Easter And Something's Breaking Through

Sermon: "Something’s Breaking Through"

Isaiah 35:4-10; John 20:1-9

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Something’s breaking through... Water will

gush forth in the wilderness and streams in

the desert. 7 The burning sand will become a

pool, the thirsty ground bubbling springs.

Something’s breaking through...

Finally the other disciple, who had reached

the tomb first, also went inside. He saw and

believed.

SOMETHING’S BREAKING THROUGH... can you hear

it? In the deserts of human experience its

truth lies hidden, but it runs deep... and

it’s breaking through!

IN THE MEADOW when the fall winds blow, colors

fade and light grows dim, but something’s

breaking through! Can you feel it? Can you

hear it? Can you see it? It’s breaking

through!

WHAT MAKES THE PROPHET? What makes the heart

of faith? Eyes that see in the darkness and

ears that hear in the silence! Something’s

breaking through... Can YOU see it? Can YOU

hear it?

THE GRAVE IS DARK... the tomb is still, some

of the mortal frames of your loved ones lie in

still darkness.... but something’s breaking

through!

IN THE DESERT the hot sun bakes rocks as the

sands scorch the travelers’s feet----SOME SAY

THAT THERE IS NO LIFE, NO HOPE, NO ECSTACY IN

THE DESERT OF LIFE. They say that life is

barren and without meaning. BUT SOMETHING’S

BREAKING THROUGH! Can you see it? Can you

hear it?

IN THE MEADOW lies a grey cocoon in early

spring, cool and lifeless. Does it know when

the warm southerly winds blow across the dewy

grass under a crystalline sky? What good the

southerly winds? What good the soft new

grasses of spring? Our loved one lies

lifeless...

PETER AND JOHN REACH THE TOMB. The body of

Jesus had been wrapped like an Egyptian mummy.

The Lord’s chin had been held in place with a

head cloth to keep His mouth from falling

open. BUT LOOK! The head-cloth lies outside

the undisturbed burial wrappings!

HOW COULD THE LORD’S BODY break through the

burial linens? How could the head-cloth pass

through the linens with the Lord’s body?

THE GREY COCOON LIES BURIED IN THE GROUND, but

something’s breaking through! A wing finer

than onion-skin paper breaks into light

through the shroud of death.

THE COCOON tears away as the new life emerges,

only to be left behind. Not so for those who

know the Savior! "Lo! I tell you a mystery,"

whispers the apostle, "We shall all be

changed, in a moment, in the twinkling of an

eye, at the last trumpet."

THE TRUMPET WILL SOUND... THE LAST TRUMPET!

Who will hear it? Time marches on. Musician

after musician has played the lute... the

harp... the trumpet and then left this world.

One day all music will stop within this world!

IT WILL HAPPEN! It has to happen! One final

sound before the end, and it will be God’s

trumpeting angel! It will happen as surely as

a trumpet greater than Jericho’s blasted

around the tomb of Jesus and broke the walls

of death. Jesus lives!

HE SHINES! His open tomb remains open and

life shines out! Darkness has not overcome

the Light! No death of a friend or relative

has overcome it! Your death will not overcome

it! Even now the Morning Star has dawned on

the horizon of your life. Eternity shines in

your heart of faith. Eternity shines in you!

Jesus shines in you!

"Break forth together into singing; you waste

places of Jerusalem; for the Lord has

comforted His people, He has redeemed

Jerusalem."

BENEATH THE SCORCHED desert sands of our

fears–in the bone dryness of death–there has

broken forth a stream from the tomb of Jesus.

Do you see it? Do you hear it? Do you taste

it? At the font, at the altar--do you see

and hear? Blessed is he who has eyes to see

and ears which hear!!

THE STREAM FROM CALVARY flows like a spring of

life through the open tomb! The spring is

growing! Once it showered upon the apostles,

now it is a great ocean streaming like a

mighty gusher measuring thousands of miles

wide and shooting into the sky--covering the

planet! And the Gospel will be spread to all

nations, then the end will come!

THE LAST TRUMPET WILL SOUND! Something’s

breaking through. A sound of death to the

faithless, but life and joy to the faithful!

WHO IS THE PERSON OF FAITH? The one who sees

beneath the desert waste-places of suffering

and evil and death. The one who serves the

Lord of Life in a world of death and decay!

FAITH COMES BY THE HEARING OF THE WORD. It

has eyes which see in the darkness and ears

penetrating the stillness!

"And we have the prophetic word made more

sure," proclaims St. Peter. "You will do well

to pay attention to this as a lamp shinning in