Easter Day

March 23, 2008

It’s great to see a full church and to be able to share this wonderful day with you.

Earlier I was talking with someone who I see…let’s say…”periodically” and he’d come up to me with his wife and said, “Great to see you again, Fr. Ted. But, if you don’t mind me saying so, I think you’re in a bit of a rut and need to get some fresh material.” I said, “Oh, yeah?” “Yes. Every time I show up you preach about the Resurrection.” It was about that time his wife turned red and I think she kicked him.

Because when you show up on Easter day that’s the only message in town. Jesus of Nazareth was crucified, dead, and buried. But on the 3^rd day – Sunday…Easter Sunday… God raised him from the dead. The sin of mankind killed him, but God used the death of His son to kill the eternal effect of Sin. The body of Jesus was put in the tomb of Joseph of Arimathea. The death of Jesus was packaged into a tomb meant for another man, the stone closed the hole made for death and that stone was an outward and visible sign that carried the unspoken message….no exit.

But God did what only God can do – God took another man’s tomb and turned it into its exact opposite. God took another man’s tomb and turned it into a womb – turned a place of death into a place of birth.

Early in his teaching ministry Jesus had told a Jewish scholar, a man named Nicodemus – a member of the Jewish legislature, the Sanhedrin ….Jesus had said, “Nicodemus, no one can enter the Kingdom of God without being reborn from heaven.” Nicodemus replied, “How’s that supposed to happen? I can’t enter my mother’s womb again.” Jesus spoke to this and in effect said, “When my life enters your death, then your tomb becomes a womb from which you will be born again – but this time you will be born by the power of the Holy Spirit into eternal life – My eternal Life.”

Easter is the ultimate story of how our God intrudes into the impossibilities of our life to make wonderful things possible. Peter Larson once put it this way: Despite our efforts to keep him out, God intrudes. The life of Jesus is bracketed by two impossibilities: a virgin’s womb and an empty tomb. Jesus entered our world through a door marked “No Entrance” and left through a door marked “No Exit.”

Easter is the day that Christians celebrate the faith that the death of Jesus was for them. Jesus was buried in a tomb with their name on it – a tomb marked “no exit.” But to all those into whose lives Jesus has been buried, then those lives now become alive with new possibilities. Stones of impossibility are rolled away. And the resurrection of Jesus is being released in us. Our impossible tombs are being transformed into wombs for eternal life…His eternal life …our eternal life. Alleluia!

German theologian Wolfhart Pannenberg once said: The evidence for Jesus’ resurrection is so strong that nobody would question it except for two things: First, it is a very unusual event. And second, if you believe it happened, you have to change the way you live.

To change the way we live…hmmmm…. This is a real challenge to those of us who want to keep our lives just the way they are. But the message of the resurrection become a message of hope for those of us who don’t want our lives to stay just the way they are. The Resurrection contains hope and promise for those of us who desire the life we see in Jesus to become more a part of the life we live.

St. Paul speaks to our Easter hope this morning when in our Colossians passage he talks about our life being “hidden” with Christ. Hidden….what is he talking about. What does that mean?

Maybe you are here this morning and you hear these Easter words but you don’t feel them. Do you have true faith in Jesus Christ as God’s Son? Have you asked him to forgive your sins, to come into your life, to be the director of your life? If you have, then you are his, and his life in you is real, and he will never leave you.

But do you sometimes feel that he is not there? That he may not be real? That, my friends, may simply be because his life is hidden within you, and you are just at the beginning. The seed has only just germinated. You have a long way to go. But, if you are His, He’ll bring His life out of you. And what is hidden now will come into full bloom …become fully evident for all to see.

I got this example from a priest I know named John Yates, I am holding here two flower pots with dirt in them. Can you tell me which one has in it an amazing seed – a seed that has the potential to be transformed from a tiny little spec of something into a fruit producing plant that’s so big this flower pot is eventually not going to be big enough to hold it? No, you can’t. But the God of Resurrection is the God who makes good on his promises. If, as we read in the first chapter of the Epistle of James, we have “received with meekness the implanted word”, then we can count on the spirit of Jesus Christ being there deep within us working very often in ways that are totally hidden to us, but one day will spring into our awareness and to the glory of God and the benefit of others.

Now, there may another reason why even though you’ve planted your faith in Christ, he’s not as real to you as you’d like him to be. And that’s the second point that Paul makes in the Colossians passage. He says, it may be that you and I are too focused on the things around us, that we’re too earthly-minded. This can have the same effect that in May and June weeds can have on a young plant planted in a garden in March and is trying to grow. It is possible to choke the life of Christ within us. It’s possible to stunt the growth of God’s new life within us by not paying any attention to him, by being care less.

