"Worth It!"

     Dear Friends in Christ,  

    Even though we’re only 3 full months into this year, we can say one thing for certain.  This has definitely been the year for earthquakes, hasn’t it?  It all started on Jan. 12 with the devastating quake in Haiti that claimed the lives of more than 230,000 people.  Then came that massive 8.8 magnitude earthquake on Feb. 27 that shook the nation of Chile and caused the earth to move off its axis by 3 inches.  Then there were lots of aftershocks and a few other quakes besides that made the news.  All of which remind me of another earthquake that occurred in 1988.  The place was Armenia, a country located just northeast of Turkey and formerly a part of the Soviet Union.  In just 4 minutes of earthshaking pandemonium the nation was flattened and 25,000 people were dead.

   Moments after the deadly tremor ceased, a father raced to an elementary school to see if his son was alive.  When he arrived, he beheld his worst nightmare.  For the building had been leveled.  But he also remembered a promise he had once made to his son.  He’d said, “No matter what happens, I’ll always be there for you.”  So driven by that promise, he located the area closest to the boy’s classroom and began to pull back the rocks.  Other parents arrived, but after viewing the devastation, they felt the man’s efforts were hopeless and encouraged him to give up. 

   But the father refused.  For 8 hours he dug, then 16, then 32, then 36.  His hands were raw, his energy depleted, but he refused to quit.  Finally, after 38 physically and emotionally exhausting hours, he pulled back a large rock and heard a familiar voice.  It was the voice of his son.  He called the boy’s name, “Arman!  Arman!”  And the voice answered back, “Dad, it’s me!”  Then the boy added these priceless words, “I knew you’d come.  I told the other kids not to worry because if you were alive, you’d save me, and when you saved me, they’d be saved too.  Because you promised that no matter what, you would always be there for me.”

   Well, my friends, God has made the same promise to us, hasn’t he?  He’s told us that even though the rocks will tumble and the ground beneath us will shake at times, we need not fear for he will always be there for us.  And oh, how desperately we want to believe that promise!  But dare we?  Dare we trust his faithfulness?  Dare we believe that when the earthquakes of life rock our little worlds he will be there to rescue us and set us free?  I hope you know the answer to those questions because that’s what this day is all about.  Easter is God’s proof, his annual reminder to us of what I’ve stated in my sermon title, namely, that the faith we have in him, the faith we place in him is a faith that is definitely “Worth It!”

   And just so we don’t ever forget that, let’s revisit the story of the first Easter.  Let’s go to the tomb before the resurrection of Christ takes place.  What do we find there?  We find a corpse.  Stiff. Cold. Still.  Lifeless.  For just a few days earlier, death had claimed its greatest trophy.  Make no mistake about it.  The body of Jesus is not asleep in the tomb; it is not resting in the tomb; it is not comatose in the tomb.  It is dead in the tomb.  There is no air in his lungs; no thoughts in his brain; no feeling in his limbs.  His body is as lifeless as the stone slab upon which it lies.  How can we be certain of that? 

   Well, for one thing, that was something the executioners made sure of.  When Pilate heard that Jesus was dead, he asked the soldiers if they were certain, and they informed him they were.  But just to remove all doubt, one of them thrust his spear into Jesus’ side, piercing his fluid-filled lungs and heart.  These soldiers knew death when they saw it because they saw it so much.  And when they were absolutely certain that Jesus had died, then and only then did they pry loose the nails, lower his body, and turn it over to Joseph of Arimathea and Nicodemus for burial.

   And as these 2 once-secret, but now very public disciples of Jesus carried that lifeless body to a brand new tomb which Joseph had hewn out of the rock to be used for himself and his family someday, don’t you know that they would have given anything for even the slightest sign of life – a breath from the Jesus’ lips, the twitching of an eye, the movement of a finger.  But there was none.

   So they did what they were expected to do with a corpse.  They wrapped it in clean linen.  They sprinkled burial spices in between the folds of the cloth.  And they laid the body in the tomb and they left the body in the tomb.  A large, heavy, round stone was rolled into a channel in front of the tomb.  Roman guards were stationed outside to make sure no one got near it.  And that was it.  At least that’s what they and everyone else thought.

   But then came Sunday morning!  And though we don’t know exactly what transpired inside of that tomb, we can certainly try to envision it.  Here’s how I like to picture it.  I see the Spirit of God entering the tomb and hovering over the body of Jesus.  Then he blows and Jesus breathes.  His chest expands.  Lifeless lips open.  Stiff fingers bend.  His still heart begins to beat.  Blood begins to course through his body again.  His skin takes on the color of life.  And as we envision that moment of resurrection, we can’t help but stand in awe.

   But please understand, my friends, that we stand in awe not just because of what we see, but also because of what we know as followers of the risen Christ.  For we know that we too shall one day die.  We too shall one day be buried.  Our heart will stop beating.  Our lungs will stop breathing.  Our hands will stop moving.  But just as Jesus’ lifeless body came back to life again, so also the same thing will happen with ours.  That’s what the Apostle Paul is talking about in our text for today when he says:  “For as in Adam all die, so in Christ all will be made alive.  But each in his own turn: Christ, the firstfruits; then, when he comes, those who belong to him.”  Do you understand what that is saying, my friends?  That is simply telling us that what we see here today, what we celebrate here today in our Savior’s triumphant resurrection is a preview, a foreshadowing, a foretaste of our own resurrection that will take place when Christ returns to this earth in all his blazing glory.

