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March
31, 2002 Rev. Dr. John Ward Let's turn in our pew Bibles to this morning's reading, which
you'll find on page 201 in the New Testament.
We'll be reading from Colossians chapter 3, verses 1 through 4.
Feel free to look along as I read. Then
I'm also going to refer to a Romans passage, so if you keep your Bibles open,
I'll let you know about that one later. This
is our reading for the morning: So if you have been raised with Christ, seek the
things that are above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God.
Set your minds on things that are above, not on things that are on earth,
for you have died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God.
When Christ who is your life is revealed, then you also will be revealed
with Him in glory This is the Word of the Lord. Thanks be to God. Well, I was going to say "Happy Easter!" to you:
"Happy Easter!" [congregation:] "Happy
Easter!" Let's do the "Jesus is risen" part:
"Jesus is risen!" [congregation:] "He
is risen indeed!" You expect to hear that every Easter, don't you?
You did so well with Dave. He
just wanted to wish you a Happy Easter and you were right with it, so that's
great! And remember that, because
through the message I may get excited and want to say it once again, and you'll
want to respond. (It also keeps you
awake!) You're the smart ones who
came to the early service this morning. The
second thing is, I want to congratulate you because we've got three services:
8, 9:30 and 11, and I think the 9:30 one is just going to be really
crowded. We lost a whole row of
parking with regard to snow. So you were the smart ones and you get the good
pancakes and the good sausage! I know it was Gary's original intent to choose this passage for
preaching. When we began to
negotiate the reality that I may have to preach, he said, "Well, John,
you'll have to go back into that barrel of sermons."
I went back into my files and I haven't preached an Easter sermon since I
was pastor by myself and that was back in 1996, so I had no records of anything
I had preached on Easter because senior pastors preach Easter Sundays, so I had
to start fresh. So you get a fresh
sermon, anyway. But I thought it was worth keeping the passage we have this
morning, which is the result of what it means to believe in the historic truth
of the resurrection of Jesus Christ. That's
what we believe. We believe as sure
as this earth exists, as sure as the universe has been created by God, as sure
as you and I live and breathe, Jesus is risen!
. . . Oh, you guys? C'mon! [congregation:] "He
is risen indeed!" The reality is, the stone has been rolled away.
The tomb is empty. [Here we go:] And Jesus is risen! [congregation:] "He
is risen indeed!" (Wonderful! I'm not
warning you any more.) The apostle
Paul is writing to the Colossian church, and also mentions in his words to the
Romans as well, that it's important to understand the resurrection and the
result. He begins to tie in the
results of being raised with our being raised from our own death.
That death was the death that we were living.
We were the living dead before we understood who Christ was, because our
life was all on this earth. For
those who believe in Christ, they begin to live eternal lives and we're called
to make, on this earth, eternal decisions.
Let's go through the passage again.
Paul writes: So if you have been raised with Christ, seek the things that are
above . . . Have we been raised with Christ?
Yes. That's what we're
called to understand. We're called to understand
that in our baptism, it is like we were buried. Those who have received immersion baptism would understand
the feeling of that--going under and then coming back up. Our baptism signifies that we have died to ourselves and are
committed to Christ, signifying that we are dead to our transgressions and alive
to Christ. And so when we think of
what Christ has done, as we think of His death, as we think of His burial, as we
think of His resurrection, we're also called to think of our own resurrection
and to live with that reality. So if you have been raised with Christ, seek the
things that are above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God. In other words, we're called to remember that our perspective is
the heavenly perspective. We're
God's Kingdom people. We live
knowing that we have an eternity, and the eternity begins the day we choose to
be a disciple of Christ, and understand His forgiveness for us.
And then we're called to rise above this world's ways and to think
eternally and to make eternal decisions. Verse
2: Set your minds on things that are above, not on
the things that are on earth, for you have died, and your life is hidden with
Christ in God. When Christ who is
your life is revealed, then you also will be revealed with Him in glory. This a hopeful future tense. This
lets us know of Christ's return. This
lets us know of the ultimate glory as Christ indeed will come back and will
bring us to the Father in heaven and we will finally be in the Kingdom of God in
heaven. Right now we're still
Kingdom people We're practicing
God's Kingdom business here, and we do so with an eternal perspective.
I want us to take advantage of the resurrection understanding of Christ
to have a resurrection understanding of our lives.
And I want us to begin to move, and to change our eyesight, and to change
our ways from just thinking lowly, to thinking above.
