Easter Sunday–I awoke to rain. I don’t remember very many (if any) rainy Easters! Easter is late this year–well, not as late as it could be (which due to the calendar calculations could go all the way down to the last week of April). Theoretically, Easter could be scheduled almost a week plus a full moon (6 + 29 = 35 days) after spring begins.
Easter Sunday–what is an appropriate Easter sermon today? In view of the story of the cross, the purpose of God, and the tensions of our world (especially in times of economic distress and world conflict), what does one say on the Sunday when more Christians are in church than on any other Sunday?
I read one news article that suggested many preachers would find their text in Mark, based on its fear and faith tension, and especially the fear of the women when they heard and witnessed the resurrection (Mark 16:8).
A sermon summary I received online took its text from 1 Pet. 3:18: Christ suffered for sins, as our substitute, for a purpose.
Today I am using the text of Phil. 3:7-11. Paul is in prison. He is an old man (60 or more). Since I am also 60, maybe that’s not so old. Paul’s overriding desire and need in attaining progress in the faith is to know the power of Christ’s rising. As Paul makes clear in the text, this knowledge of the resurrection is not only mental acknowledgement, but participation in Christ’s death, suffering, and image. Futility, fatality, and finality are banished for Paul in this great goal. He no longer has to live with the chain of his false start shackling him. He is no longer plagued by doubts about whether he has lived life correctly. He no longer fears the finality of death.
Indeed, the resurrection is God’s answer to the futility of life, the fatality of failure, and the finality of death. The resurrectin of Jesus is demonstration and promise that we too can participate in God’s newness. If resurrection is the answer, why do so many refuse the resurrecting renewing power of participation in Christ’s death through baptism? Why do so many fail to honor Paul’s promise that the resurrecting power of baptism in providing newness of life is evidence of resurrecting power that promises we shall share in the last resurrection?
I hope today in some meager way to communicate the power of resurrection! I celebrate each week the death and resurrection of Christ in the Supper. I anticipate his coming, knowing that I have in some inexplicable way come to share in the hope of the final resurrection. But the news is just as good (or better) that my life on earth has been changed forever by the resurrecting power of Jesus, to make me what I was not, could not have been, and never would have been by my own power.
Thank God for the resurrection!