Resurrection Message for the Community Service

 Preaching to the Choir

Preaching to the choir is a metaphor that we sometimes use to say we are telling people something that they already know.

In the Cumberland Presbyterian Church, I literally preach to the choir.  You see in our denomination; the congregation is the choir.  Those people sitting up front are called the leading choir.

This evening, I use preaching to the choir in its metaphorical sense. Who comes to these community services?  It’s people who are probably in regular attendance in a sanctuary somewhere on most Sunday mornings and some Sunday or Wednesday evenings as well.

I love to tell the story,

for those who know it best

seem hungering and thirsting

to hear it like the rest.

So it’s no surprise to you that after a kangaroo court held by the Jewish religious leaders, Jesus was handed over to a Roman governor who was manipulated by Jewish Religious leaders into sending Jesus to the cross after some torture and mutilation of his body.

It’s no surprise that Jesus did this freely—of his own free will because he came to do his Father’s will and his will required the sacrifice of an unblemished lamb.

It’s no surprise to you that only Jesus could be that unblemished lamb.  He said that he did not come to do away with the law but to fulfill it.  Do any among us doubt that he did what he said he would do.  He fulfilled the law and the prophecies that were set before his people.

Not even the patriarchs qualified as an unblemished lamb.  Only Jesus qualified.

It’s no surprise that the blood of Jesus was the atoning sacrifice to take away the sin of the world.

Do any of us doubt that we are the beneficiaries of that sacrifice?

Do any of us not know that on the first day of the week, the women who came to the tomb found it empty.  We remember the words, why do you look for the living among the dead.

Do we know that Jesus was crucified, died, buried, and rose from the dead?  Do we also not have that promise of resurrection?

So far this guy has not said anything that I didn’t know.  He hasn’t pointed out anything new. Am I not preaching to the choir?

Of course, I am.  You know all of this.  So let’s say amen, have a prayer and go home.

Wasn’t it Columbo who always had one more question?  Just one more thing.  Peter Falk had that last question thing down to a science.

So, I would like to ask just one more question.

Jesus was crucified, suffered, died for our sins, and rose from the dead—amen, hallelujah, praise the Lord—so that we might have life, life abundant, and eternal life.

Just one more question…

What are you going to do about it?

We are saved by grace through faith so that nobody can boast.  We get that.  Jesus paid it all.  We even know the next words in the song—all to him I owe.  But what are we going to do about it.

How will we respond to the mercy and grace of God that we know in Christ Jesus? How will we respond to the salvation that we know in Christ Jesus?

Paul said work out your salvation with fear and trembling.  He didn’t say work for but work out.  We get by grace through faith.

Paul is answering the question with a charge to us.  The question is what are we going to do in response to the unbelievable gift of grace that we have received by faith.

He said, work out your salvation with fear and trembling

Let’s use the term live instead of work so we don’t think we are working for our salvation.  Live out your salvation with fear and trembling.  He doesn’t mean to walk around like a dog that’s been kicked all of its life.

He doesn’t mean to walk around fearful of being struck down by lighting. He charges us to live a life worthy of the calling that we have received.  He has told us that how we respond to God’s mercy and grace is the most important thing that we will do with our lives.

We need to profess Jesus is Lord!  We have done that.

We need to believe that God raised Jesus from the dead!  We have done that.

Then what’s left?  Living out our salvation as the most important thing we will ever do is what’s before us.

We need to understand that in our profession of faith, we have not reached the finish line but only come to the starting blocks of life and life abundant and life eternal.

Jesus said that we passed from death to life when we believed in him.  Our eternity has begun but what is our remaining time on this earth going to look like?

Will people know that we belong to Jesus by our love?  We should be people that others see and think, dude, that guy must follow Jesus.  I can tell by his love or by her love.

Will we be a light in this dark world? The number one sport in the world today is complaining followed closely by blaming.  Can we be the person still doing the good works that God planned for us to do long ago while the rest of the world just complains and points fingers?

Will people taste the goodness of God whenever they cross our paths? Are we truly the salt of the earth?

Will people see the good works that we do and not glorify us but glorify the Father in heaven?

Paul wrote that in whatever we do, we should work at it as if we are working for the Lord and not for men.  In whatever we do, we should do it to the glory of God.  It is the Lord, Christ whom we serve.

Our entire lives should be lived to bring glory to God!

Because of the atonement that came in the blood of Jesus, because of the promise of resurrection for ourselves that we see in the resurrection of our Lord, and because we have passed from death to life in believing in Christ Jesus, we get to live this life to the full and have already begun our eternity.

