THE JOY OF EASTER!

Joy of Easter
(Cor 15:3-6; John 20:11-18) (4/5/15)

INTRODUCTION

My growing up Easter experience was pretty much what you might call was the mild, mid-west, moderate variety.  The local hatchery had purple colored chicks.  Lent was something the Catholic Church did.  Holy Week was just another week.  Good Friday was pretty much just another day. 

When I was in the first grade the movie, Easter Parade with Fred Astaire came out.  My mom loved Fred Astaire.  I think between Easter Parade at Easter and White Christmas at Christmas, in the late 40s, we began entering a new less than devout era.  Fred Astaire may have come to signify all that is secular about Easter.

I do remember a couple of the church services from my grade school years because the preacher used the Easter passage from the Gospel of John where Mary Magdalene calls Jesus, “Rabbouni.”  I thought that was a good word.  But it brought little passion or joy to me.

God’s act of sacrificial love for me and for my salvation did not come through nor did the joy of Easter.  It was not part of my mild, Midwest, childhood experience.

Today’s secular society doesn’t do much better. 

Easter is a Hallmark Sunday.  “When you care enough to send the very best” right?  It’s become another of those marketing holidays.  We’re not selling colored chicks any more, but there’s a great market in chocolate eggs. I love the Reese’s variety with the peanut butter inside. 

And while we may see some sincere expression of faith as the Pope moves along the via delarosa in Jerusalem on Good Friday, if you’re on the east coast of America, the biggest processional in America is the Easter Parade in New York City taking place right now.

Of course, none of us are exempt.  Here’s a couple of the Hallmark items that have found a way on to our shelves.  This hen is at least PG rated, but you get the idea.  This Easter chick asks if you want to do the chicken dance?

Now, lest you think I’m an old fuddy-duddy that doesn’t appreciate Easter eggs, or Easter egg hunts, or the Chicken dance, I do, But…

I wonder what the Apostles did on the first anniversary of Jesus’ resurrection, or the tenth?  Don’t you wish you could have been in Jerusalem to see? Don't you wish you could've been there with all the apostles and all the disciples when they gathered on those first anniversary of the resurrection to see what it was like?

GOD

There may not have been any parades.  Fred Astaire wasn’t there.  Fred Astaire that symbol of secularism wasn't there. (That’s catchy.  You may not remember anything else, but you’ll probably remember that.)  Fred Astaire wasn’t there.  No parades, but we do know what there were thinking about.

About twenty years after the resurrection, Paul wrote a letter to the Corinthians and in it he included a creed that was already well established within the Christian community.  It probably dates to within months or at the very most a few years of the real Easter.

This is what he said: “ ³ For I handed on to you as of first importance..”
First importance.  Here it is folks, if you don’t believe anything else about your faith, this is of first importance.

“that Christ died for our sins in accordance with the scriptures, ⁴ and that he was buried, and that he was raised on the third day in accordance with the scriptures, ⁵ and that he appeared to [Peter], then to the twelve. ⁶ Then he appeared to more than five hundred brothers and sisters at one time, most of whom are still alive,”

This is what the Apostles believed.  This is what this weekend is all about.  Things of first importance. First you understand that when the disciples proclaimed this it was not about history, for them it was about current events.  The witnesses to the crucifixion and the resurrection were still alive!  If it hadn’t been true, it would have been shouted down.

First the why?  Hear this people.  This whole weekend is for us.  For our sins, for our salvation.  Christ died for our sins. 

Second, it was in accordance with God’s plan.

The third element is the proof that Christ died.  Unambiguous.  Christ died.  And there is proof.  The proof was that he was buried.  Jesus was put in the tomb.

The last element is that he was raised on the third day.  That too was according to God’s plan, according to the scriptures.  And there too is proof.  He appeared to Peter, to the other apostles and to as many as 500, most of whom are still alive.  (Then Paul says, last of all he appeared to me.  That was when he was on the road to Damascus, the conversion of Saul.  Another sermon.)

Now, if you want to be a Christian, this is what you need to believe, really all you need to believe: That Christ died for our sins according to God’s plan, and was buried.  That he was raised on the third day, again, according to God’s plan, and that he was seen.  This is what you must believe.  This is the grounding of our salvation (that he died for our sins) and the grounding of our hope (that he was raised on the third day)  This is of first importance.  This is what Christians believe.

