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By Pastor Glenn Pease
CONTENTS
1. GOD'S DREAM FULFILLED Based
on Matt. 28:1‑10
2. THEN CAME THE MORNING Based
on Matt. 28:1‑10
3. A RISEN REDEEMER Based on
Mark 16:1‑14
4. THE REALITY OF THE RESURRECTION Based on Mark 16:1‑14
5. ROAD TO EMMAUS Based on Luke 24:13‑35
6. THE EASTER POTENTIAL Based on Luke 24:33‑53
7. BELIEVE IT OR NOT Based on Luke 24:36‑53
8. THE EASTER GARDEN Based on John 20:1‑18
9 THE REALITY OF THE RESURRECTION Based on John 20:1‑18
10. TEARS AT THE TOMB Based on
John 20:11‑18
11. THE RADICAL RESURRECTION Based on Rom. 6:1-10
12. THE LAST BREAKFAST Based on John 21:1‑14
13. THE POWER OF THE
RESURRECTION Based on Eph. 1:15‑23
14. THE POWER OF THE
RESURRECTION Based on Phil. 3:1‑16
1. GOD'S DREAM
FULFILLED Based on Matt. 28:1‑10
Few
people have ever been more lost than Dr. Robert Dykes and his wife
Margery. Both in their late 20's and
parents of two young children, they were presumed dead when their small plane
went down in the mountains of the Wyoming‑Utah boarder. Hundreds of planes searched in vain for
nearly a week, and there was no sign of them.
The temperature had been below zero every night, and they had no
supplies, and so it was presumed they would freeze and not be found until
spring.
But
young George Hunt who had just completed his first cross country flight as a
student pilot prayed for them as he went to sleep. He asked God to get them back to their family. When he went to sleep he dreamed. He saw a red plane on a snow swept ridge,
and two people waving for help. He woke
up and reasoned that he had that dream because he had been praying for the
couple. But when he went back to sleep
he dreamed it again. The third time he
could see clear details of an area he use to hunt in. It was Painter's Basin and Gilbert Peak.
The
next morning he went to the airport and took a plane he was not authorized to
take. He flew to the place he saw in
his dream. There he saw the red plane
and the Dykes waving at him just as in his dream. He waved back and headed to call the Civil Air Patrol. He got chewed out for taking the plane, but
when others flew over the area and confirmed his find he was forgiven. He joined the rescue party that spent the
next 24 hours getting to the plane.
There was much hugging and thanksgiving when they arrived.
The
Dykes had all but given up. They had
written notes as to who was to raise their children. All they had left was one candy bar. Mrs. Dykes said to young George, "When we saw your plane, it
was the most wonderful thing. Our
prayers were answered; a dream come true." They were brought back from certain death and given life with
their family by means of a dream.
This
salvation story is a mini example of what God did for all of us on Easter. We were all lost, and the whole human race
was facing certain death, and not just physical death, but spiritual as well,
which is separation from God. But God
gave His Son a dream, and in that dream a vision of how mankind could be
rescued and saved from that death which threatened to engulf them. The Bible tells us that Jesus was crucified
before the foundation of the world. The
plan of salvation was a dream of God even before He created man. He knew the consequences of making a free
will creature, and He knew sin and death was inevitable. But it was worth it, for He had a plan of
salvation that would be a dream come true.
In the
Incarnation Jesus took flight from eternity into time to seek and save the
lost. In the crucifixion he paid the
penalty for their sin and took their judgment on Himself. In the resurrection Jesus fulfilled God's
dream, for by this victory over man's last enemy, which is death, Jesus
guaranteed that God would have a redeemed family for all eternity. Easter is the celebration of God's dream
fulfilled.
When Jesus woke from the sleep of death,
And in His new body took His new breath,
The storm of darkness and doom He stilled;
With hope His disciple's hearts He filled,
And God's dream for man He fulfilled.
What
Jesus did for God and man on that first Easter dawn is so awesome and so
ultimate there is no way to adequately convey in words the wonder of it
all. That is why we have cantatas and a
world filled with beautiful Easter music.
The Easter message not only has to be believed, it has to be felt, for
the mind alone cannot grasp it all.
