-induced panic attack.

This was not a total surprise to me, as I’ve been experiencing sporadic “flashes” of panic over the last six or seven years, always while driving. I’d never suffered an attack outside that context, and it didn’t feel quite the same. It felt more severe. I’d never felt before that I needed emergency services or that I was about to die. Now I’ve learned that this thing has been building, and it can strike any time.

Part of me wished they had found something else. Something they could go in and take out. Something they could “clean up” or fix. Instead I have . . . anxiety. Even when I don’t feel particularly nervous about anything.

“What were you doing when it happened?” people keep asking.

“Nothing,” I say. “Just sitting there.”

“Were you nervous about speaking?”

“No.”

“Were you agitated about something?”

“No. I was literally just sitting at my desk, killing time.”

I am literally “anxious for nothing.”

I have had people throw Bible verses my way, none of which have I been unfamiliar with. The top recommendation is of course Philippians 4:6-7: “Don’t worry about anything, but in everything, through prayer and petition with thanksgiving, present your requests to God. And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus.”

But it’s not that kind of anxiety. I am not worrying about any particular thing. People tell me, “Just don’t worry,” and I just say “Okay.”

And while it can feel helpless to contemplate whatever is going on inside of me, I am not helpless to address it the best I can. Here are three things I’m reminding myself in this new season of being anxious for nothing:

1. I Can Adopt Healthier Habits

It is very likely that this vague anxiety is the result of ten straight years of full-throttle work and ministry without an extended break. I do rest when I can, but it is never sustained and probably not enough to help my body recover from my work schedule. And it’s been very tempting while busy to become lazy in other areas, like diet and exercise, for instance.

It’s quite possible that my body is, as they say, “keeping the score.” So I’ve committed to a more regular day off each week, to a stricter diet, and to more vigorous exercise. Worst of all, I’ve cut out caffeine! No more quad-shot lattes each morning.

I might not be able to ward off all panic attacks this way, but I can try to offset them. Maybe given enough time, I can actually retrain my system to soothe itself. I can’t control everything, but I can be a better steward of what God has given me (1 Corinthians 9:27).

2. I Can Stop Saying Yes to Everything

I like to please people. I’d like to think that most of my speaking engagements are the result of wanting to be used maximally by God in the time I’ve been given. The reality is that there are probably some that are simply owed to my reluctance to disappoint anyone.

Billy Graham was once asked about regrets from his long journey of faithful ministry. Among his answers he mentioned saying yes to too may invitations. That was convicting to me.

But it’s not just speaking invites. It’s lots of other things too. I have to be very vigilant about my calendar, because I do not see an empty day as a chance for rest and recreation but as a place to schedule another appointment.

It’s the odd malady of our age where have all this technology and convenience to give us more free time, but we’re busier than ever. I can repent of people-pleasing and FOMO (“fear of missing out”) and take the risk of saying “no” more often.

3. I Can Cast My Vague Cares Upon God

It’s good that God’s peace “surpasses all understanding” (Philippians 4:7), because my anxiety surpasses my understanding too! But I don’t have to know the ins and outs of my condition to trust God with it. I don’t have to know just when the next panic attack will strike. I tell myself that it’s enough that God does. And I can trust Him with all the knowledge He omnisciently possesses.

You don’t have to understand all your cares to cast them on God (1 Peter 5:7). You just need to know He cares for you. He doesn’t love some idealized version of you. He really loves the broken, weird, messed-up you.

I’m not depressed, but I have been. I’ve known the dark shadow that cannot be explained, against which sentimental advice and inspirational pick-me-ups can’t prevail. It is easy to think in such circumstances that you’ve been forgotten or forsaken.

You may not comprehend all that’s happening to you, but you can remind yourself of the purposes of the One working it toward your eventual good. That’s what I’m going to do with my “anxious nothings”—ask God to take them away and believe that, even if He doesn’t, He is still good, still here, still actively working in my life to complete my joy and glorify Himself.

Don Whitney on the Gospel in Spiritual Disciplines

By gsutton / Apr 14

FTC.co asks Dr. Don Whitney, Professor of Biblical Spirituality at Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, “How is the gospel connected to the daily effort in the spiritual disciplines?”

