What Is The Big Deal About Easter?

Rev. Dr. Christopher Carlson

Well move over Dan Brown.  In the last few weeks we’ve had James Cameron, and some other entertaining types, telling us more about the truth about Jesus.  It seems like it’s happening every year now about this time; of course that’s not too surprising if you want to make a lot of money.   It’s been going on for a couple thousand years, ever since the real resurrection happened.  Someone is always trying to explain Jesus and even to denounce the resurrection, to explain it in some other way.  It took awhile for scholars to talk about Dan Brown and to show his work for what it really is, fiction.  Scholars are answering this particular idea as well; as a matter of fact, I am not going to spend a lot of time on it, but out at the Welcome Center there is about four pages of information talking about this idea.  The bottom line is there are no credible scholars backing this up, either secular or religious.  You know, I really don’t worry about this, it happens all the time.  In fact in the United States, whether Christian or not, a poll was taken several years ago which showed that over eighty percent of Americans believe in the literal resurrection, whether they’re Christian or not.  I find that it’s not the idea of believing in a resurrection that’s the problem, it’s why?  What does it mean?  So this morning, that’s what I want to talk about, what is the big deal about the resurrection? 

I’ll read to you the familiar story, at least part of it, from the gospel of John.

(John 20:1-8, 19-29)

Early on the first day of the week, while it was still dark, Mary Magdalene went to the tomb and saw that the stone had been removed from the entrance.  So she came running to Simon Peter and the other disciple, the one Jesus loved, and said, “They have taken the Lord out of the tomb, and we don’t know where they have put him!”

So Peter and the other disciple started for the tomb.  Both were running, but the other disciple outran Peter and reached the tomb first.  He bent over and looked in at the strips of linen lying there but did not go in. Then Simon Peter, who was behind him, arrived and went into the tomb.  He saw the strips of linen lying there, as well as the burial cloth that had been around Jesus’ head.  The cloth was folded up by itself, separate from the linen.  Finally the other disciple, who had reached the tomb first, also went inside.  He saw and believed.

On the evening of that first day of the week, when the disciples were together, with the doors locked for fear of the Jews, Jesus came and stood among them and said, “Peace be with you!”  After he said this, he showed them his hands and side.  The disciples were overjoyed when they saw the Lord.

Again Jesus said, “Peace be with you!  As the Father has sent me, I am sending you.”  And with that he breathed on them and said, “Receive the Holy Spirit.  If you forgive anyone his sins, they are forgiven, if you do not forgive them, they are not forgiven.”

Now Thomas (called Didymus), one of the Twelve, was not with the disciples when Jesus came.  So the other disciples told him, “We have seen the Lord!”

But he said to them, “Unless I see the nail marks in his hands and put my finger where the nails were, and put my hand into his side, I will not believe it.”

A week later his disciples were in the house again, and Thomas was with them.  Though the doors were locked, Jesus came and stood among them and said, “Peace be with you!”  Then he said to Thomas, “Put you finger here; see my hands.  Reach out your hand and put it into my side.  Stop doubting and believe.”

Thomas said to him, “My Lord and my God!”

Then Jesus told him, “Because you have seen me, you have believed; blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed.”

This is the word of the Lord.

Thanks be to God.

Would you pray with me?

Father, we come again to celebrate the most momentous event in history.  We pray Father that we can see again its importance in the world and in our lives.  Be with us now Lord, we pray; open our hearts and minds.  We pray in Jesus’ name.  Amen.

What is your greatest need?  In fact I would ask, what is the world’s greatest need?  This has been answered in many ways but I think many people would say that the world’s greatest need is love.  Kind of like the old song “What the world needs now, is love, sweet love, it’s the only thing…” well I guess I’d better stop.  I said a couple times I should have been a lounge singer, but… I probably would have been a very bad one.  The song is right; but I would argue that it’s a specific kind of love.  What the world needs now is forgiveness.  The world certainly needs it.  If the nations could forgive other nations, we could end some of the wars that we have.  If families could forgive families, we’d have a lot less strife.  If individuals and husbands and wives could forgive each other, there would be a lot less divorce.  In fact, I would say to you that if you ask any counselor, often the issues boil down to not being able to forgive, or having had certain things happen so often that you can’t forgive.  But our biggest need is forgiveness in our relationship with God.  You know, deep down inside we all know this.  We all know it.  There is something not quite right with us.  There is something not quite right in our feelings.  We do all kinds of things to ignore it or to put it off but something is not quite right; and it is that need of reconciliation with God.  You know, the gospel is very, very simple.  We’ve got a problem.  It’s called sin.  Now I’ve used this illustration before but it goes something like this.  If you imagine that this book here is a listing of all my sins; and I would say to you if it were my sins it would be a lot thicker, but imagine that’s what it is.  Now we might say truthfully that God is love, and He is.  God, when He sees me, loves me.  “This is Chris.”  But God is also just.  God is a god of justice; He’s holy.  There’s this problem.  God sees me and loves me but there’s sin between me and God.  The whole story of the bible is that God became a human being and took my sin and your sin upon Him, Himself, on that cross.  But that’s not the whole story; it’s not just the death on the cross, that’s part of it.  It’s the resurrection too.  It’s like two pages of the same story.  We have the first page, the crucifixion; the second is the resurrection.  Without the resurrection, the crucifixion means nothing.  If the resurrection is not true, you and I should not be here today, and you shouldn’t come back because there’s no point.  The resurrection puts the stamp of approval on the whole thing and says, “It’s real.  It’s real.  It’s part of the same story.” 

