The Good News of Easter – John 20:1-18
As I look around this congregation this morning, I see smiling faces, a few sleepy eyes, and the hope of Easter morning played out throughout the world.
But as I look out on our world today, I see great events playing out all around us that sap our energy and steal the smile and the hope out of many of us.
World wide, the economic health of the United States is being monitored closely as one danger sign after another rears its ugly head. The Fed continues to lower interest rates in an attempt to forestall any major collapse in our economy, while a major investment bank, Bears Stearn nearly goes belly up.
The genocide of innocent people, perhaps most familiar to us as a part of Hitler’s Germany before and during World War II, has continued into our current age in countries such as Yugoslavia (or Bosnia), Rwanda, Iraq, and most recently the Sudan.
And look at the weather and so many other natural disasters. As we look at the newspaper or the internet, it appears that the whole of civilization is falling apart – right in front of our eyes.
These and many other world-shaping events are so important. They are literally changing the course of history. And as I watch, I wonder.
Is this the tolling of the final bell? Is this the end of time as prophesied in scripture?
Well, I’ll be honest. I DON’T KNOW! But I do know a couple of things.
1) I know that life does not go on for ever. There is loss, there is death. Someday, everyone of us must face our own mortality.
2) And second I know that no other event in history has shaped the world like the life, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ.
And that makes all the difference in the world.
This morning I stand before you to proclaim Hope, the Hope of His Resurrection.
There is death. Yes.
But there is life in Jesus Christ – New Life!
There is new life here and now, and
there is new life after death.
As disciples of Jesus Christ – as believers in the faith –
we all have the Hope of Resurrection.
Friends, you have come here this morning with a sense of anticipation and longing. Yet, for some of us, there are serious questions on the mind …… and much hangs in the balance.
Is there hope?
Is there new life?
Is there reason for joy?
Well, the answer to your questions has arrived this day. It is here and it is now. It is a seven word message:
Christ Is Risen! He is Risen Indeed!
Good news for the depressed.
Good news for those who have lost loved ones.
Good news to those who have lost their joy. Good new to each and every one of us, regardless of our circumstances or our situation.
Christ is Risen. He is Risen Indeed!
If you have every had any questions about the reality of the resurrection, if you have every had any question lingering in the back of your mind, consider with me, this morning, the testimony, and I believe the verification of the fact of Easter morning.
Number one, the disciples were changed. Have you ever considered how this fact is true? I believe that the most telling evidence of the resurrection is not the empty tomb but the transformation of the disciples.
Their disappointment changed to exhilarating joy.
Their fear changed to an evangelical boldness. They assumed a new audacity.
In less then two months they went from cowardly disciples who locked themselves behind closed doors for fear of the Jewish authorities, to courageous apostles who stood before thousands in the presence of the Jewish authorities proclaiming the Good News of Jesus Christ.
If you need proof or evidence this is what can be offered. After this – it is a matter of faith. But it was enough for the disciples. It changed their lives.
Secondly, because of the resurrection our own view of death has changed.
I like the story of a pastor who on Easter morning was visiting the grave of his parents. He was quietly standing before the headstone when he heard music blasting from a car stero. He said he could hear the bass even before he spotted the car. Around the road of Memorial Park came a car filled with teenagers. They were laughing and shouting and his first inclination was that they were there to create some sort of trouble.
Surprisingly, however, the car stopped by a grave in the distance. They all got out and they went over to a particular marker. They stood there quietly, and they all broke out in tears. They embraced one another. Then they slowly got back into their car and quietly they drove away. They came in joy and departed in sadness.
The pastor later said, "I can’t help but think how that first Easter was different. The women came to the tomb in sorrow and left in joy."
You see, because of Easter your whole view of death has forever changed. The Resurrection is the absolute bedrock of our faith. Take it away, and you no longer have a church. As Paul said to the Corinthians: "… if Christ was not raised (from the dead), then all our preaching is useless, and your trust in God is useless. And we apostles would all be lying about God, for we have said that God raised Christ from the grave.” NLT.
The resurrection affirms our instinctive conviction that death is not the end of any person's story. It’s not the end of your story, which is rooted in the heart of God.
It is, of course, true, that a day will come when we shall all die and enough time will ultimately pass that no living person will speak our name. But the resurrection affirms that God will always know our name and that he will never stop loving us. Simply because our hearts have stopped beating, does not mean the last chapter has been written. Death has been swallowed up in victory.
Even nature seems to want to scream out the loud news of resurrection at this time of the year. You can’t help but recognize the life that is all around. That which was dead, a seed, which fell to the earth and rotted, is alive again. Wernher von Braun, the renowned atomic scientist, toward the end of his life, said, "Everything science has taught me--and continues to teach me--strengthens my belief in the continuity of our spiritual existence after death. Nothing disappears without a trace."
Nature does not know extinction; it only knows transformation. If God applies that principle to the least of his creation, doesn't it make sense that he also applies it to man?
So, we’ve talked about the change in the disciples. And we have talked about the change in our view of death . And third, because of the resurrection, our view of Jesus has changed. It is interesting to me that the biblical story ends as it began.
At the birth of Jesus the angel's message to the shepherds is: Be not afraid. When Mary comes to the tomb on that first Easter Sunday the message is: Be not afraid.
Today, we have come full circle. The message seems to be that despite the fact that we have been taught from childhood that God is love, the angle’s proclamation “Do not be afraid” appears to illustrate that at some deep and internal level, we remain very frightened of God. And at a certain level, this is with good reason.
We know God's purity and we know our inadequacy.
Yet, because of the resurrection, our whole understanding of God is different. Why? Because our understanding of Jesus is different.
The one on the cross and the one who rose from the dead is none other than God incarnate. Jesus the Galilean is God in human form. Our judge, God,
has nail prints in his hands. An Almighty God experiencing an all too human suffering.
Jesus, God on earth who was crucified on a cross is none other than: your shepherd fighting for you survival in the valley, your bread sustaining you during the famine, your counselor who defends you on judgment day.
He is the door, the vine, the gate, the light of the world. He is your sacrifice before God for the sins you have committed. None other can plead your case before God. None other is qualified to stand before God and plead for you. And how do I know this? One reason.
He lives today through His resurrection. Because of the resurrection our whole understanding of Jesus is different.
In the winter of 1982, while he was Vice President to Ronald Regan, the elder George Bush represented the U.S. at the funeral of former Soviet leader Leonid Brezhnev. Bush was deeply moved when he witnessed a silent protest carried out by Brezhnev's widow. She stood motionless by the coffin until seconds before it was closed. Then, just as the soldiers touched the lid, Brezhnev's wife performed an act of courage and hope, a gesture that might even be called an act of civil disobedience: She reached down and made the sign of the cross on her husband's chest. There in that citadel of secular, atheistic power, the wife of the man who had run it all hoped that her husband was wrong. She hoped that there was another life, and that that life was best represented by Jesus who died on the cross.
She prayed that the same Jesus in whom she believed, she prayed that He might also have mercy on her husband. Despite a lifetime on state sponsored indoctrination, she knew that death was not the end.
Because of the resurrection we see the disciples differently. Because of the resurrection, we see death differently. Because of the resurrection, we see Jesus differently.
Do not despair and do not be afraid. The message that you have been waiting for has this day arrived.
It is a six-word message of Hope, a message of Love, a message of New Life: Christ Is Risen! He Is Risen Indeed!