To My Friends Who Are No Longer Friends With Jesus

By Lucas Hahn / Apr 13

To my friends who are no longer friends with Jesus: I want you to know that if I am aware of you walking away from Jesus, I have prayed for you and even cried for you. A couple of years ago I was reading The Last Battle from C.S. Lewis’s “The Chronicles of Narnia” to our kids. I came across a passage that took my breath away and filled my eyes with tears. Tirian, the last king of Narnia, is meeting the former kings and queens of Narnia:

‘My sister Susan,’ answered Peter shortly and gravely, ‘is no longer a friend of Narnia.’

‘Yes,’ said Eustace, ‘and whenever you’ve tried to get her to come and talk about Narnia or do anything about Narnia, she says, ‘What wonderful memories you have! Fancy your still thinking about all those funny games we used to play when we were children.’

The reason I got a lump in my throat and then looked at my wife Melanie and saw that we were both tearing up is because we were thinking of you, friends. Walking away from Jesus is not child’s play. At the end of The Last Battle, it is revealed that there has been a crash and the kings and queens are in heaven. They are safe, eternally. Susan is not. But there is still time.

It seemed that you used to be friends with Jesus. You sang to him, you read his Word, you prayed to him, you talked about him with me.

Only God, and maybe you, know if that faith was genuine. But I do know this: the Jesus you used to confess with your lips is the same Jesus who can save you today. It doesn’t matter if it has been years or months of walking away from him, Jesus died and rose again not to make it possible for us to earn our way back to God, but to bring us to God. He will still do that for you if you will come to him.

You are not the first disciples of Jesus to deny Jesus. Do you remember Peter, one of Jesus’s closest disciples and friends? He denied Jesus three times, when Jesus most needed someone to come alongside of him and stand up for him.

Decades later Peter wrote in 1 Peter 5:8-9, “Be sober-minded; be watchful. Your adversary the devil prowls around like a roaring lion, seeking someone to devour. Resist him, firm in your faith, knowing that the same kinds of suffering are being experienced by your brotherhood throughout the world.” It has never been easy to be a Christian. What stood true two thousand years ago stands true today: there is a great enemy of your soul.

Peter knew that Satan is active in the world today, and he didn’t just think of the devil like a roaring lion. It’s like Peter was remembering how he had felt that enemy breathing down his neck on the night that he denied Jesus.

But there is someone else described like a lion in the Bible, the Lion of the Tribe of Judah. Jesus is the One who was promised to come and save us. He came and represented God to us as holy and righteous and yet as willing and ready and able to forgive for when we have failed him.

Precious Words of Promise

Some of the most precious words in the Bible are at the end of the Gospel of Mark. After Jesus has risen from the dead, the angel tells the women at the tomb, “…go, tell his disciples and Peter…” (Mark 16:7)

The other disciples had failed too. They had also said they would follow Jesus all of the way. But only one of them, John, stood at the cross at the end. God made sure they all received the message of Jesus’s resurrection— “Go tell the disciples…” But he also put this nugget of grace on the angel’s lips: “…AND Peter.” Peter was a disciple. But God was already moving towards Peter specifically in his specific sin, preparing his heart for restoration.

I don’t know what God has been doing in your lives recently. But reading this article is a start. There is some reason you clicked on it.

When Peter denied Jesus, Jesus looked at him. If you sense the Lord looking at you right now, you have two choices.

You can try to run from the gaze of Jesus just like Adam and Eve tried to run from the eyes of God. Or you can run to the gaze of Jesus and see that there is forgiveness and acceptance and restoration in his eyes.

This is what Peter experienced when the resurrected Jesus came to them later, when Peter had gone back to fishing. When Jesus appeared on the shore, Peter didn’t hold back. Peter couldn’t wait to be near Jesus again. He couldn’t wait for the boat to get to the shore. Peter jumped into the water to go towards Jesus.

He didn’t walk on the water this time; he simply threw himself into the water to get to Jesus. That may be what repentance looks like for you, what coming back to God looks like for you. Just throwing yourself towards Jesus.