When the Queen of Sheba saw the wisdom and wealth of Solomon she
exclaimed, "Behold, the half was not told me." Jesus said of Himself, "A greater than
Solomon is here." If words could
not convey half the glory of Solomon, how much less can they convey the glory
of our risen Lord?
Trying
to illustrate the glory of the risen Christ by the use of words is like trying
to illustrate the glory of the sun by means of a candle. That is why we see God doing some
spectacular things that first Easter dawn, and adding special effects to the
event. The violent earthquake, the
angel rolling the stone back, and His appearance like lightning with clothes
white as snow. No wonder the guards
were so afraid that they shook and became like dead men. They were paralyzed with fear.
That
first Easter had a real impact on those guards, for it was not just a message
they were hearing. They were hearing
the Son of God breaking down the very gates of hell and releasing man from the
bondage to death. They were witnessing
a victory more amazing than any Rambo movie could ever portray. Nature and super nature combined to bear
witness to this cataclysmic event that shook up all of history. As the physical sun rose that dawn and lit
up the world, so the Son of God rose from the darkness of death's night and
filled the world with the light of hope.
Back in
February of 1993 the Flight Control Center near Moscow reported the successful
development of a space reflector. This
aluminum‑covered dish was used by Cosmonauts to reflect light from the
sun to the dark side of the earth. With
a 25 foot disc in space they were able to produce a 2 mile circle of light on
the earth. In other words, they were
able to turn 2 miles of night into 2 miles of day by reflecting the sun. The dream of man is to use this technology
to eliminate the might and be able to keep daytime all the time.
This is
one of God's dreams too, and He intends to dwell with the redeemed in the eternal
kingdom where Rev. 22:5 says there will be no more night. Rev. 21:23 says the New Jerusalem will not
ever need the sun or moon to shine, for the glory of God will be its light, and
the Lamb of God will be its lamp. Verse
25 says the gates never need to be shut for the night, for there will be no
night there. What we need to see is
that this dream of God had its fulfillment when Jesus came out of the darkness
of the tomb like the sun bursting from the womb of night. Paul in II Tim. 1:10 tells us that Jesus,
"...has destroyed death and brought life and immorality to light through
the Gospel."
The
simple message of the angel at the tomb was, "He is not here, He has
risen." You will never find Jesus
in the place of darkness, for He dwells in eternal light, and that is where all
will dwell who trust in Jesus as their Savior.
If you are looking for Jesus, you will not find Him in the
darkness. If you go to the tomb the
only message you will get is that He is not there. If you look for Jesus in the darkness of pessimism you will only
get the word that He is not there. If
you look for Jesus in the darkness of despair, you will only get the word that
He is not there. If you look for Jesus
in the darkness of your prejudice, again it will be that He is not there.
Where
will you find Jesus? You will find Him
in the light, and only in the light. He
is in the light of love, joy, peace, and all the fruits of the Spirit. In the light of the awareness of God's
presence in your everyday is where you will find Jesus. You will find Him in the light of prayer and
in the light of hope. Dr. Heyes tells
of living through the long night of a dark Artic winter. But the day finally came when he walked to
a high point to watch the sun rise for the first time in many months. When he saw it he was moved to shout,
"Heaven be praised! I have once
more seen the sun! He goes on to
describe the reaction of others:
"Off went our caps with simultaneous impulse, and we hailed this
long‑lost wanderer of the heavens with loud demonstrations of joy."
Most of
us have never been in darkness for so long that we cheered the rising of the
sun. But we can imagine how precious it
would be to see the light again after that long night. We can identify with the joy of those at the
tomb who had suffered through the darkest weekend of their lives, but who now
hear the good news that the Son of God has risen. Light has conquered darkness, and God's dream has been
fulfilled. Had the angels said, instead
of, "He is not here," but, "Welcome to the tomb of the world's
greatest teacher. Come in and observe
the body of this great prophet."
The women would have not been as shocked, but would have tearfully
viewed the body and carried the message of sorrow back to the despairing
disciples. The sun rising that morning
could have done nothing to dispel the darkness in their hearts that would never
go away.