We can live a life worthy of the calling that we have received. I have come a long way in this message without reading a single Bible verse, so it’s about time we had one. This is Paul writing to the church in Ephesus.

As a prisoner for the Lord, then, I urge you to live a life worthy of the calling you have received.

Ephesians 4:1

This Sunday, I want you to celebrate resurrection like never before. 

Up from the grave he arose with a mighty triumph over his foes. He arose the victor…

He lives!  He lives!  Christ Jesus lives today…

Christ the Lord is risen today, alleluia. Sing and celebrate as you have waited all year for this day, then take all of that energy and focus it on living out your salvation as the most important thing that you will ever do.

Then go lift someone’s burden.

Then help someone carry a load that’s too much for them alone.

Next, go study to show yourself a workman approved.  Dig into your Bibles with the intent of putting the words of our Lord into practice.

Bible study is not an academic exercise.  We desire to put God’s words into practice.

We get to live a life worthy of the calling that we have received.

But, you knew to do that.  I’ve been preaching to the choir.

Amen.

No Angelic Explanation

 

Read John 20:1-9

Today we celebrate the resurrection of the Lord.

Up from the grave He arose,

With a mighty triumph o’er His foes,

He arose a Victor from the dark domain,

And He lives forever, with His saints to reign.

He arose! He arose!

Hallelujah! Christ arose!

We could just say Amen and go eat lunch.  The atonement took place on the cross.  The Lamb of God that takes away the sin of the world was slain for us.

He was given the best burial possible in the time available, but the atoning sacrifice was complete.  It was finished.

God had done for us what we could not do for ourselves.  He made us right with him by the blood of his one and only Son, Christ Jesus.

And all of the disciples knew exactly what had happened or maybe not so much.  John’s account begins with Mary Magdalene going to the tomb.

It was early on the first day of the week.  She could have come at sunset the day before, but who travels at night to a tomb?

Was she alone?  We don’t know.  Other gospels mention more than one woman heading to the tomb, even having conversation along the way about who should roll the stone away.

Those women and conversations are not mentioned here. What is mentioned is that Mary arrived at an empty tomb and rushed back to Peter and another disciple whom we believe to be John the gospel’s author.

She proclaimed that Christ the Lord is risen today, Alleluia!   Here’s the full transcript.

Christ the Lord is ris’n today, Alleluia!

Sons of men and angels say, Alleluia!

Raise your joys and triumphs high, Alleluia!

Sing, ye heav’ns, and earth, reply, Alleluia!

I think Mary was on a roll.

Love’s redeeming work is done, Alleluia!

Fought the fight, the battle won, Alleluia!

Death in vain forbids His rise, Alleluia!

Christ hath opened paradise, Alleluia!

OK, that’s not exactly what Mary said.  Actually, she imputed her own thoughts into her observation.  Of course, we have never done that.

“They have taken the Lord out of the tomb, and we don’t know where they have put him!”

See saw an empty tomb but she reported that somebody had taken him.  She even reported who took him.  Who?

They took him. The notorious they took their Lord from the tomb.

What could be done?  Peter and John raced to the tomb.  John got their first but stopped at the entrance.  Peter caught up and went straight in. John followed.

They saw the cloth that had been wrapped around his head and other strips of linen used to encase his body, but there was no body.

John’s account noted that they saw and believed but did not yet understand that Jesus had to rise from the dead.

What did they believe?  Mary’s report.  He was not there.

What did they not yet understand?  The grave could not hold the Son of God.  He had told them before but they did not understand.

They did not understand.  There were no angels to explain things.  There is no account of Roman soldiers in shock.  There is no mention of an earthquake and no angel sitting on top of the stone that used to cover the entrance.

Jesus was gone.  Mary said they took him.  The two disciples saw parts of the burial material.  If someone took the body, why unravel the linen?

These men having rushed to the tomb and seen it empty with only the linen remaining, surely had more questions than answers.

It seems like there’s never an angel around when you need one, so these two men went back to where they were staying.

Imagine not knowing what happened.  Imagine trying to make sense of everything Jesus had told them while he was with them.  Imagine thoughts of the religious hypocrites getting their hands on the body. 

One thing our human minds do with great skill is to imagine the worst.  Absent all the facts, our human nature often imagines the worst.

Have you ever done this?  It is our human nature to imagine the worst.  It’s not our new nature, but it is our sinful human nature with which we still wrestle.

While this account is different in many ways from the other gospels, explanations do come. Mary returned to the tomb and two angels talked with her.  She departed and met Jesus along the way, though she did not recognize him until he called her by name.

The men had to wait until that evening when Jesus entered a locked room and appeared to them.  Thomas was gone but Jesus would catch up with him later. 