If you do that, I know that Jesus will be waiting for you. Jesus himself promised it and sealed it with his redeeming blood: “All that the Father gives me will come to me, and whoever comes to me I will never cast out.” (John 6:37)

Friends, if you come back to Jesus, he will welcome you home as his friends, now and for eternity. I hope to see you there.

Episode 206: What We Wish We’d Known in Our 20’s

By jredd / Apr 12

On this episode of the FTC Podcast, Jared Wilson and his wife Becky talk about the heart and vision behind their first book together, Go Outside . . . and 19 Other Keys to Thriving in Your 20’s, available this May from Moody Publishers.

On the third day He rose again — A Sonnet for Easter

By Brett Fredenberg / Apr 9

In the mornings this year I’ve been re-reading a fourth century masterpiece.

While Athanasius’s On the Incarnation is remarkable, it was C. S. Lewis who termed it a ‘masterpiece’ in his famous introduction to a new English translation of Athanasius’s work.

As I read through the chapters of De Incarnatione Verbi Dei, I started summarizing each of the fifty-seven sections in my own words and soon realized the helpfulness of this exercise.

Reading this old book has served to accomplish for me what C. S. Lewis hoped it would. Lewis advised, then in 1944, that in an era of modern controversies and division within Christianity “the only palliative is to keep the clean sea breeze of the centuries blowing through our minds, and this can be done only by reading old books.”

In specific, Lewis had in mind books that put forth a “standard of plain, central Christianity which puts the controversies of the moment in their proper perspective.” Even though it is now 2020 and we are not facing the same controversies of 1944, Lewis’s commending the reading of On the Incarnation does, indeed, put our controversies in perspective.

My reflection led me to another thought: could I condense and conform my thoughts on Athanasius’s work into a poem to summarize what I had gained? As only a poetry-appreciator, not a poet, I set out to learn more about form and structure and settled on a simple sonnet.

The sonnet, I learned, allows for poems with musicality but also to be read in silence. The 14-line structure and rhyming patterns function “like a box” and since sonnets are often meant to focus on a person, I thought it a good form to follow for a poem on the incarnation of Christ.

The result of my reflections on this “old book” was, first, a sonnet for Advent, and now the following sonnet for Easter.** Thanks to C. S. Lewis, it has helped me to keep this remarkable year in proper perspective.

**Working from my summaries of Athanasius’s last five chapters, I sought to structure the three quatrains around each chapter, with the last focusing on the last three. I created a spreadsheet to aid in building each of the 14 lines in iambic pentameter and around a specific rhyming sequence and then edited to final form.

For further reading:

Athanasius, On the Incarnation: the treatise De incarnatione Verbi Dei, translated and edited by a religious of C.S.M.V. (Centenary Press, 1944).
C. S. Lewis, “Introduction,” in Athanasius, On the Incarnation (St. Vladimir’s Seminary Press, 1996).
Peter Barnes, Athanasius of Alexandria: His Life & Impact (Christian Focus, 2019).
Rachel Richardson, “Learning the Sonnet,” Poetry Foundation, August 29, 2013.

* This article was originally published at jgduesing.com

Jeff Dodge on Theological Training and Intellectualism

By Web Dev / Apr 7

FTC.co asks Jeff Dodge, teaching pastor at Veritas Church, “How do you keep theological training from becoming intellectualism?”

What You Need to Know About the Seder Meal and Passover

By Lucas Hahn / Apr 6

As Holy Week approaches, many Christians and churches will begin thinking more intently about Passover. The final days of Jesus’ life coincide with the Jewish festival, and the New Testament unabashedly describes him as the “the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world.” (John 1:29). It is no mistake to associate the crucifixion with this festival established long ago, but how do we teach and preach about Passover? The most ready answer would seem to focus on Exodus 12, where the Lord gives Moses the commands regarding Passover. In fact, this is the longest and most descript passage regarding the Passover in the Bible. However, in recent times, many have found this passage to be insufficient for understanding the festival, turning to the Jewish tradition of the Seder meal as the source for understanding the Passover.

What is the Seder Meal?