There
would be no lights of Christmas, for there would no celebration of the birth of
one who died a loser. Good Friday would
be bad Friday, and Easter would not exist at all. If Christ had not risen, but stayed in death's prison, His
life's story would be a nightmare rather than a dream fulfilled. But we do put lights at Christmas, and we do
sing and rejoice in the beauty of the cross on Good Friday. We do celebrate Easter as well because Jesus
was not there in the darkness of the tomb.
He was alive and filling the world with the light of the Gospel of God's
dream fulfilled. Annie Johnson Flint
wrote,
How vain is our faith if the Christ be not risen;
How dark is the tomb if the Lord is still there!
How heavy our burden of grief and transgression.
How deep our despair!
Oh, justified faith is a finished salvation!
Oh, sure resurrection that comforts our woes!
Oh, glorious light in the valley of shadow,‑
Because Christ arose.
Number
one on the list of the seven wonders of the ancient world was the Great
Pyramid. It was the most stupendous
mass of masonry ever put together by man.
It was four hundred fifty feet high using blocks of stone weighing 2 and
a half tons a piece, and there were 2, 300,000 of them to pile on top of each
other. Cheops, the Pharaoh who had it
built, spent his life on this project using 100,000 men for 30 years to do the
job. He lived for a place to be when he
died.
Almost
3000 years later we see another tomb very famous, but very small by
comparison. The tomb of Jesus was a
mere hole in the hillside. It had one large stone rolled in from of the
entrance. Jesus did not spend a dime on
it, nor did He spend any labor on it.
It was a gift. If you are only
going to use something once, and for a very short time, it is wise to borrow or
rent. That is what Jesus did with His
tomb. It was no final resting place for
Him. It was just a weekend getaway, and
the result is that the stress of the New Testament is on the empty tomb and the
open tomb. It played but a trivial and
temporary role in the biography of our Lord.
He was not a king who lived for a place to die. He was a king who lived for a place beyond
the sky, and a place where He would take you and I, and all who love Him, to
dwell in light forever.
But the
fact remains that the Easter story begins at the tomb. It began in the silence and secrecy of the
pre‑dawn night. Jesus at an hour
unknown to anyone but God came back into His body and rose from the dead. There is no record of the actual
resurrection. This was a totally
private event within the darkness of the sealed tomb. Alice Meynell in her poem Easter Night describes it.
Public was death; but Power, but Might
But Life again, but Victory
Were hushed within the dead of night
The shattered dark, the secrecy.
And all alone, alone, alone,
He rose again behind the stone.
Jesus
was alive and long gone before the stone was rolled away. The stone was not removed to let Him out,
but to let men in to see that He was gone.
Because Jesus came out of the tomb there is no escape from the tomb
imagery in Easter. The Easter egg
became so popular a symbol of Easter because it is like a tomb sealed out of
which comes life. Easter eggs are still
a popular custom, but seldom do we tell our children that they are also because
they represent the tomb of Christ broken open for us to give new birth, life,
and hope beyond the tomb.
The
Easter rabbit falls into the same category.
The rabbit lives in a hole in the ground like the tomb of Jesus, and out
of it comes much life. A rabbit has 5
to 6 litters a year, and so if you have a few rabbits, you will soon have a lot
of them. They are symbolic of life
abundant out of a tomb like atmosphere.
I haven't watched Bugs Bunny for years, but I see that my grandchildren
do. Bugs is not consciously a symbol of
Christ, but the fact is that he can be made to be such. He is pursued by those who seek to destroy
him, but he always comes out on top with a victory over all the forces that
seek to do him in. This is what Easter
is all about. It is about victory over
all the forces of darkness that sought to rid the world of Jesus once and for
all. But instead, He came out on top
with the victory. Isaac Watts wrote,
Wrapt in the silence of the tomb
The Great Redeemer lay,
Till the revolving skies had brought
The third, the appointed day.
Hell and the grave combined their force
To hold our Lord, in vain.
Sudden thee Conqueror arose,
And burst their feeble chain.
The
point is, even the secular symbols of Easter, like the egg and the rabbit, are
valid symbols that can be given biblical color. But like most symbols they become detached from what they are to
symbolize, and they become objects of focus in themselves. As parents and grandparents we need to tie
in the secular symbols with Scripture, and use the power of secular customs to
support the Christian faith.