The first advantage of the resurrection is that your past and my past can be forgiven because of this event, this death and resurrection of Jesus Christ.  And the second thing is that our present can be different, can be blessed.  The first thing we get when we put our trust in Christ is a new life, a brand new life.  You know, the bible, you’ve heard the phrase, “the lights are on but nobody’s home,” this usually means that someone is not too bright; but with the bible, the lights are not even turned on, when it describes human beings apart from God.  People don’t even have their spiritual lights on.  They’re like dead folks.  Paul says, “as for you, you were dead in your trespasses.”  He simply means you’re condemned and you don’t have it up here or in here.  The bible says you must “be born again.”  When it says that, it is saying that the resurrection from the dead is not just a bodily resurrection, which it is.  Now I want to be very clear about this.  This resurrection is not just an idea.  It’s literal.  It happens.  It’s not, as some theologians have suggested, a nice idea that makes us feel good.  Paul says if that’s your belief, if there’s no resurrection, “you are above a man most to be pitied.”  You’re a fool.  It’s real.  But the bible says the resurrection “starts when we come to faith.”  In other words, we are rejuvenated and re-made and born again.  That’s what being reborn means.  You know, sometimes being born again is put down as a phrase, but it’s a good one. It means to be born from above.  So when you enter into a life with Christ, you in a sense are already resurrected.  You’re just waiting for the physical one, the total completion of the work.  So you get a new life, now. 

You also get a new courage to live.  I’ve often said I like the disciples because they’re a lot like me.  You know the whole story, it’s very clear they just don’t get it.  Jesus says, “How long am I going to have to put up with you guys?”  He keeps telling them and telling them and telling them and they just don’t get it, until after they see the risen Lord; until after they receive the Holy Spirit.  Then they get it.  And they’re changed.  They all betrayed Jesus, every one of them, if not with their mouth, with their feet. They ran like rabbits but they’re different after that.  Who could blame them?  We have a lot of debates about capital punishment in our age, that’s fine.  In those days they didn’t have to debate it, they did it.  Not only did they do it, but they did it in public.  So if you lived in that time, you were likely to have seen someone killed, sometimes in the most graphic horrible ways.  The Romans would crucify people by the road so you could see what happened to those who didn’t obey.  The disciples didn’t want anything to do with that and who could blame them.  But when Jesus changes their lives, they say “Do it.”  That’s one of the biggest proofs of the resurrection for me, the change in their lives and what happens to them.  And you know in life, it’s not really about life being different; it’s how we handle it.  The disciples were still in the same danger, same problems, after the resurrection as they were before; they just faced it differently.  They faced it with courage.  Life takes courage.  I don’t know who came up with the idea that when you get older, those are the golden years.  I suspect it was somebody who wasn’t old who said that.  Now getting old can be a good thing, but it takes courage.  I’ve watched too many people get old to know any different that that.  It takes courage, it really does.  It takes courage to live.  It takes courage to be a Christian.  When you hear in the news media how you’re not supposed to believe this anymore, “The truth about Jesus”.  It takes courage.  You don’t have to check your brain at the door, but you have to have faith. 

So there’s a new life, and a new courage, a new power.  Jesus breathes on the disciples and gives them the Holy Spirit and later, in a more full way, in Jerusalem at Pentecost.  You know, all that says is that God doesn’t leave us by ourselves.  We don’t have the power under ourselves to live the Christian life, but God helps us.  He’s with us; He fills us with His spirit.  There’s a new purpose.  I really have found many Christians, many people but particularly Christians who really don’t have much purpose in their lives.  You know, we go to work.  We do our work.  Then we just look forward to the next thing, the next ball game, the next party with our friends, the next relationship, for some people, it’s the next pill, trying to get through life.  But when we know God, now, we have a purpose for living.  It doesn’t involve fear of death.  It’s bold.  It’s real.  It’s now, as resurrected life.  So we have forgiveness for our past; power in our presence, blessedness; and we have a guarantee or security in our future. 