I want us to practice the resurrection perspective of our own lives
today, and tomorrow, and the next day. And
I want us to be able to think from above. And
that's what the apostle Paul is calling the Christians in Colossae to do.
He wanted them to have a perspective above the everyday perspective of
his day. He wanted them to
understand that from this vantage point we can always see better. I'm reminded of an illustration which you may have heard of before.
It was written by a Scottish preacher, John McNeil.
He likes to tell about an eagle that had been captured when it was quite
young, by a farmer. The farmer had
snared the bird and put a restraint on it so it could never fly. Then he turned it loose to roam in the barnyard with the
other animals. It wasn't long until
the eagle began to act like a chicken, scratching and pecking on the ground.
The bird that once soared high in the heavens seemed satisfied to live
the barnyard life of a lowly hen after just a few weeks tethered and unable to
fly. He lost his perspective.
One day the farmer was visited by a shepherd who came down from the
mountains, where eagles live. And
seeing the eagle, the shepherd said to the farmer, "What a shame to keep
that bird hobbled here in the barnyard. Why
don't you let it go?" The
farmer agreed. And so they cut off
the restraint. You would think
immediately the eagle would fly, but it did not.
The eagle continued to wander around, scratching and pecking as before.
It had lost its eternal perspective.
It had lost its lofty perspective. So
the shepherd picked it up and set it on a high stone wall.
And for the first time in months, the eagle saw the grand expanse of the
blue sky and the glowing sun. Then
it spread its wings and with a leap, soared off in a tremendous spiral flight,
up and up and up! At last it was
acting like an eagle again. This illustration, I think, is perfect for this morning's passage.
Friends, we have celebrated and we have made plans to worship the Lord in
a special way. We began with the
triumphal entry of Christ, and returned again to the Maundy Thursday
celebration, and the Good Friday celebration.
And here we are on Easter Sunday. Where
are we going to be tomorrow? That's
the question Paul asks. After all
is said and done, all the celebrations are done, we come back to church next
week on a regular Sunday. What's
going to happen to you and me tomorrow? We're
offered the opportunity, because of the resurrection of Jesus Christ, to begin
to have an eternal perspective every day for the rest of our lives.
For we indeed are like the eagle set back up on the wall, to give us hope
again. To see the perspective that
lets us know that Christ is Lord of the universe, that Christ is victorious and
forgives sins, that Christ is risen. [congregation:] "He
is risen indeed!" (I did that for you!) Indeed
He is. And so are we, called in the
Holy Spirit, to think eternally. Not
to just return tomorrow to the regular world.
Not to be grousing around, and pecking, and scratching, like people who
think there's nothing left, and nothing more to do than to just keep our heads
to the dirt and never rise up to the lofty heights.
We have the opportunity, as Paul called to these first-century Christians
in his writing, to have an eternal perspective.
So must you and I. Let me have you turn now to the Romans passage that I was telling
you about. This is with regard to
Romans, chapter 6. You can find
that on page 156 in the pew Bibles. Page
156. Let's go to verse 3 in chapter
6. You'll find that at the bottom
of the left-hand column there. Do you not know that all of us who have been
baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death?
Therefore we have been buried with him by baptism into death, so that,
just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, so we too
might walk in the newness of life. This is what Paul is reminding the Colossians of, as well as he
does the first-century Christians in Rome.
And because this is God's Word for us today, this is His Word to us as
well. We need to understand that not only was Christ buried, but those who put
their faith in Him have also been buried, as well, to their old ways.
And we received the newness of life in the resurrection of Christ which
comes to us when we understand that through the Holy Spirit.
When we are no longer the old people, but now new things have come to us. Verse 5: For if we have been united with him in a death like his, we will
certainly be united with him in a resurrection like his.
[I want to finish with verse 8:] But
if we have died with Christ, we believe that we will also live with him. My question again is, "What happens tomorrow?"
I know what happens today. We're
here already. It looks like Easter.
It smells like Easter. (Don't
you like the smell? I know some of
you are really suffering through this, but this smells so good to me, to have
this fragrance of Easter Sunday. The
next fragrance traditionally, of course, is the pancakes!)
And then other traditions that you have as well.
We know what Easter looks like. This morning I was so excited.