Most
every comedy or cartoon is about good and evil in conflict, and the evil forces
seem to be so powerful with their giant firecrackers, cannons and bombs. But the good guy, no matter how fiercely
attacked, is able to outwit the evil, and the clever schemes backfire so that
the evil ones suffer the very judgments they want to inflict on the good. This is all Easter theology, but we do not
see it, and so we fail to teach our children that the Easter Gospel can be seen
in cartoons, and in rabbits and eggs.
The first challenge of Easter is to see life as victorious over
death. We are to see it in nature, in
cartoons, in our culture, and in God's Word.
The more we see it everywhere, the more we will have an Easter spirit
all year round. And the more we will
praise our Lord daily for making it possible for God's dream to be
fulfilled. His dream for us will be
fulfilled as well if we confess that Jesus is Lord and believe in our hearts
that God raised Him from the dead.
Believe this and see God's dream come true for you.
2. THEN CAME THE MORNING Based on Matt. 28:1‑10
Louis
Evans told of the soldier who was wounded on the battlefield at night. He could not move or speak, but he could see
the lanterns of the medics as they made their way from body to body. Finally a lantern was shining down on him,
and after they examined his wounds one of them said, "I believe that if he
makes it to sunrise, he will live."
This gave the soldier a goal to reach, and a hope to cling to, so he lay
there looking up into the stars longing for the dawn. "If I make it to sunrise I will live," he kept saying
to himself, and so he filled his mind with thoughts of his wife and children,
and all the reasons he had to live.
Then came the morning and a feeling of victory, for he knew he would see
his family again.
Hope is
a powerful tool in helping people get through the night of their trials to the
dawn of a new day, and a new life. Most
of you have probably had some experience of waiting for the dawn. The one that stands out in my mind was in my
first year of college. I friend of mine
hit me in the front teeth on the basketball court. I developed an abscess that began to hurt terribly in the
night. I lived in the dorm, and I can
remember it being the longest night of my life. I roamed the hall and pleaded for the sun to rise. I was in such pain that I had no other goal
in life but to see the sunrise and be able to get some help. Nothing is so comforting as the coming of
the dawn when you are suffering in the night.
Thank God for the morning that enables you to endure the night.
Easter
is that morning of history than gives man the courage and the hope to endure
any night, even the night of death when the light of life is snuffed out and
darkness seems to have won the war. God
has always been a morning person, and it fits all we know of God that he would
raise his Son up from the grave on a Sunday Morning. It was the greatest single victorious event ever to happen on
this planet, and it happened in the morning.
You don't hear of Easter sunset services, but Easter sunrise services,
for it was in the early morning that the Son of God rose to never set again.
That
first Easter morning was the beginning of a day of Sonshine that would never
end in the darkness of night, for Jesus turned on a light that all the powers
of hell could never put out or even dim. Easter never ends, for on that morning
of all mornings Jesus conquered death and darkness and brought life and
immortality to light. There is just something about the morning that God loves.
He dwells in perpetual light and he is light, and in Him is no darkness at all,
yet He loves the dawning of the new day, and He made Easter morning the time of
his total victory over the kingdom of darkness. Easter was just the fulfillment of what we see all through the
Bible. God never slumbers or sleeps,
but is ever alert to give songs in the night to his needy children. But from the very start of creation God has
been most active in the morning. He
does his best work in the morning. That
is when he created the world.
I don't
know if you have ever noticed before, but God's workday in creation always
began in the morning. After each day he
said there was evening and morning. For
6 days God began each morning with a whole new project. We know it was morning because God told Job
it was. He asked Job in Job 38,
"Where were you when I laid the earth's foundation?" And after a few more such questions he
added, "While the morning stars sang together and all the angels shouted
for joy. God started all his
masterpieces in the morning. On the 7th
morning God rested and did no work, and the 7th day became the Sabbath day of
rest. It was still the sacred day of
worship and rest when Jesus lay in the tomb.