Now, not only did the disciples believe it, they lived their lives as if they believed it.  You want to believe in the resurrection?  Then simply look at the lives of the apostles.  Peter, Paul, James-Jesus’ brother, Andrew, martyrs all.  John the only apostle who did not die a martyr’s death was scalded in oil for what he believed.  Hear this folks, in all of recorded history, there is never a murmur of denial of the resurrection by the apostles, never an intimation by any of the apostles that it was untrue.  And hear this, no one, no one, would die for what they know not to be true.  Christ was raised on the third day according to the scriptures. If it were not true and they knew it, no one would die for a lie.  The apostles believed it.  The apostles lived it.  The apostles died for it. You can know it to be true!

And it is through this truth that you can have hope.  The cross and the resurrection are a package deal.  The cross is what Christ did for us.  The resurrection is what God will do for us.  (repeat).  || Jesus said, “I am the resurrection and the life, whoever believes in me even though they die will live and whoever lives and believes in me will never die.”  And I believe it and I’m counting on it.  This is all a gift of grace, all a gift from God.  There is nothing I can do, there is nothing you can do but open this gift of grace, and to say yes.

MARY’S PASSION    

So why isn’t Easter the greatest celebration on earth?  Why isn’t it the greatest opportunity for thanksgiving ever?  Why is it that on Monday morning, tomorrow, it will just be another day?  As if Easter never happened?  I think it’s because we’ve lost the connection between Friday and Sunday, between Good Friday and Easter.  We have no joy on Easter, because we forget the Passion, the despair, of Good Friday.

That brings me to the story of Mary Magdalene. Hear these words from John 20, beginning in verse 11.  “ ¹¹ But Mary stood weeping outside the tomb. As she wept, she bent over to look^[a] into the tomb; ¹² and she saw two angels in white, sitting where the body of Jesus had been lying, one at the head and the other at the feet. ¹³ They said to her, “Woman, why are you weeping?” She said to them, “They have taken away my Lord, and I do not know where they have laid him.”

There is no doubt that except for Mary the mother of Jesus, Mary Magdalene is the most famous woman in the New Testament.  Luke casually mentions her in his chapter 8, “Mary, called the Magdalene, from whom seven demons were cast out” and he describes her as one of the women who followed and supported Jesus.  We know little about her except that she was there at the crucifixion, that she watched the burial, that she was the first to tomb on Sunday morning.

But this we do know.  She loved Jesus.  Jesus had somehow captured her heart.  Maybe it was he had rescued her from her demons.  Maybe her love for him was that her love was unrequited.  We don’t know.  But she loved Jesus.

And on that fateful Friday, she had had to stand there as close as this and watch Jesus be brutalized and die.

You know we’ve sanitized the crucifixion.  We Protestants even display plain crosses instead of crucifixes.  We don’t want to remember the brutality.

Regardless of how you deal with the flaws of Mel Gibson, I think he did us a service in his movie, “The Passion of Christ,” by making us come to grips with the magnitude of the sacrifice that Christ made for us.  I had a friend tell me recently that until that movie he had no idea what was meant by “By his stripes we are healed.”  The brutality of the scourging, of the flogging, of the whipping is unimaginable.  But yes, “By his stripes we are healed.” 

Can you imagine the Good Friday despair of Mary Magdalene as she watched Jesus die? Can you imagine the depths of her emotions as they tormented him?  Can you imagine her weeping that Sunday morning when she said, “They have taken away my Lord and I don’t know where they have laid him.”

And then, and then! can you imagine the joy she felt after seeing Jesus and running to the disciples to say, “I have seen the Lord,” and telling all that he had said to her.  Can you imagine the joy?

Let me read that passage for you…¹⁴ When she had said this, she turned around and saw Jesus standing there, but she did not know that it was Jesus. ¹⁵ Jesus said to her, “Woman, why are you weeping? Whom are you looking for?” Supposing him to be the gardener, she said to him, “Sir, if you have carried him away, tell me where you have laid him, and I will take him away.” ¹⁶ Jesus said to her, “Mary!” She turned and said to him in Hebrew,^[b] “Rabbouni!” (which means Teacher). ¹⁷ Jesus said to her, “Do not hold on to me, because I have not yet ascended to the Father. But go to my brothers and say to them, ‘I am ascending to my Father and your Father, to my God and your God.’” ¹⁸ Mary Magdalene went and announced to the disciples, “I have seen the Lord”; and she told them that he had said these things to her.

