EASTER 2007

There was a couple leaving church on Easter Sunday and they stopped to shake hands with the Rector. The man says to the Rector, “Father, you sure are in a rut. Every time I come here, you preach about the Resurrection.”

If this is your first visit to St. Anne’s since last Easter I’m afraid you will be hearing about the Resurrection of Jesus again. We are delighted you are here no matter if you are a regular attendee, if this is your first time here, or if you haven’t been here in a while. My hope is that this message about the Resurrection will inspire in you a new faith or a renewed faith.

We chuckle at the stories of C and E Christians, but sometimes those of us who faithfully come to church more regularly than on Easter have a similar attitude. We want to have a devoted attitude. Instead we fall into, "Yeah, yeah, yeah. Jesus died on the cross and rose from the dead. I know all that."

It's tempting to turn the most fantastic event of human history into routine. Each year, I find I need to slow down and reflect on the events of Holy Week and Easter week so that I can absorb its wonder. Sometimes just walking through those familiar events stirs my heart to remember all that Christ did for me.

Jesus appeared to many people in a variety of ways after he was resurrected from the dead. To Mary he appeared to alleviate her grief. To many of his disciples, huddled in fear behind locked doors, he appeared suddenly to reassure them and calm their fears. To Thomas, who was full of doubt, he would gladly let him touch his wounds to prove he had risen. And he spoke to Peter about restoration and responsibility.

Today Jesus still reveals himself to us. There was a woman battling cancer for fourteen years who was able to share with her nurse the great peace she had with her relationship with Jesus. Her encounter with the risen Jesus spilled over into her relationship with this nurse, causing the nurse, who was searching for God, to begin to encounter Jesus who was revealing himself to her in a unique way.

A lot of people say, "I believe in the resurrection; I just don't understand it." Pollster George Gallup said even 84 percent of people who never go to church believe Jesus rose from the dead. It is historical fact; it wasn't done in secret. The whole city of Jerusalem and the whole Roman Empire knew about it. It was news. If CNN had been there, they would have had it live.

There are at least 15 historical references to Jesus meeting people, touching people, and talking with people after he had been crucified. One time he cooked breakfast for some people. Another time he talked to about 500 people after he had risen from the dead. A lot of people saw him.

A respected philosopher, J.P. Moreland said this: “When Jesus was crucified, his followers were discouraged and depressed. So they dispersed. The Jesus movement was all but stopped in its tracks. Then, after a short period of time, we see them abandoning their occupations, regathering, and committing themselves to spreading a very specific message – that Jesus Christ was the Messiah of God who died on a cross, returned to life, and was seen alive by them.

“And they were willing to spend the rest of their lives proclaiming this, without any payoff from a human point of view. They faced a life of hardship. They often went without food, slept exposed to the elements, were ridiculed, beaten, imprisoned. And finally, most of them were executed in torturous ways. For what? For good intentions? No, because they were convinced beyond a shadow of a doubt that they had seen Jesus Christ alive from the dead.”

Yes, people will die for their religious convictions if they sincerely believe they are true. We see that in the Islamic terrorists today. Religious fanatics have done that throughout history. While they may strongly believe in the tenets of their religion, however, they don’t know for a fact whether their faith is based on the truth. They simply cannot know for sure. They can only believe.

In stark contrast, the disciples were in the unique position to know for a fact whether Jesus had returned from the dead. They saw him, they touched him, they ate with him. They knew he wasn’t a hallucination or a legend. And knowing the truth, they were willing to die for him.

That is a stunning insight. The disciples didn’t merely believe in the resurrection; they knew it was true.

Jesus did rise, he is who he said he was, he has the power he said he had, and he keeps the promises he makes. So what? Why does the resurrection matter? What difference does it make? It matters for three reasons.

1. My past can be forgiven.
We have all done things we wish we hadn't done, said things we wish we hadn't said, and thought things we wish we hadn't thought. We all have regrets. We all feel bad about things. We all have had guilt.

A fellow pastor received this letter:

"I'm 31 years old and divorced, though I fought the divorce bitterly. I feel bad. I have no hope for my future. Often I go home and cry, but there's no one holding me when I cry. Nobody cares. Nothing changes, and I continue to fail. I'm stressed out emotionally, and I feel I'm on the verge of a collapse. Something is very wrong. But I feel so hurt and embittered that I can scarcely react or relate to others anymore. I feel as if I'm going to have to sit out the rest of my life in the penalty box."

The tragedy is I know a lot of people like that. They can't get on with the present and the future because they're stuck in the past. Some guilt or regret has tied them down. Sometimes they're letting a former relationship mess up their current relationship. They say, "I guess I'll just have to live with this the rest of my life."

Here's the good news. Colossians 2:14 says: "He has forgiven all our sins and canceled every debt we owe. Christ has done away with it by nailing it to the cross."

This is God's pardon program. Jesus nailed it all to the cross. He paid for my guilt. That means I don't have to pay for it. He was hung for my hand-ups. Jesus Christ was nailed to the cross, so I can quit nailing myself to the cross. He wants to forgive your past. He wants to cancel every debt you owe—emotional debts, relational debts, sins. All canceled. That’s the first difference the resurrection of Jesus makes.

2. My present problems can be managed.
The number one complaint from people today is this: "My life is out of control." I hear it a thousand times in a thousand ways:

I feel powerless to change the situation…

I feel powerless to break a bad habit…

I feel powerless to save a relationship…

I feel powerless to get out of debt…

I feel powerless to manage my schedule.

What you need is a power greater than yourself. You were never meant to live this life on your own power. God wants to have a relationship with you. And here's the good news. Ephesians 1:19-20 says: "How incredibly great is his power to help those who believe him, the same mighty power that raised Christ from the dead."