But Matthew now begins the last chapter of his Gospel with God going
back to work on Sunday morning. The
Sabbath was over and it was a dawning of a new week, and God decides it is time
for a new morning creation that will begin a whole new history on this planet.
God
could have raised his Son on the Sabbath, but he was starting fresh with a
whole new plan of salvation. He was not
going to dignify the Sabbath by the resurrection, and lock in the Sabbath
forever. He came to destroy the
legalism of the Sabbath and make a new day of worship. The Pharisees had no law against rising from
the dead on the Sabbath, but it did involve a lot of forbidden work. The stone being rolled away, and the Messiah
getting out of his grave clothes, and traveling more than a Sabbath's day
journey. The whole thing would have been
condemned had it been on the Sabbath.
So God chose to wait until Sunday morning to start his new
creation. It meant a mighty dull
weekend in the tomb, but what a way to start a new week. God skipped a chance to make the Sabbath the
most sacred day forever. Instead, he
exalted the lowly Sunday to that status.
Sunday
was just a commonplace secular day. It
was not sacred time, but secular time.
God took this day of common labor and made it the day that would be
exalted above all others, even the Sabbath.
Easter Sunday morning changed everything for God's people. It changed who they worshiped, and when they
worshiped, and how they worshiped.
Easter morning didn't just change our eternal destiny, it changed the
whole design of our earthly life in relation to God. The one thing it didn't
change, but only confirmed, is that God loves the morning. One of the reasons is, no doubt, because
every morning is symbolic of Easter morning.
Every night we sleep and are like the dead, but in the morning we rise
to walk in newness of life. It is a
fresh new day filled with the potential of tasting all the fruits of the Spirit‑love,
joy, peace, and all the rest. Jan
Struther wrote,
Lord of all hopefulness, Lord of all joy,
Whose trust, ever childlike, no cares could destroy,
Be
there at our waking, and give us, we pray,
Your bliss in our hearts, Lord, at the break of the day.
I could
spend an hour just quoting the Scripture on the importance of the morning and
beginning your day with God, and hours more quoting all the poetry men and women
have written on it. Let me share just a
few:
Ps. 5:3, "Morning by morning, O Lord you hear
my voice: Morning by morning I lay my
request before you and wait in expectation."
Ps. 30:5, "Weeping may remain for the night, but
rejoicing comes in the morning."
Easter
morning is the greatest example of this.
The darkness night ever endured by God and man was on Good Friday. Jesus entered the darkness of hell, and the
world was plunged into darkness, and all of the disciples were in a state of
gloom as they wept over his fate and their own. Some of you may have heard Tony Compolo on TV. He was describing how a black preacher went
on for an hour and a half describing the darkness of Good Friday, but then he
would say, "But that was Friday‑Sunday morning is coming and with it
the rejoicing of the resurrection." It was after a dark and sorrowful
world that the light of Easter began to shine.
Easter morning guaranteed that all evil and sorrow is only temporary,
and that good and joy are eternal.
There is a great gettin‑up morning coming when the night of
darkness ends forever, and the only kind of songs we will ever sing again are
songs of victory.
Easter
morning is like that which the Psalmist waited for in Ps. 130:6. "My soul waits for the Lord more than
watchman wait for the morning, more than watchman wait for the
morning." He repeats that, for
that is the hope of the watchman‑the morning, and that is the hope of all
Christians. If we wake on earth we wake
everyday in a world where Lam. 3:23 says of God, "...His compassions never
fail. They are new every
morning." If we wake from the
sleep of death in heaven, we enter an eternal morning. We wake in the presence of him who is the
bright and morning star, and he promises he will give to over comers in Rev.
2:28, the morning star.
In
eternity it is always morning, for we will be fresh and energetic and full of
life with no weariness as time goes by.
It will be a fresh start that never ends. It will be Easter morning forever. When Donald Cargill died a martyr he stood on the scaffold in
Edinburgh, England and said to the crowd in a loud voice, "Now for the
morning and the King's face. No more
night and no more darkness."
Easter morning provides us with the hope we need to face death with
confidence, but it is not just pie in the sky on high by and by when we die
that we need. We need pie on the table
in the now, and Easter gives us this as well.
