Did you hear about the man who had just started reading the Bible and was astounded by what he found? Proud of his recent discovery, the man excitedly told a friend, "I've been reading my New Testament, and I never realized so many important things happened on holidays!" His friend was puzzled: "What do you mean?" "Well," said the fellow, "for example, you won't believe this amazing coincidence, but this guy Jesus was born on Christmas and he came back from the grave on Easter!"
I'm not too sure about that Christmas date, but we can be confident of the resurrection. It is one of the few events in the gospel story we can date with accuracy, since it was tied to the Jewish Passover – thus every spring we are reminded of that amazing Sunday morning so long ago when Jesus of Nazareth broke the power of sin and death forever and rose from the tomb.
But I'm afraid the very fact that we can pinpoint the anniversary of the Resurrection may lull us into the serious mistake of limiting our awareness of it to one day a year, when for the early disciples it was a living reality all year long! In fact, when we examine the book of Acts, we find that in the first-century church every sermon was a Resurrection sermon!
That's because the Resurrection is the key to everything we believe; it is the foundation of our faith, the basis for all our hopes, the reason for our religion. It is the heart of the gospel:
1 Corinthians 15:3-4 "For what I received I passed on to you as of first importance: that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, that he was buried, and that he was raised on the third day according to the Scriptures....."
So while we typically consider this subject at Easter, we can't go wrong in remembering the Resurrection on any Sunday. The resurrection of Jesus is one of the reasons Christianity is unique among all the world religions. Charles Colson has written:
And sometimes, again unconsciously, we obscure the central truth of the Resurrection when we make personal testimony our primary form of evangelism. When I was in
That's why
So this morning we celebrate the victory that is ours in Jesus! But we cannot fully appreciate the victory unless we understand the power of the enemy – we can't quite comprehend the loveliness of the resurrection unless we first recognize the sting of DEATH.
Body:
I. THE STING OF DEATH.
You know, children have a way of putting things into perspective – they're so curious, so candid, so direct, that sometimes they force us into facing up to topics that we'd really rather avoid. For example, several years ago, when one of my boys was only 5, we were having lunch when out of nowhere, he asked – "How many are you?" (When you're still new to counting, that means, "How old are you?")
I told him my age, and he replied: "Oh. How many weeks is that?"
When you're only five, a year is a long time, so he wanted it translated into something more easily comprehended. I did some rough calculations on my napkin, figured my age in weeks, and provided that information. He pondered it for a moment, then had yet another question.
"Oh. How many do you get?"
How do you answer that? Psalm 90:12 does say, "Teach us to number our days alright, so that we may gain a heart of wisdom," but that just means we should realize our days are numbered (they are not infinite).
That's a bit of information that I presently don't have available! Someday someone will be reading my obituary, and as he sums up my life in a paragraph or two, he will provide that number. But at this point, I don't know! As Isaac said, "I am now an old man and I do not know the day of my death" (Genesis 27:2).
No one really knows how long they'll live. We only know two things for sure: we realize we won't be around on this planet indefinitely; and the longer we live, the more we realize just how quickly time passes. After Billy Graham wrote his autobiography he was being interviewed on television, and I happened to catch the conversation. The interviewer asked: "As you look back over the years, what is the one thing that has surprised you the most about life?" Without a moment's hesitation Graham replied, "The brevity of it. How quickly it passes."
And for the unbeliever, that can be a terrifying thought! Years ago Gina and I drove up Highway 1, a beautiful road that winds up the coastline of
We may try to ignore the fact of death, but that won't make it "go away." We all have a "terminal condition," from which none of us will survive – that terminal condition is called LIFE! Unless Jesus returns in the meantime, we will die one day – it's not a question of if, but when? It is so universal that Joshua described his own approaching death by saying "Now I am about to go the way of all the earth" (Joshua 23:14). And the Bible states flatly – "It is appointed unto men once to die" (Hebrews 9:27).