““I have seen the Lord.” And she told him all that he had said to her.”  Can you imagine the joy?

Good Friday and Easter are a package deal.  We cannot experience the joy of Easter without understanding the cost of grace.  The incomprehensible cost of God’s sacrifice in Jesus Christ for us.  Jesus chose to die on the cross for us to show that there was no limit to how far he would go, no limit to show his love for us.  Then God showed the promise and the hope of that love by raising him up three days later.  The crucifixion and the resurrection are a package deal.

EXPERIENCING JOY

How is it that we can experience the great joy of the resurrection?  I think it is impossible to do without a personal relationship with Jesus.  To some degree we need to be Mary Magdalenes.  Because Mary was human, I’m sure her love was a mixture of physical love and pure gratitude for what Jesus had done for her.  We can at least experience the gratitude for Christ’s sacrifice for us.  “Christ died for our sins in accordance with the scripture.”  It was clearly a human act, and he chose to do it.  To express our gratitude, we need to become friends with Jesus.

How is it that we become friends with Jesus, with anyone really?  We spend time with them, we listen to them, we share with them.  Spiritually, we do that in prayer and in reading about him in Scripture. (Raise the Bible)  With anyone, if we want to be friends with them, we want to find out anything and everything about them.  We find it here.  With our best friends, we make it a life time endeavor. Friendship changes us.  We become new beings in Jesus Christ.  We see the cross, and we allow our friendship with Jesus to change us, and we experience the joy of Easter.

CLOSE

Last week I told those here about a text I had received from my cousin.  A week later, about three weeks ago, I received two more.  She had seen a “Passion of Christ”-like show on TV and was coming to grips with the brutality of the crucifixion.  In the first text she asked, “How could God let his son die such a horrible death? Couldn’t we be saved if Jesus had died of old age?”  Good question.  In the second text, she said she “felt unworthy of that kind of horrible sacrifice.”

Her last question, the second, about our unworthiness goes the heart of the cross.  We are unworthy, yet, yet, Christ chose to die for us to demonstrate his unfathomable love for us; to show that there is no length, no limit, no end to how far God will go to show his love for us; to show that grace is unlimited.

That is part of the Passion, to come to understand that God’s love is sacrificial even though we are unworthy, undeserving, and without merit.  Paul said in his letter to the Romans, “God showed his love for us, in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.”  Even though we are sinners, even though we are unworthy.

But you know what?  If God would do that for us, if God would love us that much, He believes we are of infinite worth.  You are of infinite worth.  You are of infinite worth.  You, too, are of infinite worth.  If God would love you that much, you, all of you, are no longer unworthy. It is grace. There is nothing you can do to make God love you more.  God loves you, and you are worthy of that love.

Then her first question: “couldn’t we be saved if Jesus had just died of old age?”  Somehow his death, his untimely death, his horrible death figures in to our salvation. Christ died for our sins.

Whether we believe Jesus took the burdens of the whole world upon himself and then took them to the cross.

Or he died in our stead, a substitutionary sacrifice.

Or whether it was simply his unsurpassable love that could only be shown through such a sacrifice.

and without demonstrating that unsurpassable love, God could not have changed you and could not have change the world.

Whether it was any of these things or all of these things,

What we know it was, was that it was of first importance.  I handed over to you what was of first importance: that Christ died for you according to the Scripture and was buried.
And if Christ had died of old age, without the cross, this thing of first importance never would have happened.

And second, if Christ had died of old age there never would have been a resurrection, there never would have been an Easter!

“And that he was raised on the third day according to the scripture.

There never would have been an Easter, there never would have been the hope, the promises, the joy of Easter.

THE PROMISE OF EASTER JOY

Because if God can raise Jesus from the dead to eternal life, he can raise me, he can raise you, he can raise those you love too to eternal life.  That’s the hope, that’s the promise of Easter.

And if Christ had not been raised, the resurrected Christ would not have appeared to Peter, to the apostles, to the 500, to James and finally to Paul. 

And do you know what people?  Do you know what? When he appeared to them, “Fred Astaire wasn’t there.” 

Happy Easter!  He is risen!  He is risen indeed!