No visit to Israel is complete without a visit to Gordon's Calvary. Otherwise known as the Garden Tomb, Gordon's Calvary sits behind a bus station in one of the Arab sections of Jerusalem. The rocky face of the hillside forms the likeness of a skull. The features of a skull - the eye sockets and nose - are so prominent that you can't help but think that this was the place of Christ's crucifixion. It is a perfect place to contemplate what Christ endured on your behalf.

The Roman soldiers nailed his hands and feet to a cross, they pressed a crown of thorns on his head, they pierced his side with a spear, and they gambled for his robe. When Jesus was thirsty, they gave him vinegar to drink. For three agonizing hours, under darkened skies, Jesus hung suspended between heaven and earth. Then he cried out, "It is finished!" And with those words, he died. He had carried out the will of his Father for you and for me. Our sins were taken away by the One who loved us and gave himself for us.

The cross is the place where our stale, empty lives end. Not far away is the place where our new lives begin, at the empty tomb.

This is the story of Christianity. What's more, it is our individual story. Because he lives, we live - not at a point in the future, but right here, right now.

The power that released Jesus's body from death and clothed it with immortality is the same power that is available to us for living here and now. Living in this power should change us and enable us to experience a quality of life we've never known before.

But how? How do we live in the power of Christ's resurrection? How does this amazing, earthshaking event become the central issue of our lives?

Finding the answer to these questions is the key to experiencing the newness of life God has for us in Jesus.