The same power that enabled Jesus to rise from death will help you rise above your problems.

Author and seminary professor Gary Habermas was asked in an interview about the importance of the Resurrection. He decided to take a risk by describing what happened in 1995, when his wife, Debbie, slowly died of stomach cancer.

“I sat on our porch,” he began, “My wife was upstairs dying. Except for a few weeks, she was home through it all. It was an awful time. This was the worst thing that could possibly happen.

“But do you know what was amazing? My students would call me – not just one but several of them – and say, ‘At a time like this, aren’t you glad about the resurrection?’ As sober as those circumstances were, I had to smile for two reasons. First, my students were trying to cheer me up with my own teaching. And second, it worked.

“As I would sit there, I’d picture Job, who went through all that terrible stuff and asked questions of God, but then God turned the tables and asked him a few questions.

“I knew if God were to come to me, I’d ask only one question: ‘Lord, why is Debbie up there in bed?’ And I think God would respond by asking gently, ‘Gary, did I raise my Son from the dead?’

“I’d say, ‘Come on, Lord, I’ve written seven books on the topic! Of course he was raised from the dead. But I want to know about Debbie!’

“I think he’d keep coming back to the same question – ‘Did I raise my Son from the dead?’ – until I got his point: the resurrection says that if Jesus was raised two thousand years ago, there’s an answer to Debbie’s death in 1995. And do you know what? It worked for me while I was sitting on the porch, and it still works today.

“It was a horribly emotional time for me, but I couldn’t get around the fact that the resurrection IS the answer for her suffering. I still worried; I still wondered what I’d do raising four kids alone. But there wasn’t a time when that truth didn’t comfort me.

“Losing my wife was the most painful experience I’ve ever had to face, but if the resurrection could get me through that, it can get me through anything. It was good for A.D. 30, it was good for 1995, and it’s good beyond that.”

Habermas then locked eyes with his interviewer, “That’s not some sermon,” he said quietly, “I believe that with all my heart. If there’s a resurrection, there’s a heaven. If Jesus was raised, Debbie will be raised. And I will be someday too. Then I’ll see them both.” The resurrection of Jesus is something that can help us manage the problems we face.

This leads me to the third reason the resurrection matters.

3. My future can be secure.
One of the universal problems we've all got is death. Let's face it—everybody dies. I'm going to die someday, and so are you. Only a fool would go all through life unprepared for something he knows is inevitable. That doesn't make sense. But sometimes we get so busy in the here and now; we don't stop to think about what's going to come.

People don't like to talk about death. If you don't believe me, invite your friends over, sit them down, serve them some coffee and pie, and say, "Let's talk about death." See what happens.

U.S. News & World Report ran a cover article called "The Rekindling of Hell." It says more people believe in heaven and hell than ever before in American history. Why? Because people are wondering, "What's going to happen?"

There are a lot of misconceptions about heaven. Most of them come from movies with bad theology: Oldies like Heaven Can Wait; Oh, God; All Dogs Go To Heaven; and more modern movies like Ice Age: The Meltdown, Last Holiday, and Bruce Almighty. These are cute little ideas of what somebody thinks heaven is going to be like.

What is it really going to be like? Let's check it out with the source. When you go to the Bible, what does God say it's really going to be like in heaven and hell?

Number one, heaven is a perfect place. Total love, total peace, total joy, total perfection. No sin, no mistakes, no evil, no bad, no errors. It's perfect in every area. And the good news is we won’t get bored with that.

The second thing the Bible says is that in order for you to go there, you have to be perfect, because only perfection can exist in heaven. You say, "Well, thanks a lot. That leaves me out." Yeah, it leaves me out too. You say, "I'll never make it if I have to be perfect." Right! That's the point. Neither will I. Neither will any of us, because none of us is perfect; we've all messed up.

There are two ways the Bible says you can get to heaven. Plan A is to earn it. That's the performance plan. And to earn it you only have to do this: never sin and always do what's right for the entire time that you live. Just be perfect.

Since none of us qualify for Plan A, God came up with Plan B, which is this: You trust Jesus Christ when he says, "I am the way, the truth and the life." He was the only perfect person who ever lived, because he was God.

He came so we could know what God is like. And by trusting and establishing a relationship with him, you get in on his goodness.

Pastor Ron Dunn tells of a time when he took his young son to a carnival one time for his birthday. His son picked six boys to go with him, so Ron bought a roll of tickets. Every line he'd come up to, he'd pull off seven tickets and give them to all the kids. When they got to the Ferris wheel, all of a sudden there was this eighth little kid with his hand out.

Ron said, "Who are you?"

The kid said, "I'm Johnny."

Ron said, "Who are you, Johnny?"

Johnny said, "I'm your son's new friend. And he said you would give me a ticket."

Ron asked me, "Do you think I gave him one? Absolutely."

When you get to heaven, you'll say, "God, I can't get in on my own effort. The only way I can get into heaven is because I'm a friend of Jesus Christ." John 17:3 says: "This is the way to have eternal life: by knowing the only true God and Jesus Christ, the one he sent to earth."

That's what the Bible says. Jesus has already paid for your way to heaven. This is news you can use.

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.
This distraction and diversion is what makes for a crisis in Christian identity—a crisis current among us. Our basic connection to life is severed, and we begin borrowing our identities from therapists and entertainers, CEOs and politicians, pastors and teachers, men and women who appear to be on the frontlines and making a difference in the world.

So what I want to do is reaffirm this primary identity that we've been given by the resurrection of Jesus. This identity is nurtured and matured in our formation by resurrection.