Jesus
came back from the dead not just to tell his disciples that they would go to
heaven when they die. He came back to
encourage them in living, and to meet basic needs, and so He fed them breakfast
on the beach. He gave them a purpose,
and it was to reach the whole world with the good news of Easter, and to teach
the world all he commanded. Easter is
not just about victory over death, it is about victory over life. It is about conquering all obstacles that
get in the way of achieving the purpose of Christ. The stone was rolled away, not for Jesus to come out of the tomb,
but for others to see its emptiness.
But there are no end to the stones that need to be rolled away to
fulfill God's purpose for our lives.
God's
mercies are new every morning because we can't live on yesterday's. We need new ones everyday to overcome the
obstacles in a fallen world. Tom
Dooley, the missionary doctor who died of an early case of cancer, told of lack
of money, supplies, and tedious labor.
He wrote, "Every time I get discouraged and down in the dumps
someone comes along and rings the rusty bells of hope, and I have encouragement
to get back at it." Easter is
about a hope that enables you to cope with the frustration of a fallen world
where nothing is just like it ought to be.
If Jesus rose and conquered death, then it is obvious his goal is to
conquer all the lesser consequences of sin as well. Death is the last enemy that will be destroyed. Meanwhile, there are many other enemies to
be destroyed now as we move toward that final victory. Easter is about victory over all the forces
of darkness. We need to grasp this lest
we think that the final victory is the only one that matters.
Leonard
Broughton was a pastor in Atlanta some years ago when the water in the poor
section of town became infected and 4 people died. A city council meeting was held to talk about the problem, but it
was tabled for further study. At that
same meeting they approved 15,000 dollars for road improvement in front of an
influential member's home. This so angered
pastor Broughton that he invited the council members to attend a special
service the next day. A few did, and he
preached for 50 minutes on the fact that Christ was not only interested in
saving souls, but also in good water.
He even promised a reward for a cup of cold water given in his
name. The council members there got the
message, and at ten o'clock the next day money was appropriated to clean up the
water. Broughton said later, "I
baptized 75 people in the next few months, and almost everyone said that what
got them interested in the church and in God was the fact that they were
concerned about giving them water that was good to drink."
When
Christians care, not just about what people are going to do after they die, but
about what they are doing now as they live, they will get people to consider
their readiness to die. If you don't
care that they live right, they don't care if they die right. Easter is about life, and all of life, not
just the after life. If it was just
about the after life, Jesus would not have needed to come back and spend 40
days teaching and training his disciples.
People don't just need hope for after death, they need hope for every
morning, and Easter hope is an every morning hope.
Jesus
is alive, and he is now as always a morning person. He always rose early in the morning to pray, and though he does
not need to do that now in heaven, he still needs to grant us new mercies every
morning. So every morning is special as
a fresh new opportunity to serve the living Christ and be a channel of his love
and light in a dark world. Easter
morning makes every morning special, for every morning is a new chance to know
and serve the Christ of Easter. Arthur
Tubbs wrote,
A moment in the morning ere cares of the day begin,
Ere the heart's wide door is open for the world to
enter in,
Ah, then, alone with Jesus, in the silence of the
morn,
In heavenly sweet communion, let your day be born.
In the quietude that blesses with a prelude of
repose,
Let your soul be smoothed and softened, as the dew
revives the
rose.
It is a
pretty poem, but the practice of it can make life beautiful. A young office worker wrote about her
experience in an article entitled, "The Day That Changed A
Life." Her attitude was so changed
it changed the atmosphere where she worked.
When her employer asked what made the difference she told him she was
not enjoying life as she knew God wanted her too. She was bored and just generally unhappy. She decided she would begin everyday with a
determination to sense the presence of Christ in her life. She would consciously seek to say what He
would want her to say, and do what He would want her to do. It became an exciting experiment that
changed her, and as a result changed all around her. It was making Easter morning a way of life in which she
encountered the living Lord, and not just a yearly few hours of celebration.
Easter
morning never ends, as I said, but that is not necessarily true in our personal
lives. For some it never begins, for
they are without God and without hope in the world. But for most of us it is intermittent. It is off and on and off again, because we do not work at being
conscious of the resurrected life.