For those unfamiliar with the term, the Passover Seder (from the Hebrew word for “order”) is a traditional Jewish meal that function as the centerpiece of the Jewish celebration of Passover. The meal is comprised of a complex series of steps with symbolic significance retelling the Jewish departure from Egypt. The famous Seder plate includes multiple items:

– a cooked egg symbolizing new life and associated with the festival in ancient times
– a green vegetable signifying Israel’s growth in Egypt
– a fruit paste symbolizing the mortar for building projects while in Egypt
– bitter herbs symbolizing the suffering of slavery
– a lamb bone symbolizing the sacrificial lamb

The lengthy liturgy (Haggadah) and symbolic meal (Seder) rehearsed in the Seder served to illustrate and teach the Jewish people about their heritage from ancient times. The instructions include a time where the sons ask their father questions about what makes the Passover night different, succeeding in carrying out the Old Testament instruction for fathers to teach their children about the exodus (Ex. 12:26, 13:6, 14; Deut. 6:12). But where did the tradition originate?

The Origins of the Seder Meal

The first recorded instruction regarding the Passover Seder is found in Mishnah Pesachim 10, a Rabbinical Jewish text likely composed during the 2nd or 3rd century AD. While there is little doubt that the Rabbinic Mishnah tractate reveals a tradition that goes back earlier than the 2nd or 3rd century, reconstructing the Mishnah’s place in early Judaism in fraught with challenges. Taking the Old Testament at face value, the Jews had been celebrating the feast of Passover for centuries (based upon the description found in Exodus 12). This conclusion is supported by the lack of reference to the Seder by early sources like the Book of Jubilees, Philo, and Josephus. In his decisive work on the topic, Jewish scholar Baruch Bokser argues that the Seder tradition is older than the Mishnah tractate but not earlier than the destruction of the temple in AD 70 (The Origins of the Seder [Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 1984]). Commenting on Bokser’s conclusion, Jonathan Klawan writes, “It’s not that rabbinic literature cannot be trusted to tell us about history in the first century of the Common Era. It’s that rabbinic literature—in the case of the Seder—does not even claim to be telling us how the Seder was performed before the destruction of the Temple” (“Was Jesus’ Last Supper a Seder?” Biblical History Daily, Biblical Archaeology Society). The Seder meal was an important part of Diaspora Judaism at an early date, but it is highly debated as to whether or not it reflects a pre-destruction era of Jewish tradition.

Was the Last Supper a Seder Meal?

Given the later development of the Seder meal, it is unlikely that Jesus’ last meal with his disciples was a Seder meal. Some have highlighted a few parallels between the Gospel accounts and the Seder tradition, but none prove the case. They are brief textual allusions, not recitations of the tradition encountered in the Mishnah. If we read the Gospel accounts of the last week of Christ harmoniously, it is evident that the final meal, crucifixion, and resurrection of Jesus occur around the celebration of Passover—a historical and theological reality that highlights the nature and design of the atonement. Regardless of whether the Last Supper was indeed a Passover meal or a normal meal on an earlier day, the origin of the Seder tradition makes it historically unlikely that this meal was carried out in the Rabbinic tradition laid out in the Mishnah.

As we think about the final week of Jesus, the significance of his death, and the role Passover plays in the Gospel narrative, these historical realities should shape the way we think and teach. While the Seder meal was an instructive ritual illustrating the Jewish story of liberation from Egypt, it was likely not the way our Lord celebrated Passover. It is quite possible that by the time of the New Testament, traditions and additions to the text of Exodus 12 had grown up around the festival. However, if we want to understand the divine design of Passover, we are better off looking to the words of Moses. The biblical foundation of the Passover tradition begins in Exodus and finds its fulfillment in a new exodus established for God’s people by a final Passover lamb. Our reflections upon Passover should never stray from the New Testament truth stated so powerfully by the Apostle Paul, “For Christ, our Passover lamb, has been sacrificed” (1 Cor. 5:7). We cherish Israel’s Passover because, by it, we come to know our own.

The Gospel Never Does Nothing

By gsutton / Apr 6

Christ who is the content of the gospel leaves no one in a neutral state.[1]

—Herman Bavinck

The one thing the gospel never does is nothing. Under the preaching of the gospel, no one remains the same. We are either moving closer to God or further from him. No one remains neutral. No one remains unchanged. We soften, or we harden.

