Easter

Psalm: Psalm 118:1-2, 14-24
Old Testament: Isaiah 25:6-9
Epistle: 1 Corinthians 15:1-11
Gospel: Mark 16:1-8


Easter is just one of those days where almost everything that can be said, has been said.  What more can I even offer.  Let me make just one point and then encourage all of us to read Surprised by Hope by N.T. Wright. It is my next book to ready and from what I hear it is an important and powerful book.  As a teaser here is a quote from Wrights facebook feed:

Take Christmas away, and in biblical terms you lose two chapters at the front of Matthew and Luke, nothing else. Take Easter away, and you don’t have a New Testament; you don’t have a Christianity... This is our greatest day. (Surprised by Hope)

Naturally, Wright is making a Polemical point because if we don’t have the birth of Jesus we don’t have his death and resurrection, but in terms of importance, Easter trumps all.  In fact, two of the four Gospels don’t even record the birth of Jesus.  Paul makes the very same point as Wright in 1 Cor. 15, if we read the whole chapter.  Without the resurrection our faith is worthless.  We would still be lost in our sins and there would be no hope for our own Resurrection.  Paul calls Christ the first fruits of a great resurrection harvest when Christ comes again.

Readers of this blog will know that I often allude to things my church does which cause me ire.  But today we did something which rang true to the Resurrection. After our first video clip this morning, yes we watched two, I said to Kelcey these video clips are taking away from any personal testimonies in the church.  We hear how God is working in the lives of people who are removed from us, but not of those in our local congregation.  As if in response to my complaint the second video was of a young man in the church sharing his testimony of being arrested for theft and going to juvenile hall.  But the church came around him and supported him and his family.  He is now at MidAmerica Nazarene preparing for ministry.

That was just the beginning of almost 30 people or couples walking up on stage with signs.  One side, which they showed first, spoke of brokenness, sin, or hurt in their lives.  The other side was a testimony to the grace and peace found in Christ.

This spoke to me in many ways.  First, it is important that as the body of Christ we testify to what God is doing in our lives.  We need to be honest about how we are doing and hold on to the promises of God.  I was impressed that people in our affluent white suburban church would be so honest and real.  Many of the testimonies were very personal.  Secondly, our service this morning reminded me that resurrection isn’t only about life after death.  Jesus came not to just give us life after death but to give us life abundantly; life to the very fullest.  Jesus Christ is breathing life into dead and broken people today so we can live a life of service and love for him.  Often in Christianity it seems like the focus is life after death, yet I think Christianity has always been more than that.  Our message is one hope for today in this life and tomorrow in the resurrection.  God, by his Son, through the Spirit is giving us abundant life. 

That is the hope of Easter.  Because Christ lives we can have peace.  Because he lives we can have hope.  And because he lives we can have eternal and abundant life.

For those of you keeping score at home we now enter 6 weeks of Eastertide I think, leading us to Pentecost.  After that were in “Ordinary Time” until Advent.