After Easter is over we sink back into a spiritual coma, and don't come
out of our cocoon state again until the following Easter. I know that is a radical way of stating it,
and it is not accurate for many Christians, but none of us are as alive to the
Easter morning experience as we need to be.
We could all benefit by praying every morning something like the prayer
of Ella Scherick:
Lord, in the quiet of this morning hour,
I
come to Thee for peace, for wisdom, power
To
view the world today through love‑filled eyes;
Be
patient, understanding, gentle, wise.
To
see beyond what seems to be, and know
Thy
children as Thou knowest them; and so
Naught but the good in anyone behold.
Make deaf my ears to slander that is told;
Silence my tongue to ought that is unkind;
Let
only thoughts that bless dwell in my mind.
Let
me so kindly be, so full of cheer,
That all I meet will feel Thy presence near.
O
clothe me in Thy beauty, this I pray,
Let
me reveal Thee, Lord, through all the day.
The best
argument for the reality of the resurrection, and both temporal and eternal
hope, is not the empty tomb. A negative
fact, or an absence of something is not where the power is. It is in the presence of something positive,
like the power and love of Christ in life.
Charles Bradlaugh went about England debunking the Christian faith, and
one day he challenged Hugh Price Hughes, a pastor at one of the missions, to a debate
of the merits of the Christian faith.
Hughes agreed and said "I will bring to the meeting one hundred
people who will testify to the power of Christ in their lives. They will tell of sin forgiven and walking
in paths of victory where they once sat in chains." He said to Bradlaugh, "You bring those
who can testify to the new and better life they have because of their
unbelief." Needless to say, the
skeptic never showed up for the debate, for there is no argument that can match
the reality of changed lives, and that is your most powerful weapon. If you have no light to shine because Christ
has made a difference in your life, then you are not going to have much of a
witness to a doubting world. We need to
roll the stone away and let the Christ entombed in us rise and shine and bring
morning into the night around us.
You are
your own best argument, and that is why it is so vital that you begin your
morning with Christ, and learn to develop a Christlike attitude that takes you
through the day. I know that not
everyone is a morning person, and mornings are hard for some. In the new heaven and new earth all God's
people will be morning people, for it will be morning forever, and night will
never come. Meanwhile, we have to live
in this world where mornings are not always pleasant. The poet put it‑
The alarm is set,
But I fear the worst;
Come dawn, the baby
Will go off first.
The idea
of being an Easter morning person is in developing an Easter attitude of
optimism. Genesis begins with the earth
as a formless empty mass in darkness.
Then came the morning and God said, "Let there be light," and
thus began the beauty of creation.
Chaos first, and then came the morning, and cosmos was formed. This is God's pattern. On Good Friday the God‑man
relationship was thrown into chaos. Man
in hatred killed God on the cross. God
in judgment cast man into hell in the person of his Son. It was the most bitter battle the universe
had ever seen. God and man killed each
other in violent conflict, and the world was plunged into darkness. But then came the morning‑Easter
morning, and with it the dawn of a new day, a new life, a new age, a new people,
and a new kingdom. On Easter morning
all things were made new.
It was a
world of darkness, then came the morning and a light that could never be put
out. It was a world of death, then came
the morning and life conquered death.
It was a world of hate, then came the morning and love triumphed over
hate. It was a world of despair, then
came the morning and hope was born anew. Some poet put it‑
Behind him were the shouts of scorn.
No longer wore he the crown of thorn.
This was the day that hope was born,
On that first glorious Easter morn.
And now it is always morning somewhere, for the Son
of righteousness has risen with healing in his wings, and the sun never
sets. Everything connected with Easter
is a symbol of optimism, hope, and life.
Even the secular symbols of Easter can teach Biblical truth if we see
them for what they are.
Easter
eggs are symbols of the sealed tomb of Christ.
But then comes the morning, and we break them open, and out of them
comes life giving food. Little chicks,
or new life can be born from this mini‑tomb as well. The egg is a valid symbol of the Easter
message. So is the rabbit that is so
popular in the secular world. The
rabbit lives in a hole in the ground much like the tomb of Christ, and out of
that darkness comes a great deal of life.