I like the way a contemporary version of the Scriptures puts the passage from Paul’s we have this Easter morning. Listen to it. So if you’re serious about living this new resurrection life with Christ, act like it. Pursue the things over which Christ presides. Don’t shuffle along, eyes to the ground, absorbed with the things right in front of you. Look up, and be alert to what is going on around Christ — that’s where the action is. See things from his perspective.

God expects and desires us to be fully alive to the good pleasures and the responsibilities and the relationships of this world. But we’re to view them (their significance) differently. They will pass. But a life and relationships that are grounded in God through Christ are eternal.

In Northern Italy, in the city of Milan, there’s a beautiful cathedral. And over the doorway of the cathedral are three inscriptions spanning three spectacular arches. Over one is carved a beautiful wreath of roses, and underneath, is the legend that reads: “All that pleases is but for a moment.” And then over another is carved a cross, and beneath it these words: “All that troubles is but for the moment.” But underneath the great central arch leading in to the great central aisleway of this majestic cathedral is the inscription, “That only is important which is eternal.”

Seek the things that are above. Set your mind on things that are above, not just on earthly things, for you’ve died, and your life is hidden now in Christ, in God.

So, with pleasure and troubles in this world on our left and right, what does it mean for us to “set out minds” centrally on things that are eternal? What does it mean to have Easter “implanted” in us and seek to have it grow? It means, above all else, don’t be careless…care about what Christ cares about.

So, let me ask you a hard question: Are the things that you are working for and seeking with all your heart right now, are they worthy of heaven? Do those things have eternal significance? Did Jesus die on the cross for you, so that you could do the things that you are now doing in your life? Are you giving yourself to the things of God that really matter….or are you watering weeds?

— How? — How Garden?

How do we do it? With pleasure on our left and troubles on our right how to we center our lives on the eternal things that God desires to grow into us and from us?

We do it by giving ourselves to him every day. We are not careless gardeners of amazing grace. We are careful offer our lives daily and mean it.

We do it by reading and pondering the words of Christ, by sitting under instructors or spending time with those who know him better than we do. We do it by trying to grow alongside other Christians. We do it by getting into Life Groups. We do it by inviting him to accompany you through your entire day, learning how to wait and listen to see if he might be speaking from the hidden places of our soul.

How do we do it? We do it by worshipping him every day and remembering his resurrection with one another every Sunday.

We do it also by looking around us for places where God is working, and joining in, or by noticing places where God really needs someone to be at work, at stepping in there. Don’t hold back. See a need. Get involved. You’ll change.

It’s not easy. But the more you seek to know him, the more you love him. And the more you love him, the more you become like him, and the more you become like him, the more good you do here on earth. With this kind of life ..a life of faithful, careful gardening…those who are most heavenly-minded are those who end up doing most earthly good.

For some people, the Lord becomes so real in their life that all their doubt, their fears, are all banished. For most of us, life with Christ is a huge challenge. And we don’t know him nearly as well as we would like or are as much like him as we want. But over time, if we stay with it and don’t hold back, we’re changed.

So my friends, on this Easter Sunday let me invite you to leave this worship having decided not to hold back from him. Give yourself to nurturing the implanted Word of God within you, no matter how deeply hidden He has much for you and promises to produce much from you that is of eternal significance.

Let me close with some thoughts of Charles Spurgeon, a great Baptist preacher in London, 120 years ago. His words speak to the grace and power of Easter that is hidden inside of all who have received the implanted word of Jesus Christ and His Resurrection. These are good words for children to hear. These are good words for all of us who may be feeling small in faith.

He said, “Little pigeons,” he said, “can carry great messages. “You may cook a great meal,” he said, “in small pots as well as big pots.” “Very good wheat can grow in very small fields.”

Let us pray (and, if this prayer can speak for you, then I invite you to give your heart to these words as I speak them):

Lord Jesus, it is with fresh humility and hope that this day provides us with opportunity to see our life as a place where your life may be buried. It is with wonder and expectation that we offer you our own tombs and ask that you make of them a place where your resurrected life will be born within us. Hide yourself deep within us, Lord Christ. Implant your word and inspire each and every one of us to become constant, careful, and hopeful gardeners.

And bring out of our lives, Lord Christ, things of eternal significance. Take our small lives, Lord Jesus, and grow such a Gospel that it may feed others and, finally, become something too great and too heavenly for this small pot to hold any longer.

Lord Jesus Christ, you are risen from the dead. Now, we pray, from this day forward rise up in us and in your church. Amen.