Imagine going through the worst Sabbath Day ever.  Imagine the thoughts racing through the minds of these two disciples and then all of them after their report.  Imagine the worst-case scenario possible.

And then Jesus appeared to the disciples. 

Christ the Lord is ris’n today, Alleluia!

Shock, joy, surprise, elation, and surely some disbelief as to their Master standing in their presence had to overwhelm these men in an instant.

They had surely believed the worst-case scenario but God had delivered the best-case scenario. 

He lives! He lives! Christ Jesus lives today!

He walks with me and talks with me along life's narrow way.

The disciples lived the story of salvation moment-to-moment.  We know the whole story. 

Christ who is God lived as a man.

He fulfilled prophecy as prescribed through so many prophets.

He was an unblemished Lamb.

He was slain for our sins.  By his blood we are cleansed.

That’s a big story right there.  That’s our salvation right there.  You think that the day Jesus died for us on the cross would be our big celebration.

But that was not the end of the story.  The sacrificial lamb does not get to live.  He didn’t.  Christ died for our sins.  He really suffered and died for us.

But that was not the end of the story.  Verified dead by the soldier at the cross, Jesus was placed in a tomb before sunset and the onset of the Sabbath.  Nicodemus and Joseph of Arimathea did what they could for the body of Jesus.  Time was short, but there was no doubt that Jesus was dead.

The Lamb of God was sacrificed for our sins. But that was not the end of the story. 

He arose a Victor from the dark domain,

And He lives forever, with His saints to reign.

We are those saints!

Today we don’t sing a dirge.  We don’t mourn.  We know the story and the sacrifice and the resurrection of Christ the Lord and we sing it with joy in our hearts.

He arose! He arose!

Hallelujah! Christ arose!

Today we celebrate the resurrection of the Lord. In his resurrection is the promise of ours.  We may have life, life abundant, and surely life eternal with God.

Because He lives, I can face tomorrow,

Because He lives, all fear is gone,

Because I know He holds the future,

And life is worth the living,

Just because He lives!

Amen.

 

Sunrise Service - Why do you look for the living among the dead?

 Read Luke 24

Why do you look for the living among the dead?

By the evidence of all that these women knew, Jesus was dead.  That’s why they came. That’s why they brought spices.  What else could they expect?

The facts as they knew them were that Jesus was dead and they needed to finish the work of tending to the dead.  This would be their final act of devotion.

This would be their last act of service to their Lord.  How could it be anything else.

Some years later, Paul wrote to the church in Rome telling them not to conform to the patterns of this world any longer.

These women—as well as the men—were conformed to the patterns of the world.  He had no more blood left in him.  He had no breath.  The spear pierced his side.  He was dead.  Dead is dead.  There was nothing left to do but to prepare the body the right way.

Or so the ways of the world would tell them.  What else could they go by?

How about the words of their Master that on the third day he would rise?  Would these not set their expectations?  Should they have not expected to find an empty tomb?

He told them ahead of time that he would be turned over to the religious hypocrites, then to other sinful men who would cause him to suffer and die.

He gave his life willingly as our atoning sacrifice, but he described how it would all be played out including rising from the dead.

The angels spoke to the women.

The Son of Man must be delivered over to the hands of sinners, be crucified and on the third day be raised again.

How could they not know?  They remembered the words of Jesus after the angel told them, but the patterns of the world still told them that he was dead.

They told the disciples and Peter rushed to the tomb, found it with only strips of linen within, and could not figure out what happened.

He wondered to himself what had happened. 

We can beat these people up over their disbelief and failure to remember what Christ himself said while he was with them, but they lived this story moment-to-moment. 

We never walked the earth following Jesus all over Judea and Galilee, even Samaria.  We did not sit at his feet and learn from him.  We were not there for the feeding of the multitudes or the healing of so many.

But we know the whole story.  We know of his life, death, and resurrection and are without excuse as to what to believe.

But how many times do we conform ourselves to the patterns of the world.

The past couple of years have been interesting.  Life has changed for everyone.  Even if you did very few things differently, so many around you have been drinking the Kool-Ade and even selling it.

Fear is all around you.  Fear governs the decisions of so many.

Personal connections among so many have lessened significantly.

There is a quiet dichotomy working its way through the world.  Are you made in the image of God or just a carrier of contagion that must be contained and controlled?

It is a subtle dichotomy, unnoticed by most.

This is a time where it seems that the very fabric of our Constitution is under attack.  We must realize that while many of the Framers of this incredible document were Christians; our form of government was not promised to us by God.