As I got up to prepare to be here this morning I was shaving and there
was a knock on the door. Jacob, our
third child (the one who does not need an alarm clock to get up at sunrise!)
comes in and the first thing out of his mouth this morning to me was,
"Happy Easter, Dad!" (I was going, "Yes! A
victory for parenting!") We
talked a little bit about that and I gave him that question. I said, "Why do we celebrate Easter?"
He looks at me. (He
had that vision like, "I hope I'm right, Dad . . .")
"Because Jesus rose from the grave?" I said, "Right!" (And
again, "Ah, Praise God! Victory!") Then a few minutes later he came and said, "Dad!
The Easter bunny came!" He got his Legos. We
got Ann a nice little stuffed animal. We
got our college kids some stuff--a phone card for one and a CD for another.
Age-appropriate gifts, wouldn't you say? We're not giving gifts much, but it seemed like we wanted to
get something for our kids. Coming back down, as the family was gathering to get
ready for church, Jacob goes, "Is there really an Easter bunny, Dad?"
I gave him the truth. I gave
him the truth. And he looked at me:
"I thought so." (He's
eight years old. That's pretty good
to make it last as long as it has!) But we know what Easter looks like. It's a compilation of not only the resurrection of Christ,
but our family initiatives that we do. Here's
something that I want us to go away with. Again,
think of what this is going to mean for you tomorrow.
Will you and I, as Jesus is risen, raise ourselves up to the lofty
heights and forget about having only a horizontal perspective (one that can only
see the dirt and see the scratching and see the grousing)--because there's no
hope in that. Will we now--even
now--rise up in the eternal perspective that God has given us in Jesus Christ to
live that way dramatically in a relationship with Christ so that you can not
only make a difference as a disciple, but a difference for others because you
are His disciple. John Gregory Mantle wrote this:
There is a great difference between realizing the
statement, "On that cross He was crucified for me" and the statement,
"On that cross I am crucified with Him." This is what Paul is trying to help us understand--that we're
called as disciples and servants not only into a death with Him, but into a
resurrection with Him. But first we
must crucify our old perspectives. We
must let them go and align ourselves with Christ. There is a great difference between realizing, "On that cross
He was crucified for me," and "On that cross I am crucified with
Him." Again, radical
discipleship, friends, does not just look up and the cross and say, "Whew.
He died for me." But
the call of discipleship is, "I am crucified with Christ and I am now His
servant, and I align myself with Him in every way."
It not only means I'm forgiven, but I'm called to follow Christ, to make
sacrifices for Him, to look up above and be the person Christ has called me to
be. As John Gregory Mantle explains those two statements, in one
sentence it frees us from sin's condemnation.
Indeed, "On that cross He was crucified for me."
But the other, "On that cross I am crucified with Him" brings
us that other aspect, and that is deliverance from sin's power over us, aligning
ourselves with the death of Christ and gives us a mission in this world until
Christ comes again to be His disciples and seek an eternal perspective
To soar like eagles because Jesus has given us that perspective.
Our call today is not only to celebrate this day--not only to come here
and respond to that word our pastor says, "Jesus is risen!" [congregation:] "He
is risen indeed!" "Jesus is risen!" [congregation:] "He
is risen indeed!" (Good for you!) We're
not only to respond to that today. We're
not only to go eat pancakes, or whatever your plans are as a family--Easter egg
hunts and dinner. We're not only to
understand the resurrection today, but we must live radical, resurrection-lives
starting first thing in the morning to break the cycle of only living
horizontally and start living vertically now as well. Let us pray together. Heavenly Lord, let this Easter, this Resurrection Sunday, not be a
tradition. Let it be radically new.
Remind us, Lord God, as well, that you have untethered us now from a
mortal existence, one that keeps us only looking after our own purposes.
You have freed us, Lord God, and you have taken us up in Jesus Christ. Because we align ourselves with your death, and with your
burial, and with your resurrection, we indeed are the new creations in Christ.
Lord, we celebrate this celebration of Easter every year because we need
to remember, Lord, any time we are resurrected in you is Resurrection Day.
Help us, Lord, to be people who will now see vertically, Lord, from your
lofty heights to look down and to have full perspective.
And as well, Lord God, as you have freed us, fill us with your Holy
Spirit and the power to help bring others in your name.
It is in Christ's name that we pray.
And all God's people said, "Amen." The Rev. Dr. John Ward Associate Pastor for Discipleship Faith Presbyterian Church Minnetonka, Minnesota [Transcribed from an audiotape of the 8:00 a.m. Worship Service on
March 31, 2002] |
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