He Is Alive – He Is Alive – He Is Alive
The Rev. Gary Paterson, a pastor in British Columbia, tells about the first worship service he led in his first pastoral charge. He was young and very green. It was the first Sunday in August a hot summer day in a small country church, some sixty odd people gathered for worship. Wanting very badly to impress his new congregation, naturally he gave it his all. At the end of the sermon, he thought to himself, “Well, not bad.” But just before could catch his breath, a woman sprang up from a pew, and began screaming.
Paterson froze in place. His first thought was, “No, no, the sermon wasn’t that bad, was it?” His second thought was, “Oh God, they’ve sent me to a charismatic congregation, and she’s speaking in tongues or something.” But then, the woman began to get words out, in full panic, “My mother,” she cried, “my mother is dead!”
The place erupted. Paterson confesses that he was gripped by terror himself. “I killed someone with my very first sermon,” he thought, and then, “Please God, don’t let it be so. I’ve never done a funeral ever. This is not a good beginning.”
Now, this was a country church and there are no phones on the premises, so a couple of people ran out the front door, down the block to the corner store to phone for an ambulance. But then, in the midst of the panic, suddenly a strange voice was heard. It was the woman who was allegedly dead. Her eyes were open, and she was obviously puzzled and annoyed. She looked at her daughter with great concern. “Hush now,” she said, “you’re making a lot of noise!”
Well, there was certainly a hush, says Rev. Paterson. It was more like shocked silence. He began to wonder about the power of the preached Word to both kill and resurrect. But no, there was a simple explanation. It was August in a little country church and it was stifling hot. The woman had simply been overcome by the heat and taken a little snooze during the sermon. Her daughter had evidently jumped to conclusions and over-reacted.
Strange things sometimes happen in small country churches.
But it reminds me of Max Lucado story about a physician in Arkansas who misdiagnosed a patient. He declared the woman to be dead. The family was informed, and the grief-stricken husband left with his children to make the necessary phone calls and prepare for a funeral.
Imagine the surprise of the nurse when she discovered that the woman was not dead, but alive! “You better tell the family,” she urged the doctor.
The embarrassed physician phoned the husband and said, “I need to talk to you about the condition of your wife.”
“The condition of my wife?” he asked. “She’s dead.”
“Well,” the doctor mumbled with embarrassment, “she’s seen a slight improvement.”
A slight improvement? Talk about an understatement! Generally, once a person is dead, they are dead - even though we sometimes hear about near death experiences. But this morning, we are here to celebrate one notable exception.
That exception took place at a tomb just outside of Jerusalem. The accounts differ in the various Gospels, yet those discrepancies certainly correspond with modern research on the reliability of eye witness reports. We know that it is the first day of the week. The Sabbath has passed. John says that Mary Magdalene arrived first and ran to tell the disciples. Mark says that three women are there: Mary Magdalene, Mary the Mother of James, and Salome. They have brought spices that they might anoint the body of their beloved Jesus: a man who had been crucified on the preceding Friday on the cross of Calvary. Two days have passed, but naturally their hearts are still heavy with grief. As they come closer to his tomb they wonder, “Who will roll away the stone?” The stone that sealed the tomb was very large and would not give way easily. But to their amazement the stone was already rolled away. Entering the tomb they discovered a young man dressed all in white. They were frightened. The young man said to them, “Don’t be afraid. You seek Jesus of Nazareth, which was crucified. He is risen. He is not here. Go tell his disciples and Peter that he goes before you into Galilee. There shall you see him, as he said unto you.”
Thus was fulfilled the prophecy of Isaiah who wrote hundreds of years before: “He will swallow up death in victory; and the Lord God will wipe away tears from all faces . . . .” (Isaiah 25:8)
Death has been swallowed up in victory.
That is the one essential message of Easter Sunday.
That is the Word that you have filled this church to hear.
Death has been defeated.
Christ is alive.
The final enemy has been conquered.
Yet there may be many things in life we dread more than physical death. For many of us death is something far removed from our daily lives. It has no biting reality unless and until we are confronted with it personally or until someone we love is claimed by the Grim Reaper.
So we may not think about death in the same way our ancestors did. Still there is something about Easter that makes our hearts beat faster. And I pray with all my heart that your response to the hope of Easter is not just some simplistic focus on walking the golden streets of heaven, as our critics would charge. I would rather think that our spirits are lifted and our hearts beat faster because Easter represents hope – hope not only for us as we deal with death but also hope as we deal with our everyday living. Because Christ lives, we can live!
Because Christ lives in our hearts today –
we can do the good work for which God created us.
We can have a compassionate heart.
We can have a giving heart.
We can have a listening heart.
We can reach out to others and be the hands of Jesus in the world today.
What great good news that is!
Easter is tonic for the soul. It helps us lift our eyes from our problems to our possibilities. I love the way writer Jerome K. Jerome once put it: “Look up,” he said, “Don’t look down. When you look down you see so much of yourself and so little of the other things that God made.
Isn’t that part of the joy of Easter? It helps us lift our eyes from our problems to our possibilities. Look up, not down. 'Because he lives, I can live, you can live.’
As you well know, life is not always roses and sunshine. There are also thorns and thunder clouds. Easter is God’s promise to us, however, that neither life nor death can conquer us. Easter is hope for today and hope for the future.
There is a story told by a nun. She says that a few weeks before Easter there was a horrible accident in her community. While burning some branches in his garden the father of one of her pupils at her convent accidentally set fire to himself. He died as a result of his burns.
Naturally his family went into deep shock. The nun, as well as other members of the community sought to minister to the family, but they were too deeply hurt to respond very positively.
The fact that the tragedy happened at home made it even worse. The man’s wife was so distraught that she couldn’t go out into the garden where the accident had happened. Indeed, she found it difficult even to look out of the window that faced onto the garden in case it brought the whole thing back to her. However, the days went by, and Easter came around.
On Easter Sunday afternoon the nun visited the family again. She was expecting to find them still grief-stricken. But she got a very pleasant surprise.
As soon as she stepped into the house, she sensed that the gloom had lifted, and she got a feeling of peace, even of joy. “Something has happened here,” she said to the mother. “I can sense it.”
To which the mother replied, “This morning my sister and a neighbor came to visit me. They asked me to go out into the garden to get some fresh air. I became almost hysterical at the thought of going into the garden. But convinced that it would help me, they insisted, so eventually I went out with them. Slowly we walked down to the place where the fire had happened. As we approached the spot my whole body began to shake. But suddenly, I don’t know how or from where, the words of the gospel came to me: “Why do look for the living among the dead? He is not here. He is risen.”
At that moment it was as if a heavy load was lifted off my back, and I felt a great sense of peace and joy.”
And that, of course, is the meaning of Easter. Death has been conquered! We can lift our eyes from our problems to our possibilities! Christ is alive, and because he lives we also can live!
No wonder Easter is so special. It is not a denial of the power of death but a marvelous, victorious affirmation of life and of God.
He Is Alive – He Is Alive – He is Alive!