If you have a few rabbits, you will soon have a lot of rabbits, for they
have 5 or 6 litters a year. They are
symbolic of abundant life out of a tomb‑like atmosphere. I haven't watched a Bugs Bunny cartoon for
years, but I know my grandchildren watch often. Nobody consciously made Bugs a symbol of the Easter message, but
the fact is, he can be made to be such a symbol. He is pursued by those who seek to destroy him and rid the world
of his presence. But no matter how
clever and deadly the schemes to do him in, he always comes out on top with a
victory.
No
matter how big the cannon, or powerful the bombs, Bugs finds a way to escape
and come out a winner. That is the
secular portrayal of the Easter message of optimism. All the powers of darkness and hell could not defeat our Lord. They did their best at the cross and it
looked devastating, but then came the morning, and Christ broke loose like
Samson from the feeble ropes that held him, and he rose victorious over all his
foes. We need to teach our children
that many of our secular and cultural heroes are symbols of Christ.
Characters like Superman, Batman, and Tarzan are often the target of
clever evil forces that almost do them in, but every time these forces for good
escape and come out victorious. The
difference with Jesus is that his victory was not just fiction but real, and he
can save us from all these evil forces that he conquered. He saves us, not just for heaven, but for
earth, in order to add life and light to this fallen world.
Charlie
Brown was telling Linus what an awful world it was. And Linus said, "I think the world is better today than it
was 6 years ago." Charley
protested, "Don't you read the paper or watch TV? How can you say the world is better today
than 6 years ago." Linus
responded, "I am in it now!"
That could be said in a spirit of pride, but it can also be said in a
spirit of Easter optimism. If the
living Christ has come into your life because you have asked him to be your
Savior, and have asked him to forgive you and make you a light in this dark
world, then the world should be a better place because you are in it. If you have never asked Jesus to be your
Savior, do so this morning and make this Easter morning the beginning of a day
that will never end. Be able to go out
into this dark world with the testimony, "I was lost and in the grave of
darkness. I could see no way of
escape. Then came the morning, and the
Christ of Easter became my Lord, and I now live in the light of his victory
over all the powers of evil." Ask
Jesus to be your Savior and enter the kingdom of optimism where the last word
is‑then came the morning.
3. A RISEN REDEEMER
Based on Mark 16:1‑14
Back in
1851 two missionaries, one English and the other American, were walking past
the temple of Siva in Tanjore, India.
They noticed the people carrying
out one of the brass idols. It
was a hot sunny day and the idol had become heated. One of the worshipers happened to touch it, and feeling that it
was very warm, concluded that it was sick with a fever. The Rajah, or king being present immediately
sent for a physician. He came and told
them not to be alarmed for the god was well.
The king called him a fool and sent him away. He ordered that another physician be called. When he arrived and examined the idol, he
told them the god was very ill with a high fever and would soon die if remedies
were not immediately applied. He
directed them to put the idol in a shady place, and wash him with cool
liquid. When it was cooled off the
physician pronounced him cured, and the Rajah gave him three thousands rupees
for saving the life of the god.
It is not everyday that a man can save a
god, and he was no doubt delighted with his accomplishment. We can laugh, of course, at the ignorance of
men who could seriously believe in a god capable of getting sick, dying, and
needing to be rescued by men from the jaws of death. Any god who can get sick
and die is no god at all. This ought to
be as obvious to us as any truth is.
Those who make statements that God has died only reveal that the God of
whom they speak is no more than a man made idol, and not the God of Biblical
revelation. It is true that God, out of
the great love with which He loved us, became incarnate in human flesh, and
submitted to the death of the cross. He
did literally go through the experience of dying, but the vital fact, the great
fact of Easter, is that He went through it.
He did not remain in death, but rose to live forever. Jesus said to John
in Rev. 1:18, "I am he that liveth, and was dead; and behold, I am alive
forevermore, Amen and have the keys of hell and death." Christ has the keys of hell and death
because He experienced both, and triumphed over both. A poet has written,
Yes, He is risen who is the
First and Last,
Who was and is, who liveth
and was dead.
Beyond the reach of death He
now has passed.
Of the glorious church the
glorious head.