Easter: Life Trumps Death!

Matthew 28:1-10
(shared with the people of Friendship Church, March 27, 2005)

Every year, when his players came to training camp, the legendary coach of the Green Bay Packers and Washington Redskins, Vince Lombardi, gave the same lecture. It began with the basics. “Gentlemen,” he said, holding a ball aloft, “this is a football.”

Easter brings the Church and the world back to Christianity 101. Everything depends on Easter, the day we say that the perfect, sinless Savior of the world Who had been killed on a cross, rose from death. Through Easter, we believe that all who entrust their lives to Christ live in the certainty that they too will rise and live with God forever!

There are lots of people who want to keep Jesus at arm’s length. They patronize Him and His followers by calling Him things like “a great moral teacher” or even “the kindest man who ever lived.” But they refuse to entertain the possibility that He actually rose from the dead because it could lead them to acknowledge that He was more than a great moral teacher or a person of preeminent kindness.

I know because as a one-time atheist, I used to be one of those kinds of people. The last thing I wanted was a God to rule over my life. I wanted to rule myself. I was like George Bailey in my favorite movie, It's a Wonderful Life, who said, "I want to do what I want to do!"

Of course, not everyone who has that attitude stands outside the Church. Some people retain their George Bailey-like self-worship but become part of the church because they think it will bring them benefits in this world,.

They think it will make their kids behave.

They think it will steady their nerves, like a good stiff drink.

Some think that if they do their religious duty, God will, as Janis Joplin sang years ago, come through with a Mercedes Benz.

The folks who get into the Church for the benefits they think it will bring them are more pathetic than any overt atheist ever could be. At least the atheists are honest about their unbelief.

But these religious folks are hypocrites hoping to use God while keeping Him out of their business.

They don’t believe in Easter any more than the atheists do. But you couldn’t tell that by looking at the expressions of piety they wear when they go to worship on Easter Sunday.

Belief in Jesus’ resurrection is the absolute foundational fact on which our faith rises or falls. The New Testament portion of the Bible says, “If Christ has not been raised, your faith is futile and you are still in your sins. [With the consequence of being separated from God and from life forever!]...If for this life only we have hoped in Christ, we are of all people most to be pitied.” (First Corinthians 15:17-19)

So, here’s a good question for Easter Sunday morning: Is it true? Did Jesus really rise from the dead? Because if He didn’t, you all can go on with your service here and I’ll go do something else. I mean, why would any of us bother celebrating Easter if Easter didn’t really happen?

I believe that there are good, hard-nosed, rational reasons to believe that Jesus rose from the dead.

But in the end, there is only one way any of us can be certain that Jesus was resurrected. It was the way the women who came to the tomb that first Easter Sunday knew that Jesus had risen from the dead. It was this: They dared to believe that it was true!

Matthew, the writer of today’s Bible lesson, says that the women encountered an angel at the tomb. “Don’t be afraid,” he tells them. “I know that you’re looking for Jesus, Who was crucified. But He’s been raised from death. Look where His body once lay. Go and tell Jesus’ other followers about this fantastic thing!”

Matthew says that the women ran to tell the other disciples with a mixture of “fear and great joy.” They could have believed some other explanation for the absence of Jesus’ body from the tomb. They could have thought, “Somebody’s stolen it.” But they dared to believe the message from the angel and were bound to pass it on!

That’s when they encountered the risen Jesus Himself. You see, the God we know through Jesus Christ never forces Himself on anyone. With Him, it isn’t a matter of “seeing is believing,” but “believing is seeing.” The moment we dare to believe in Him is the moment we begin to see Him clearly.

I’ve been following Jesus now for nearly thirty years--sometimes fitfully, rebelliously. But what I have experienced is this: When we allow ourselves to trust Him, trust that He is there, trust that life with Him is better than life with our sins, and trust that He can erase sin and the power of death over our lives, we will see Him. When the women believed in the risen Jesus, that was when they saw Him.

Pastor Mike Foss tells about a little boy named Gregory. Gregory was eighteen months old when Foss first came to know him. He had leukemia at the time, from which, remarkably, he went into a remission that lasted some two years. Then, the leukemia came back with ferocity! Foss remembers the day he visited with Gregory, looking at this now-three-year old boy through misty eyes, seeing the little guy’s fear, and then to reassure him, singing Jesus Loves Me to him. Foss says:

“Two nights later, Gregory had lapsed into a coma. His mother, ‘Shirley,’ remembered that he could still hear, so she went and got a book from the pediatric library and began to read it out loud. In the book, a little boy comes to the hospital for treatment and, in the middle of the night, wakes up and cries because he feels so alone. The next day another boy asks him if he was the one crying last night; the little boy says, ‘Yes.’ So, his newly found friend tells him that if he wakes again and is afraid, he should simply hold his hand in the air and an angel from God would come and take his hand. Shirley turned the page and, reading out loud, read that the boy did awaken at night, raise his hand and an angel of God came and took his hand, and he died.

“That's when Shirley lost it. She ran from the room, hid in the restroom and wept until she couldn't cry any more. Then she returned to Gregory and held his hand through the night. Early the next morning, the nurse and pediatric oncologist gathered with Shirley and her hospice volunteer for the last vigil. And that's when it happened. Suddenly, Gregory opened his eyes for the first time in hours, looked up over his left shoulder, smiled and raised his hand in the air. And that is when the angel of God took Gregory and escorted him into forever.”

Folks, I can’t prove that Jesus rose from the dead.

I can’t prove that He destroys the power of sin and death over the lives of those who believe in Him.

But I can promise that if you will dare to take the hand of the One Who has reached out to you through Jesus Christ, you’ll see the One in Whom you dare to believe. You’ll see Jesus. And when we breathe our last, you and I, we will see Him face to face forever and ever.

Those are the basics. May we never forget them.

Happy Easter, everyone!

[Mike Foss' true story of Gregory comes in a message he prepared for this Biblical text. You can find many of Pastor Foss' messages on the web site, www.changingchurch.org, when you subscribe to the Changing Church toolkit.]