Introduction:
A. This week as I prepared for this sermon, I received an email from Tim Woodroof with an article he had written several years ago called “Resurrection Wonder.”
1. I was so inspired by the article that I turned it into this sermon.
B. The story is told of a man who stopped a woman and her dog who were coming out of a movie theater.
1. The man said to her, “I'm sorry to bother you, but I was amazed that your dog seemed to get into the movie so much. He cried at the right spots, moved nervously at the scary spots, and laughed like crazy at the funny parts. Don't you find that unusual?”
2. “Yes” the woman replied, “I find it very unusual. Especially considering that he hated the book!”
C. Let me ask you: Is there any wonder in your life, any amazement and awe?
1. Do you have room for anything that knocks your socks off and drives you to your knees and makes you bow your head?
2. What stuns you? What leaves you speechless?
3. What induces mouth-gaping, eye-widening, stomach-flopping wonder in you?
4. Anything at all?
D. Today, We live in a world with little room for wonder.
1. We’ve explained, manipulated, mastered, and test-tubed all the wonder out of our lives.
2. Instead of watching for moon-rise, we turn on light bulbs.
3. Instead of enduring sun and snow, we reach for thermostats.
4. Instead of yielding to the eternal rhythms of night and day and seasons, we impose Daylight Savings Time.
E. We’ve bridged rivers and tamed deserts and turned forests into cities.
1. The world is just an airport away.
2. The most distant person can be reached by dialing ten digits.
3. Anything we want to know is a mere mouse-click away.
F. We don’t fear disease like we used to—we irradicate it, chemotherapy it, laproscopically excise it.
1. We don’t gaze up stupified at the stars—we name and measure and classify and analyze them – and we send probes to investigate the planets.
2. We don’t quake in terror at the power of nature—we predict it, track it, issue storm warnings about it, we build buildings that are quake-proof, fire-proof, and tornado-proof.
G. There isn’t much room for wonder in our world anywhere.
1. Except, perhaps, to marvel at ourselves and what we can do and think.
2. Yes, human kind is quite often in awe of itself.
I. What about the Resurrection? How did Jesus’ disciples react to the resurrection?
A. The disciples shouldn’t have been surprised on that Resurrection morning.
1. While Jesus was among them, He talked about resurrection all the time.
2. Jesus said things like:
a. I’m going to call out and the dead will come to life. (Jn 5:25)
b. I can give new life to anyone I please. (Jn 5:21)
c. I am the Resurrection and the Life. (Jn 11:25)
B. According to the gospels, he exercised power over death during his ministry.
1. There was a girl, the daughter of Jairus, whom he raised to life again.
2. There was a widow who lost her only son … Jesus resurrected him.
3. There was Lazarus, Jesus’ close friend—he was dead and buried four days—but Jesus called him from the tomb.
C. In fact, so characteristic was the power of life in the ministry of Jesus that when John the Baptist sent his disciples to ask if Jesus were really the Messiah, Jesus answered with his actions:
1. Go and report: the blind see … the lame walk … the lepers are cleansed … the deaf hear … and the dead are raised to life again. (Lk 7:22)
D. When Jesus sent his disciples on a preaching-tour, he even gave them power to raise the dead!
1. Jesus said to them, “As you go, preach this message: ‘The kingdom of heaven is near.’ Heal the sick, raise the dead, cleanse those who have leprosy, drive out demons.” (Mt 10:8)
E. Everywhere we turn in the gospels, we see Jesus talking about resurrection or causing resurrection. 1. So the idea of the dead living again shouldn’t have been a new concept for the disciples.
F. But it goes even deeper than that.
1. Jesus told his disciples that he would rise from the dead.
2. He told them four times in Matthew—explicitly, without parable or roundaboutness—“I will be raised on the third day.”
3. They asked him about this statement. They wondered what he meant. They talked about it among themselves.
G. You’d think they might have figured it out.
1. You’d think they might have cracked the code or solved the riddle.
2. The disciples shouldn’t have been surprised by Resurrection morning.
3. They should have been camped out in front of that tomb, counting the hours, ready to be amazed rather than being overcome by despair.
II. Where’s the Wonder of the Ressurrection for us?
A. When we approach the resurrection of Jesus, do we strip it of wonder?
1. Are we too busy parsing all the details about rolling stones and grave clothes, the angels, Roman soldiers and weeping women to fall down in worship before a risen Lord.
2. Do we spend all our time running around trying to explain resurrection and prove resurrection?
3. Are we too intent on attempting to answer alternative theories and the objections of those who doubt?
4. Is there any time or energy left for wonder?
B. In the end, if we leave this time of worship, where we have focused on the Resurrection, and we leave here more informed or convinced or confirmed, but not inspired, then we have missed something.
1. If we feel no sense of awe, no quickening of astonishment, no gasp of wonder, then we have not grasped the Resurrection wonder that God wants us to have.
2. Our response to the Resurrection should be more than: “Okay, Jesus was raised from the dead… Today’s worship was good…nice songs…nice sermon…Where do you want to eat lunch?”
C. Perhaps it is helpful to remember that the overwhelming response to that first Resurrection morning was not to compose a resurrection symphony, or publish a resurrection proof, or write a sermon on the meaning and significance of the Resurrection.
1. No, the overwhelming response was shock. Stunned surprise. Knee-shaking fear. Heart-pounding awe. Fall-to-the-ground amazement.