Encountering Jesus is a life-altering event every time it happens. His word is always fresh. Even if we believe we know it, because he is God, his word is not returning void. Every time it is spoken, something happens. We fall in love with him, or we grow to despise him. We lean in, or we turn away. In every church meeting every Sunday morning, there is a massive movement in the hearts of people all over the world because of the gospel of Christ. Because Christ is the gospel, when we hear his word, we hear him, and when we hear him, we either fall down before him, or we run the other way. The one thing we don’t do is nothing.

It’s not always easy to perceive this movement. Perhaps we notice the leaning in more than the turning away. Yes, we can sprint in the other direction, but that’s not how it works for most of us. It’s more like drifting away at sea. The waves of doubt take us out. The depths of sin call us away. We move inch by inch, and we don’t see it until we’re further than we ever imagined we’d be.

Just as we can drift away, we can also inch closer. When Jesus melts our heart again and again, when his gospel surprises us with its grace and mercy, when we feel his love, and keep letting his love come into our heart, we step closer to him.

The one thing the gospel never does is nothing. No one remains in a neutral state.

God is in control of all things. He is sovereign. But he does ask us to believe him. Our only part in the gospel is our response to it. We either accept it or deny it. We either open our arms or cross them. We run toward or away. But we cannot stand motionless.

The good news of the gospel, of course, is that even if we jump a ship to Tarsus like our old friend Jonah, and even if a great fish swallows us up after we are thrown overboard, there is still hope. God still hears our cries in the deep, dark places of the stormiest sea. The gospel never does nothing, and because of that, there is always hope of redemption, even as there is always the danger of drifting away.

As long as Jesus is on this throne, as long as the Spirit blows like the wind wherever it will, as long as God is still a Father, there is hope. As we continually expose ourself to the gospel of Jesus Christ, and as we just open our empty hands before him, we can trust that he will do his work. He will not leave us as we are. He will increase our joy. He will soften our sorrows. He will heal our wounds. He will, if he must, even cause the fish to get sick and spit us upon his shores to witness his redemption.

God works in ways we can’t understand. The one thing we can be sure of, always, is that he works. He never does nothing. That’s good news.

[1] Herman Bavinck, The Wonderful Works of God: Instruction on the Christian Religion according to the Reformed Confession(Glenside, PA: Westminster Seminary Press, 2019), 399.

Editor’s Note: This article was originally published at thingsofthesort.com.

A Reflection on “The Sower’s Song” by Andrew Peterson

By Grace Pike / Apr 6

As you celebrate Holy Week and prepare for Easter Sunday, I pray this reflection on “The Sower’s Song” by Andrew Peterson helps you cherish the beauty of the resurrection and the immeasurable hope we have in Christ.

Have you ever summited a mountain at sunrise? Felt your heart swell with longing and hope at the appearance of green after a long winter? Been overwhelmed with love?

That is how I feel listening to “The Sower’s Song” by Andrew Peterson.

Peterson is a well-known wordsmith in Christianity. The Lord has gifted him a passion for sharing the power of truth, beauty, and goodness in Scripture and the arts. Thousands of believers will listen to Peterson’s Resurrection Letters albums in preparation for Easter this year, and his song “Is He Worthy?” is enjoyed globally by congregations every week. Though he has authored multiple award-winning books, teaches classes on writing, and founded a nonprofit ministry for Christians in the arts, my first exposure to Peterson was his 2015 album The Burning Edge of Dawn.

Listening through the album, I was immediately captivated by how beautifully he weaves together truth-filled words of praise, lament, thanksgiving, and prayer. (And sometimes all within the same piece.) As it always is with the best songwriters, Peterson does not simply sing songs. He is a storyteller who paints worlds with his words.

Amidst my early years of college and Christianity, Peterson’s lyrics provided a safe place to feel and reflect with the Lord. Enjoying that music while spending time in God’s Word became a regular rhythm of grace during that season. Then, one day, what had become just another part of my routine yielded a remarkable moment with the Lord that still impacts me today.

