Prepare for Easter with Three Words
I Corinthians 15:1-8
A denominational leader was also serving as pastor. One of his jobs was to travel to little rural communities where they didn’t have churches and conduct funeral services. He would go out with a funeral director and they would drive to the service in the director’s hearse.
One time, they were on their way back from a funeral and the pastor was feeling very tired. He decided he would take a nap. Since they were in a hearse, he thought, “Well, I’ll just lie down in the back of the hearse.” (True story)
The funeral director who was driving the hearse pulled into a service station, because he was running low on gas. The service station attendant was filling up the tank and he nearly freaked out when he looked in the back of the hearse and saw a body stretched out lying down.
While the station attendant was filling the gas tank, the pastor woke up, opened his eyes, knocked on the window and waved at the attendant. The pastor never saw anybody run so fast in his whole life.
When people see life where they were expecting death, they start running.
After Jesus was crucified he rose again on the third day. He appeared to his disciples and declared, “I’m alive.” When people saw Jesus they started running and telling the news to all who would listen.
May the “Good News” of the resurrection of Jesus set your feet to running to tell your friends, relatives, neighbors and associates the story of God’s love and the “Good News” that Jesus is alive.
As we prepare to celebrate the greatest week of the year, Holy Week, I want to review the Life, Death and Victory of Jesus.
Life – Triumphant Entry of Jesus into Jerusalem
Holy Week begins with the triumphant entry of Jesus into Jerusalem. I’m referring to this day as a day when the people were living on the bright side of life. They were singing out: “Let the good times roll.”
As Jesus entered Jerusalem the people shouted: “Blessed is the king who comes in the name of the Lord!” “Peace in heaven and glory in the highest!” Luke 19:38
On Palm Sunday, Jesus led the parade on a young donkey. People following Jesus were filled with enthusiasm and positive outlook on life.
Years ago when I was a student at Central Christian College of Kansas I played forward on the College Basket ball team. During the Christmas Holiday we traveled to L.A. to participate in a basketball tournament at Los Angeles Pacific College. On New Years Day we attended the Rose Bowl Parade. Coming from the small town of Gypsum, Kansas the parade of flowers and floats were a highlight of my life that year.
When watching a parade you forget all about your troubles. If only we could spend our time watching a parade or enjoying the sights and rides around Disney Land.
The people marching in the parade into Jerusalem on Palm Sunday were in high spirits. All seemed well with the world. In united voice they sang out: “Hosanna, Hosanna, Blessed is (He) the King who comes in the name of the Lord.” Luke 19:38
Jesus wasn’t celebrating. Jesus knew His destiny. He knew the painful future he was facing. He was marching into a city living outside of God’s will. A city that in the future would be in constant conflict and turmoil. When Jesus looked out over the city of Jerusalem He wept. Luke 19:41
The shouting crowd tried to make Jesus into a super star, but Jesus did not come as a superstar. Jesus came as a servant with His mission to serve. Jesus didn’t come to seek popularity. Philippians 2:6-7, “Jesus, being in the very nature of God did not consider equality with God something to be grasped, but made himself nothing, taking on the very nature of a servant.”
Jesus said he came to give us life and that life more abundantly. (John 10:10b) Abundant life begins when you come to a place in your life that you humble yourself and follow Jesus not joining the crowd shouting out words of praise, but following Jesus as His servant and obeying Him as your Master.
Death
The praise and exaltations of the triumphant entry on Palm Sunday soon turned to cries of “Crucify Him, Crucify Him.”
The Scriptures are clear. Jesus came on a mission of mercy to die in our place so we can have forgiveness of sins and fellowship with God. The death of Jesus portrayed what God thinks of sin and the penalty for sin. “The wages of sin is death.” Romans 3:23
The prophet Isaiah wrote about God’s Suffering Servant 700 years before Jesus was born. Isaiah described in graphic terms what the Messiah would endure:
“He was despised and rejected by men,
A man of sorrows, and familiar with suffering.
He was oppressed and afflicted,
Yet he did not open his mouth.
He was led like a lamb to the slaughter,
And as a sheep before her shearers is silent,
So he did not open his mouth.” Isaiah 53:3,7
The Denver Post in 1958 ran a story that illustrates the love of Jesus on the Cross.
June 7, 1958 the Air National Guard’s jet precision team was performing outside Dayton, Ohio. Five precision flyers made up the Minute Men team. Colonel Walt Williams was the leader of the Denver-based F-86 Sabre- jet team. The planes made a low pass over the crowd and then went straight up into four directions with colorful smoke leaving a trail that formed a large “flower burst” maneuver.
Colonel Williams turned his Sabre jet hard and dropped the nose of his F-86 to pick up speed for a low-altitude crossover maneuver. Then, glancing back over his shoulder, he froze in terror. Far across the sky to the east, Captain John Ferrier’s plan was rolling out of control. He was in trouble. His plane was heading toward the small town of Fairborn, Ohio located close to the air show.
Steering his jet in the direction of the crippled plan Colonel Williams radioed his command, “Bail out, bail out now Jonny?”
At each time, Colonel Williams, was answered only by a blimp of smoke. John Ferrier couldn’t reach the mike button on the throttle because both his hands were tugging on a control stick locked in full-throw right. The smoke button was on the stick, so he was answering the only way he could – squeezing it to tell Walt Williams that he thought he could keep his plane under enough control to avoid crashing into the houses of Fairborn.
Suddenly an explosion shook the earth. Captain John Ferrier’s Sabre jet had hit the ground midway between four houses in a backyard garden. It was the only place he could have crashed without killing people.