   But again I ask you, can we believe that?  Dare we believe that?  That’s not just a good question, my friends, that is the question.  For as Paul wrote in our text, “If Christ has not been raised, your faith is futile; you are still in your sins.”  If Jesus did not come back to life on that first Easter morning, then for starters, we are the biggest fools the world has ever seen for believing it.  But even worse than that, the faith that we have in Jesus is futile; it’s worthless; it’s of no value whatsoever.  But if Christ has been raised, then the contrary is true.  Then our faith is worth it.  In fact, it becomes the most valuable thing we can possess.  And that’s why I always say that the resurrection of Christ is the most important event that the world has ever known and the keystone to the Christian faith?  Take away the resurrection and the Christian faith, the Christian religion, the Christian Church all crumble, for what good could a dead Savior do for us?  And believe me, this is something that the critics of Christianity have been trying to do ever since the angel proclaimed to the women, “Why do you seek the living among the dead?  He is not here, for he has risen!”  These critics have come up with all kinds of theories to explain away the resurrection.  Let me just briefly share 3 of them with you.

   The 1^st is known as the swoon theory.  According to this theory, Jesus didn’t really die on the cross.  He just passed out.  He became unconscious.  Then later on in the coolness of the tomb he revived and walked out of the grave.  But honestly, how likely is this theory?  One woman, whose pastor had actually proclaimed this theory one Easter morning, wrote in to a question and answer forum to see how others felt about it.  She signed her name “Bewildered.”  One fellow by the name of Charles wrote back: “Dear Bewildered, Here’s what I would suggest you do with your pastor.  Beat him with a cat-of-nine-tails with 39 heavy strokes, nail him to a cross; hang him in the sun for 6 hours; run a spear through his side…put him in an airless tomb for 36 hours and see what happens.  Sincerely, Charles.”  So I think we can mark the swoon theory off our list of explanations for the resurrection.

   Then a 2^nd theory that the enemies of Christianity have proposed is the stolen body theory.  This states that Jesus’ disciples, who were common, ordinary fishermen, laborers, and tax collectors and who out of fear had been hiding behind locked doors after Jesus’ death, all of a sudden got a tremendous surge of courage, went to the tomb, overcame the well-trained, well-skilled, well-armed Roman soldiers who were guarding it, and removed the body of Jesus.  Hardly seems plausible, right?  But even if it were true, even if the disciples did steal Jesus’ body, how do we explain their martyrdom, the fact that most of them died for their faith?  Would they fake the resurrection and then die for a hoax?  Extremely unlikely, right?  So I think we can safely mark the stolen body theory off our list.

   Then one more theory that has been put forth to explain away the resurrection is another version of the stolen body theory we just looked at.  Only in this one, it is the Jews who steal the corpse of Jesus.  But that immediately brings up the question, Why would they do that?  Well, some might suggest they did it to keep the disciples from doing it and then fabricating the story of the resurrection.  But if they did steal the body for that purpose, then why, when the disciples were going around proclaiming that Christ had risen, why didn’t the Jews produce the corpse of Jesus and put it on display, perhaps parade it up and down the streets of the city so that all could see it?  Had they done that, that would have caused the movement of Jesus to fizzle out like a burning torch thrown in a lake.  But they didn’t do that, did they?  Why not?  Obviously because they didn’t have the body.  So we can check that theory off our list too.

   Make no mistake about it, my friends.  The death of Jesus was real, and his resurrection was real.  There is no other rational explanation for the empty tomb, the frightened Roman soldiers, the numerous eyewitness sightings of Jesus, the changed behavior of the disciples, the rapid growth and expansion of Christianity, the willingness of those early Christians to give their lives for what they believed.

   And because the resurrection was real, do you understand what that does?  It changes everything!  For example, it changes death.  What once was looked upon as the end of life is now seen by the followers of Christ as the beginning of life – a life far better and far greater than anything this old world could ever offer us.  It changes the cemetery.  People used to go there to say good-bye; now they go there to say, “I’ll miss you, but we’ll be together again.”  It even changes the casket.  No longer is it a box in which we place and bury the dead.  Rather it is a cocoon, of sorts, in which the body resides until Jesus comes back to this earth and  transforms it, glorifies it, and sets it free.

   While I was working on this sermon I came across a beautiful story that I would like to end with.  It’s about a woman named Rosemary who works in the Alzheimer’s unit of a nursing home.  One Good Friday afternoon Rosemary and one of her co-workers named Arlene decided to show the residents the highly acclaimed movie that came out when I was in grade school called Jesus of Nazareth.  They wondered whether any of these elderly Alzheimer’s patients would even know what was going on, but they thought it might be worth the effort.  When they finally got everyone situated, they started the video and they were pleasantly surprised at the quiet attention the residents were giving to it.  Near the end of the movie came the scene where Mary Magdalene comes upon the empty tomb and sees that Jesus’ body is not there.  A man whom she mistakenly thinks is the gardener asks her why she is looking for the living among the dead.  And after he reveals himself to her as the risen Christ and the two of them spend some time together, Mary runs as fast as she can back to the disciples and tells them with breathless excitement, “He’s alive!  I saw him, I tell you!  He’s alive.”  The doubt in their eyes causes Mary to pull back and to say, “You don’t believe me, do you?  You don’t believe me.”  But from somewhere in that crowd of Alzheimer’s patients came the clear, resolute voice of Esther, one of the residents, who said, “We believe you, Mary!  We believe you!” 

   Well, Esther, I believe it too.  And I hope all of you do as well.  For the evidence is overwhelming and the meaning that the resurrection brings with it can make all the difference in the world for your life right now and especially for your life hereafter.  And that’s why I say that the faith you place in the risen Son of God is a faith that is definitely worth it!

      Amen.