II. WHY ARE SO MANY FOLKS UNCOMFORTABLE WITH THE FACT OF DEATH, EVEN IF THEY ARE CHRISTIANS?
1. Because death is unnatural, the "enemy." (1 Corinthians 15:26 - "the last ENEMY to be destroyed is death"). God put man in the Garden of Eden to live forever! Death is the unwelcome consequence of sin, and any man who speaks lightly of it is a fool! Cults like "Heaven's Gate" may embrace death gleefully, but not Christianity. In the gloom of
Because death takes us away from all we've ever seen or known. We sing "This world is not my home, I'm just a 'passing through" – but we base that on faith, not on sight. "There's a land that is fairer than day, and by FAITH we can see it afar." We are created for eternity: BUT the Bible nowhere says that this life is unimportant, insignificant; on the contrary, in the book of Ecclesiastes Solomon, despite his pessimism, urged us to savor life while we can: "Light is sweet, and it pleases the eyes to see the sun. However many years a man may live, let him enjoy them all" (Eccles 11:7-8).
The Bible never says that this life is unimportant – it does say there has to be more than this life! 1 Corinthians 15:19 "If in this life only we have hope in Christ, we are of all men most miserable" (KJV). As the old song says, "The treasures of earth pass away one by one, but the kingdom of heaven remains." The sting of death comes from its UNCERTAINTY.
One of the most famous sermons of Frederick W. Robertson, the great Scottish preacher, was entitled "Victory Over Death." It included this paragraph,
"It is no mark of courage to speak lightly of human dying. We may do it in bravado, or in wantonness; but no man who thinks can call it a trifling thing to die. True thoughtfulness must shrink from death without Christ. There is a world of untold sensations prodded into that moment when a man realizes his hour is come. It is all over - his chance is past, and his eternity is settled. None of us know, except by guess, what that sensation is. Myriads of human beings have felt it to whom life was dear; but they never spoke out their feelings, for such things are untold. And to every individual man throughout all eternity that sensation in its fullness can come but once. It is mockery.....for a man to speak lightly about that which we cannot know till it comes".
[Source: Herald of Truth, "The Finality of Death", No. 379]
3. Because for humans death represents an END. Everything stops for a funeral – and that's appropriate, because death represents an end to our temporal plans, work, activity. And even though as God's children we anticipate an eternity of joy, still there is ambivalence. It is not unlike our graduation day. When we graduated from high school, we were proud of our accomplishments, and ready to move on with life, and yet...... there was also that bittersweet realization that a part of our life is behind us, that we will never go back to that kind of experience again. I would not want to go back to high school for the world, yet I had mixed feelings about leaving that behind.
And even though we are promised something better, I believe Christians rightfully resent and resist death because:
-it is the unnatural result of sin, and violates our most basic instinct.
-it takes us out of the familiar and into the unknown
-and it represents an end.
III. OUR HOPE OF THE RESURRECTION:
1. That's why our text this morning is so important: READ TEXT. Jesus addresses the unfamiliar, and answers our every fear!
Here Jesus is facing his own death, and he knew that apostles would be frightened at losing him: thus it is a message of reassurance. (Verse 1)
He tells them he is going to heaven, so it will never again be an "unknown" place – now they'll know someone there- JESUS! Thus it is a message of reliability (Verse 2)
Jesus is coming back - our hope is guaranteed! HE is the way - he said "I AM the Resurrection and the life" (John 11:25). Thus it is a message of Resurrection. He says, "Because I live, you also will live" (v. 19).
The resurrection is not a doctrine, but a fact. Heaven is not a wish/hope/"maybe" - it has been demonstrated. He went through death and back again, to show us the way! Because of the empty tomb, the drive to the cemetery will never again be on a "dead-end" road.
Because He lives ..... we can have hope even in death.
..... we have a reason for living with confidence.
..... we know there's life beyond.
--Dan Williams
No comments:
Post a Comment