Trust me, God was in the framework of this nation.  He was working through the men who forged this nation.  You doubt it?  Read our Declaration of Independence for the apologetics.

Look for it in the Bible and you have to go to the Book of Second Opinions.

Look at the world.  We have been so protected for so long.  Christianity has never really been contrary to the norms of our society until recently.

Being American and being Christian seemed to go hand-in-hand for so long that people thought that I’m American; therefore, I must be Christian. 

Now we see that the world was trying very hard to conform us to its patterns.  It did a good job. 

Our minds are easily swayed and they should be our first line of defense against the wiles of the enemy.

Whoa!  Hold your holy horses there Tom.  We got up early to celebrate resurrection, not listen to all of this doom and gloom.

This brings us to this question.  What are we looking for early in the morning?

Worldly evidence or the promises of God?

There is plenty of the former, most of it is not good news; but it is the latter that comes with the power of God.

Have we come to prepare a dead body or to have Christ live in us?

Jesus said that we would have trouble in the world.  We are not to be discouraged but to take courage for he has overcome the world.

Don’t show up early in the morning to sing He Arose then go home to focus on the darkness and the storm.

We know the story.  We are commissioned to tell the story.

We are to be God’s light in these dark times.

We are to be the salt—the God seasoning of the earth.

We know the story.  Let’s live as people who know the story, remember and believe the promises of Jesus, and want to be known by our love.

Let’s stop looking for the living among the dead.

He lives!  Let us live out his promises, our commission, and be known as his disciples by our love.

Ame

Wednesday Night - Resurrection Basics

 

Read John 3:16-17

I hope you can be here Sunday morning.  Come at 7 am for the sunrise service.  Stay for breakfast.  Come back at 11 am.

Why the change in schedule?

Once a year, we get up a little early and start the day worshipping the Lord in the assembly.  Early on the first day of the week, women went to the tomb of Jesus.  They didn’t expect that the stone would be rolled away.

In fact, some of the women discussed how they would move the stone as they walked to the tomb.  They were probably going to finish preparing the body.  They couldn’t do it on the Sabbath—you were not to work on the Sabbath.  So they came as soon as it was light on the first day of the week.

We come to worship early on the day where we celebrate the resurrection of our Lord more than other days.  We should celebrate every day, but this Sunday we make special.

Did we pick the right day?  Perhaps we got close this time as the last week that Jesus spent on this earth before his death and resurrection was the Passover Week.

But our celebration is not tied to a date but to God’s love that we know and celebrate in Christ Jesus.  What do we celebrate?

God loves us.

He loves us so much that the sacrifice for our sins was made in his own flesh and blood—Christ Jesus.

Sin may not be forgiven without the shedding of blood (Hebrews 9:22). Many animals were sacrificed each year for forgiveness, until the divine blood of Jesus was shed for us.  That was a once and for all sacrifice.

The Passover week is important because the Hebrew people remembered that death passed over them because the blood of a lamb was on the door frames of their houses.

The people crossed over from bondage to the Egyptians and followed God into the wilderness and eventually to the land promised to them. We see the imagery of crossing the Red Sea on dry land.

Jesus is our Passover Lamb.  Sin and death now pass over us because of the blood of Jesus.  We are no longer slaves to our sin.

We have crossed over from bondage to sin and death and have received life in Christ Jesus. (John 5:24)

Jesus was the unblemished Lamb sacrificed for our sin.  He was killed by sinful men, but we must understand that he gave his life freely to atone for our sins.  Here’s how we understand God’s plan in regards to the sinful men who brutalized and killed Jesus.

What they intended for evil, God used for good.

We call this Friday, Good Friday.  What a crazy day to call Good Friday.  That’s the day that we believe Jesus died on the cross.  How can we call this good?

His blood atoned for our sins.  As far as all of us who have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, that’s good for us.

But that is not the end of the story.

We celebrate this Sunday because the grave could not hold our Lord. What may have looked like a victory for evil was turned upside down in the resurrection.

Jesus rose from the dead.

Some of you have grown numb to death.  You play games and watch movies where dozens, maybe hundreds get killed.  It’s just a game.  It’s just television or the movies.

Understand that the death of a person is real—very real.  There is no life in the body, and there is nothing that you can do about it.

Nothing you can do about it!  Dead is dead.

But God can bring life to us even in death.

Jesus said that he is the resurrection and the life.  If you believe in him and die, you will still live.  It will be as if you never died.

In the resurrection of Jesus is our promise of resurrection, that we will live with God forever.

That’s worth celebrating every day.  That’s worth getting up early once a year.  That’s worth lifting our voices to God and singing:

He arose.

He arose.

Hallelujah, Christ arose!

Amen.