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A sermon is a manner of oral communication and therefore words and sentence structure/order would be added, altered, or deleted at the moment of delivery. + In Nomine Jesu + The Rev. Evan Gaertner Easter Festival 10:30am Alleluia! He is risen. He is risen indeed! Alleluia We celebrate the resurrection of our Lord and Savior. Jesus Christ died on the cross. He was placed into a tomb. And contrary to a recent documentary on the Discovery channel. He is not in that tomb. He is risen, just as he said. We will confess in the Nicene Creed after this sermon, “And the third day He rose again according to the Scriptures and ascended into heaven.” And then later in the creed we will join ourselves to this resurrection saying, “and I look for the resurrection of the dead and the life of the world to come. Amen.” The Christian faith has from the beginning confessed faith in the bodily resurrection of Jesus of Nazareth. Paul told the Corinthians, “If there is no resurrection of the dead, then not even Christ has been raised. And if Christ has not been raised, then our preaching is in useless and your faith is useless.” (1 Cor. 15:13-14) Josh McDowell, a former skeptic puts it, “After more than 700 hours of studying this subject, and thoroughly investigating its foundation, I have come to the conclusion that the resurrection of Jesus Christ is one of the ‘most wicked, vicious, heartless hoaxes ever foisted upon the minds of men, or it is the most fantastic fact of history.” Some modern scholars do not believe in the bodily resurrection of Jesus, but instead see the story as symbolic and simply a spiritually nourishing myth. The idea being we do not need a body to rise from the dead to be spiritually nourished by this story. The strength of the story then becomes some vague story of triumph. But for Some religions teach the immortality of the soul separate from the body. The idea of reincarnation found in Buddhism and Hinduism is built on the philosophy that the soul does not die with the body but continues for eternity in other ways. If we imagine human beings are immortal then we will in no way even begin to understand what is meant by the word resurrection. Here is the truth: Death is final. Death is a reminder of the power of sin. Sin is a power greater than ourselves The wages of sin is death. Without the resurrection it would be meaningless to speak of anything hopeful or promising after death. New age ideas of reincarnation and a spiritual afterlife are manipulations of our desire for escape from death. Death is not pretty. Science cannot escape death. Doctors cannot defeat. We can offer comfort but not escape. Our human hands cannot undo death. Death was not a part of God’s creation until sin entered the world. Death is God’s judgment against sin. Death is the experience of living in a world opposed to God. When those early Christians taught that this Jesus that was dead has been raised from the dead they were preaching that something unthinkably strange has happened. To believe in the resurrection is to believe in a miracle. Today we celebrate that Jesus defeated the last enemy. God does what is impossible. God brings from death, life. God brings truth to what is clearly a contradiction. Jesus died and today we celebrate. Death is by definition an end. But when Jesus Christ said on the cross, “It is finished,” he brought an end to death. Jesus brought into our world a new truth. It was a truth that had to come from outside of ourselves. Christ brought this new truth to our world. We stand in a new era, in which death is conquered. The power of death is broken. Jesus told Martha, “I am the resurrection and the life. Whoever believes in me, though he dies, yet shall he live, and everyone who lives and believes in shall never die.” (Jn 11:25) Jesus brings the new truth of life into our lives. He does not redefine our immortality as if that existed before him. Before Christ our only truth was death. 100% guaranteed. But Christ’s resurrection is the death of death. Faith in Christ is faith in his victory over death. Christ died and rose again to redeem us from sin, death and the devil. He died and rose again to restore us, body and soul to the Believing in the resurrection gives new meaning to every area of our lives. The resurrection gives us confidence that our faith is not just an emotional crutch that helps us through tough times. The resurrection gives us confidence that our faith is about life where others only death, hope where others only see emptiness. Because of Christ’s resurrection, death is not an end; death no longer has power of over us. One of the things a family that has experienced the death of a loved one is picking out the clothing that their loved one will wear in the casket. But the truth be told by our faith in Jesus and his resurrection from the dead, we are no longer clothed in the rags of death but our Lord dresses us with his life, righteousness, and glory. You all look wonderful today in your Easter best, but without Christ we all would be wearing death no matter how expensive or new our clothing would be. In Christ we are alive and beautiful to God. You all are beautiful. See now, you are new, dressed in Christ.
Soli Deo Gloria |