When I arrived at the last song on The Burning Edge of Dawn, I was not paying much attention. My mind was swirling with lingering guilt from an argument earlier in the week. I was trying to figure out how to afford the next semester of school, battling depression, and struggling to stay on top of all my relational and logistical responsibilities.

Suddenly, the first verses cut through the chaos:

Oh God, I am furrowed like the field
Torn open like the dirt
And I know that to be healed
That I must be broken first
I am aching for the yield
That You will harvest from this hurt

The words disarmed me. This gentle acknowledgment of brokenness and ache stilled my internal spiral, calming my mind as my soul listened to the truth of God’s sovereignty over pain. As I continued to listen, the prayer shaped by John 15:1-10 became my own:

Abide in me
Let these branches bear Your fruit
Abide in me, Lord
Let Your Word take root
Remove in me
The branch that bears no fruit
And move in me, Lord
As I abide in You

Tears began to spill from my closed eyes. Suddenly, I was there—staring “at the bright edge of the garden, at the golden edge of dawn, at the glowing edge of spring.” Even surrounded by the darkness of this present world, hope that every sad thing will come untrue blossomed in my chest.

Two minutes in, I was on my knees. The Lord saved me by opening my eyes to the beauty of the gospel through reading the Book of Isaiah. As Peterson sang the promises written in Isaiah 55:10-13, I felt the joy of my salvation renewed:

As the rain and the snow fall
Down from the sky
And they don’t return but they water the earth and bring they forth life
Giving seed to the sower, bread for the hunger
So shall the word of the Lord be with a sound like thunder
And it will not return, it will not return void
We shall be led in peace
And go out with joy
And the hills before us
Will raise their voices
And the trees of the field will clap their hands as the land rejoices

Truth warmed my soul like a fire illumining the room of a weary traveler. I already believed, but the Lord helped my unbelief. The surpassing worth of knowing Jesus overwhelmed me, and there was no doubt:

The tomb that once held the body of Christ broken on my behalf is empty.

The dawn of spring shouted a tangible reminder that the King who brings life from death rose and will return. The crescendoing melody wrapped around me:

And instead of the thorn now
The cypress towers
And instead of the briar the myrtle blooms with a thousand flowers
And it will make a name
Make a name for our God
A sign everlasting that will never be cut off
As the earth brings forth sprouts from the seed
What is sown in the garden grows into a mighty tree
So the Lord plants justice, justice and praise
To rise before the nations till the end of days

Listening to “The Sower’s Song” brought a powerful moment of clarity to my spiritual life. God’s Word proclaimed in Peterson’s song washed cobwebs from my walk with Jesus and refocused my desire to be a faithful ambassador of this coming Kingdom. Every April since then, as I watch the frost melt from new buds of life, the lyrics play through my mind:

It [God’s Word] will not return void
We shall be led in peace
And go out with joy

Whatever season you are in, I encourage you to reflect on these words in Isaiah. Marvel at God’s holiness in the throneroom of Isaiah 6. Be emboldened by the promise of God’s presence to the repentant in Isaiah 43. Behold the suffering Messiah foretold in Isaiah 53—the Lamb who was “pierced for our transgressions” and “crushed for our iniquities.” Sing with joy at Christ’s accomplishment of present justification and that you are sealed by the promised Holy Spirit for future glory.

Yes, the pain is real. But the promises are true.

Beloved, the face of Jesus will shine with such glory we will no longer need sunlight. His nail-pierced hand will wipe every tear from the eyes of his Bride. Our redeemed bodies will stand in the presence of the Prince of Peace, delighting in His majesty as death dies. Then the Sower of every flourishing promise will dwell with us for all eternity.

As you walk through the darkness, know the dawn will come. As you bear the thorn, remember the branches will bear fruit. As you feel the ache, trust that God is sowing seeds of grace even in your pain.

And the Sower leads us.

Episode 205: Daniel Darling on The Characters of Easter

By jredd / Apr 5

On this special Easter week episode of the FTC Podcast, Jared Wilson interviews author and professor Daniel Darling about the message of Easter as seen through the various witnesses to Christ’s resurrection.