In a scene that might have been taken right out of America’s Funniest Home Videos, and author named John Trent described a wedding he saw.  As the wedding was going on and as the minister was pronouncing them man and wife, one of the spectators in the pews stood up and went “Yes!  Yes!  Yes!”  But he wasn’t talking about the wedding.  You see, he had been listening to a ball game on the radio, between Texas and Texas A&M.  I never found out who he was rooting for.  But as I used to say to the folks in Texas, “I don’t have a dog in that fight so I don’t care who wins.”  But this guy did.  But you know when it comes to the resurrection, that’s how we should be.  “Yes!”  “Yes!” That’s what “Amen” means.  “Yes.”  “Yes, we’ve won.  The victory is there over death in the grave.  New life.”  The question in the end becomes, how do we get that?  Well Paul says “if you confess… Jesus is Lord, and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you’ll be saved.”  Pretty simple.  There’s a belief component; you have to believe in the resurrection.  Now I said earlier, you don’t have to check your brain at the door.  I think there is a lot of evidence for this.  You have to believe in this historical fact of the resurrection. 

I’m going to tell you a story which might help, I hope.  As you know, I’ve told part of this story before, I am a chaplain in the United States Army and quite a few years ago I got it into my head that I had to go and learn how to jump out of a perfectly good airplane.  So I went to Airborne School.  Airborne School is three weeks long.  You spend the first two weeks, the third week is jump week, the first two weeks, just training you, getting you ready, answering your questions.  It’s a couple of rough weeks; and, of course, one of the first questions we had was “How many times have chutes failed?”  Natural question, right?  It turns out that over many decades, hardly any.  That’s true.  Now people do get hurt by not hitting the ground right or something else, but the chutes always open.  They make sure that happens by packing them well.  The people who are riggers, they’re called, have to jump out of airplanes regularly with the chutes that they pack; so they make sure that they’re right.  Then they went through great lengths explaining to us how it all worked.  You are put into this harness.  You’re given a spare chute.  They teach you that if your chute happens to not open, you have another one, and how to open that.  You’re hooked up to a line in the airplane and the line comes out and the chute opens.  You don’t have to do a thing.  It just happens.  You jump out and it happens.  It all happens automatically.  You are given every assurance, all the evidence that this is going to happen.  But then, you get up in the airplane.  And believe me, when you’re up there and you’re just flying around, you don’t feel very good.  The whole idea, you know, you get there, and then they open the door.  A one hundred and fifty mile an hour wind comes through and just swoooooosh!  You’re scared to death.  And in the Army, often, if you’re a chaplain, you’re kind of a good luck charm.  So often you have to go first. (Laughter)  And I was first.  Well there it is.  You jump out and it’s like being shot out of a cannon. Wooooooosh!  You feel this tremendous jerk behind you because the tether has come out, the chute is opening, and it hurts.  Wooooooosh, just like that.  But then the most amazing thing happens.  The most amazing thing happens.  You see you’re jumping out of this airplane.   It has a jet or a prop and the prop wash or jet wash blows your chute.  You know your chute is opening in the back; but then literally, you’re going that way and the chute is flipped over in front of you and opens in front of you.  It is the most beautiful sight you have ever seen.  It is a “God thing”.  All the evidence in the world says it’s going to happen and there it is.  Wooooooosh.  You go from absolute noise to absolute silence.  You have a great view too, looking all around you.  Of course, you’re not very far up; and, in my experience, I was taking it all in.  The sergeants had their megaphones screaming at me to get ready to hit the ground.  “Chaplain, blankety blank…” I don’t want to get into that, but….  I think the resurrection is kind of like that.  Life is scary.  Facing death is scary.  But the evidence is there and your chute is going to open and you have to believe.  But you have to do more than just believe, you have to also confess.  It’s not just a matter of believing a truth; it’s entering into a relationship.  “If you confess Jesus is Lord” in other words, “You’re the boss.  You’re my God.”  Thomas said “My Lord and my God.”  My Lord and my God.  That’s how you get it.  And if you haven’t this morning, I plead with you, pray to the Lord and say “You are my God.  I believe.”  You might say, “I already have.”  Great.  But you may be a little like me.  I find, being the rebellious soul that I am, I have to continuously say, “Lord, you are the Lord.”  So it is a good day to renew your faith.

Jesus is risen!  He is risen indeed!

Would you pray with me?

Father, Thank you for entering into history by becoming one of us, dealing with the separation, this problem of sin, and saying you can be forgiven; that there will be no condemnation anymore for those who believe.  You have given us victory over death that one day we will have, and the chute will open, and we will be with you.  Strengthen our faith Lord, and if there are any here today that have not confessed you, work on them Lord, through the spirit, and bring them to faith too.  In the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit.  Amen.