2. Take a look at the gospel accounts and list the words and phrases used to describe what people experienced when it dawned on them that Jesus was alive again.
3. They were afraid, alarmed, and frightened.
4. They shook, feinted, trembled, and fled.
5. They doubted, wondered, and cried out.
6. They were bewildered, startled, amazed, and overjoyed.
7. They bowed down. And they worshipped.
D. We can understand the guards reacting badly to the Resurrection. (See Mt. 28:2-4.)
1. They had little warning, no preparation.
2. They knew a lot about death, but they’d never experienced a dead man walking.
3. No wonder they fell to the ground in a feint.
E. Unfortunately, even those closest to Jesus reacted poorly.
1. The women were scared to death.
2. The disciples were startled and terrified and thought they’d seen a ghost.
3. At first, they didn’t believe…they refused to believe…they wanted some proof.
4. And when they could no longer deny the evidence of their own eyes, they experienced a joyful amazement.
F. It appears that no amount of forewarning and prediction can adequately prepare you to talk with a man you saw crucified and buried, a man whose death you’d been mourning as if you yourself had died, a man you’d just resigned yourself to live without, but now stands suddenly beside you and says, “Do not be afraid.”
1. Perhaps we humans have no choice in the matter.
2. Resurrection is so far outside of our ability to grasp, or explain, or expect.
3. Therefore, wonder, it seems, is the best possible reaction to the Resurrection story.
4. To celebrate the Resurrection without an overwhelming sense of wonder is to miss the point.
III. Resurrection Wonder Makes A Difference?
A. The Resurrection of Jesus is God’s antidote to a wonderless world.
1. Every Sunday, especially this Resurrection Sunday, we are invited to consider the possibility that something wild and wonderful; something impossible, incredible, and unbelievable; something astounding, astonishing, and awesome happened.
2. The Resurrection forces us to ask: what if this world isn’t the cause-effect, the “I-can-understand-everything-if-I-just-try-hard-enough” place I thought it was?
3. What if there are forces moving behind this world, dimensions unfolding inside this world that I do not understand, cannot control, and can never predict?
4. What if all our technological advances and scientific discoveries are no more than distractions to keep us from thinking about the elephant in the room who is stronger than, greater than, other than anything we can imagine?
5. What if there are possibilities in our lives (if only we had the eyes to see them) to which the only reasonable response is awe and wonder?
6. What if there is a God who can break into this world and shake a dead man awake and destroy the power of death and toss out resurrection life like candy at a parade?
B. The Resurrection is God pounding on the door of our dead hearts, our shrivelled imaginations, our tiny and wonderless lives, proclaiming:
1. I am the God of resurrection power.
2. I hold in my hands the keys to life and death.
3. I do not play by your rules.
4. I am not bound by your laws and limits.
5. I can break into your world at will and accomplish My will.
6. I am the all-mighty, the everlasting, the all-knowing, the death-breaking, the life-giving Alpha and Omega.
C. God asks us: Now what will you do with a God like me?
D. Bonnie Raitt sings a wonderful, heart-breaking song called, “I can’t make you love me.”
1. The chorus goes like this:
“I can’t make you love me if you don’t.
I can’t make your heart feel something it won’t.
Here in the dark, in these final hours,
I will lay down my heart, and I’ll feel the power
But you won’t. No, you won’t …
E. As I stand before you this Resurrection Sunday, I feel the same frustration, the same impotence.
1. I can’t make you feel wonder if you don’t.
2. I can’t make you uncross your arms and lay aside your doubts about the resurrection story, if you won’t.
3. I can’t force you to consider the possibility that you are not the measure of this world, that your mind and your experience do not set the boundaries of this existence.
4. I can’t make your heart believe in a resurrection God.
5. I can’t make you alive again to awe and astonishment and wonder if your heart won’t feel those things.
F. All I can do is tell you this is Resurrection Sunday.
1. All I can do is testify that on this morning God broke into our world and raised a dead man to life again.
2. All I can do is feel the power myself … the awe … the wonder and amazement.
3. I hope that all of us here today, will also experience this Resurrection wonder.
G. Like the Apostle Paul, all I can do is pass on to you what is of first importance:
1. 1 Now, brothers, I want to remind you of the gospel I preached to you, which you received and on which you have taken your stand. 2 By this gospel you are saved, if you hold firmly to the word I preached to you. Otherwise, you have believed in vain.
3 For what I received I passed on to you as of first importance: that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, 4 that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day according to the Scriptures, 5 and that he appeared to Peter, and then to the Twelve. 6 After that, he appeared to more than five hundred of the brothers at the same time, most of whom are still living, though some have fallen asleep. 7 Then he appeared to James, then to all the apostles, 8 and last of all he appeared to me also…” (1 Corinthians 15:1-8)
H. Let me end with this ancient poem by John of Damascus who lived in the 8th century:
The day of resurrection?
Earth, tell it out abroad;
The Passover of gladness,
The Passover of God.
From death to life eternal,
From this world to the sky,
Our Christ hath brought us over
With hymns of victory.
Now let the heavens be joyful,
Let earth her song begin;
Let the round world keep triumph,
And all that is therein;
Let all things seen and unseen
Their notes in gladness blend,
For Christ the Lord hath risen,
Our Joy that hath no end.
I. May God fill us all with Resurrection Wonder that will result in Resurrection power and purpose and joy.
Resources:
Based on article “Resurrection Wonder” by Tim Woodroof.