Major Win Coomer, a close friend and Minute Man Team member landed his jet and rushed to the crash scene. A neighbor was standing near the crash site said: “A bunch of us were standing together, watching the show, when the pilot started to roll, he was headed straight for us. For a second, we looked right at each other. Then he pulled up right over us and put it in there.” And in deep humility the man whispered: “This man died for us.”
When we look at the death of Jesus on the cross we have to say: “Jesus died for us.” “Jesus died for me.”
The Bible is clear, “All have sinned and come short of the glory of God.” Romans 3:23 “The wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life.”
We have no one to blame for our sin than ourselves. We each are accountable for our sin. We can’t blame our parents. We can’t blame the government. We have sinned and the penalty for sin is death. Jesus paid the penalty for your sin and mine. If we reject his love and what Jesus did for us on the cross we are without excuse.
Jesus didn’t die for His sins; he died for yours and mine. “Even while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.” Romans 5:8
When we look at God’s love shed on the cross of Calvary we sin out:
“See from His head, His hand, His feet, Sorrow and loved flow mingled down; Did e’er such love and sorrow meet, Or thorns compose so rich a crown.”
“Love so amazing, so divine, demands my life, my soul, my all.”
The Gospel message is simple: “Jesus was born, He lived, He died, He rose again and He is coming back again.”
Life, Jesus came to give you life and that more abundantly.
Death, Jesus came on a mission of mercy to die in your place.
Victory
A third word to describe the Easter Story is “Victory.” On the third day Jesus rose from the dead.
Before Jesus raised Lazarus from the dead he stated a truth that took place on that first Easter morning: “I am the resurrection and the life. He who believes in me will live, even though he dies; and whoever lives and believes in me will never die.” John 11:25
Easter is all about victory. Because Jesus rose from the grave we have the assurance that we too shall live. I believe at death we will have the same kind of spiritual body that Jesus had after His resurrection. A body no longer limited to natural law. A body that is immortal and eternal.
The Apostle Paul in I Corinthians 15 rises to the ultimate heights of truth concerning the resurrection of Christ. Paul declares that Jesus lived, He died, was buried and the third day He arise. He says that if Jesus is not rise from the dead then all our preaching is in vain. If Jesus did not rise from the dead then we are without hope. We may as well just eat, get drunk and die.
Paul declares the good news. Jesus did rise from the dead. He saw the risen Christ on the road to Damascus (Acts 9). When you died with faith in Jesus or if you are alive when Jesus returns your will be changed. You will be given a new body – more complete than when an ugly caterpillar is transformed into a beautiful butterfly. “When the perishable has been clothed with imperishable, and the mortal with immortality, then the saying that is written will come true: Death has been swallowed up in victory.”
“Where, O death is your victory?
Where, O death is your sting?”
The sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the law. But thanks be to God! He gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.” I Corinthians 15:54-57
Someone has written:
Jesus lived a perfect life –
And gave that life to me.
Jesus died a gruesome death
Alone on Calvary.
Jesus left the empty grave,
His might, my VICTORY.
PASSION WEEK reminds us that we now are experiencing life and will at some point we will experience death; but we must make a choice to experience victory. Death is not the final chapter. We believe that every person who has ever lived will face either an eternity with God or without God. We cannot begin to understand the glory of heaven or the torments of hell. God has given us the option to choose our destiny. I encourage you to choose victory. Choose Jesus.
Joshua in his farewell address to the children of Israel gave them this challenge: “Choose this day whom you will serve.” Joshua 24:15
Tim McGraw a popular country singer sings, “Live Like You Were Dying.”
In the movie, “The Bucket List,” actors Jack Nicholson and Morgan Freeman face an impending death. Both have cancer with only a year to live. Together they decide to make a “Bucket List,” a list of things they want to do before they “kick the bucket.” They go skydiving, climb mountains, travel to various countries and seek reconciliation in their own families.
The Easter message is about choosing life and living in the power of the resurrection.
Because God gives everyone the gift of choice, people can choose to forget God and live for themselves. The poem by William Henley describes the life of a person who believes they don’t need God.
Timothy McVeigh drove a pickup truck near the Federal Building in Oklahoma City loaded with explosives. The explosion killed 168 people, and 450 were injured. Nineteen of the victims were small children in the day care center on the ground floor of the building. When he was on death row he wrote out the words to this poem and left it on a table as he walked out to be executed for his murderous actions. He evidently knew the poem by heart:
Out of the night that covers me,
Black as the Pit from pole to pole,
I thank whatever gods may be
For my unconquerable soul.
In the fell clutch of circumstance
I have not winced or cried aloud.
Under the bludgeoning of chance
My heart is bloody, but unbowed.
It matters not how straight the gate,
How charged with punishments the scroll,
I am the master of my fate:
I am the captain of my soul.
Jesus invites us to live an abundant life surrendered and fully devoted to the Lord. Jesus died in our place. Jesus rose again and by faith in Him we have victory.
Dorothea Day lived a selfish life and believed the poem “Invictus” characterized her life. Then she met Jesus and asked Jesus to become Lord of her life. In answer to her former life she wrote a poem she called: “Conquered.”
Out of the light that dazzles me,
Bright as the sun from pole to pole,
I thank the God I know to be,
For Christ – the Conqueror of my soul.
Since His the sway of circumstance,
I would not wince nor cry aloud.
Under the rule which men call chance,
My head, with joy, is humbly bowed.
I have no fear through straight the gate:
He cleared from punishment the scroll.
Christ is the Master of my fate!
Christ is the Captain of my soul!
If you haven’t made Jesus the Master of your life and Captain of your soul you can today. Can you think of any reason why you shouldn’t invite Jesus to be your Lord and Savior?
Why not surrender your life to Jesus today?
