THE MYSTERY OF EASTER
1 Cor. 15: 50-59 (p815) April 24, 2011
INTRODUCTION:
It's just a normal Tuesday…you get up, take your shower…trying to be a little quite as you get dressed so your wife can sleep a little longer. You head downstairs and put the coffee one…after your second cup you head for the car…all the stuff you need to get done for the day is dancing around in your head and as you stuck the key into the car door…
There is a thundering trumpet blast…not like anything you've heard in band practice, but a glorious sounds that vibrates through every fiber of your body…you are driven to your knees by its shear power, as an angelic voice announces…."The King of Kings and the Lord of Lord"…you look to the sky as it opens…its sounds like the ripping of a million bed sheets all being torn at once…its blinding, its glorious in its heavenly splendor as Jesus appears…and at first that moment your body is transformed…in the blink of an eye…everything changes within you…in that blinding flash of glory, your body has gone from temporary to eternal…from mortal to immortal…its beyond anything you could have ever imagined, and could have hoped for….
And you know without a doubt this is no normal Tuesday…nor will there ever be a normal Tuesday again.
"I declare to you, brothers, that flesh and blood cannot inherit the Kingdom of God, nor does the perishable inherit the imperishable. Listen, I tell you a mystery. We will not all sleep, but we will all be changed, in a flash, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet…"
The story of Easter has all the trappings of a great Mystery: Intrigue, shady characters, betrayed, murder, and ending that leaves things unfinished…and you wanting more.
The Pharisees and Jewish leadership have developed a plot in order to kill Jesus…Judas and insider is bought off and agrees to deliver Jesus into their hands…there is a Kangaroos court…in fact 2 of them…where witnesses are persuaded into lying…Government officials are used for this nefarious plot…both Herod and Pilate…
Jesus is handed over…beaten, crucified and buried…but then the twist…the resurrection. He comes back…for 40 days he walks the earth…he's touched by his disciples, he prepares them for the future…hundreds are witnesses of this event…and then as hundreds watch….including his disciples.
"He was taken up before their very eyes and a cloud his him from their sight.
They were looking intently into the sky as he was going when suddenly two men dressed in white stood beside them…"Men of Galilee", they said, "why do you stand here looking into the sky? This same Jesus, who has been taken from you into heaven, will come back in the same way you have seen him go into heaven" (Acts 1: 9-11)
1.
So when the Apostle Paul writes in our text "Listen, I tell you a mystery" He's giving us a glimpse into the conclusion of C. S. I. Jerusalem. and the conclusion is "Out of this world"
For those who belong to Christ…It's
I THE DAY OF OUR INHERTANCE
It's important for us to remember that salvation isn't a reward…it’s a gift. A gift from God that no one deserves and no one can ear. "Because of His great Love for us, God, who is rich in mercy, made us alive with Christ even when we were dead in transgression ---it is by grace you have been saved. And God raised us up with Christ and seated us with him the heavenly realms in Christ Jesus…For it is by grace you have been saved through faith - and this not from yourselves, it is the gift of God- not by works, so that no one can boast" ( Eph 2: 4-6, 8-9
Our inheritance is a gift…it's not something we worked for…its provided for us by the work of another….Jesus. We are purchased by His shed blood…God, who is rich in mercy, wrote the check for the payment of all sin…We were dead in our transgressions…bankrupt spiritually…homeless and hopeless "But God demonstrated His own love for us in that while we were yet sinners Christ died for us" ( Romans 5:8)
Faith is accepting the gift…faith is dying to that old life, to be reborn as God's child…faith is letting the Holy Spirit sign your adoption papers…faith isn't working your way to heaven…but showing that heaven is at work in you.
Flesh and blood can't inherit the Kingdom of God, nor does the perishable inherit the imperishable…so one the day Jesus returns…when that trumpet sounds…"The dead will be raised imperishable and we will be changed" (V52)
How will we be changed? Paul's already used the example of a seed planted in the ground bursting forth into beautiful new life…you'd never look at a tomato seed and a tomato plant and think they were anything alike.
Cemeteries aren't black holes where bodies disappear…they are gardens where seeds are planted…
"The body that is sown is perishable, it is raised imperishable. It is sown in dishonor, it is raised in glory. It is sown in weakness. It is raised in power" (1Cor 15: 42-43)
So whether you are still alive when Christ returns. or whether your spirit has gone on to be with him…this body….this seed is just temporary…and before your inheritance can be realized it must be changed. And it will be in the twinkling of an eye.
Paul wants his brothers and sisters in Christ in Thessalonians to know this hope...he wants their grief and ours to be tempered with this hope.
2.
1 Thess 4:13-18 (p836)
The last enemy completely defeated "Death has been swallowed up in Victory".
His glorious crop.
Just as God can make an oak of an acorn or a tulip out of a bulb…he makes a new body out of the old one. A body without corruption. A body without weakness. A body without dishonor…and most remarkable "A body identical to the body of Jesus"
I love what Joni Erickson Tada says…Joni was rendered a quadriplegic by a teenager driving accident…she, more than most, knows what it's like to live in a perishable boy--but she also knows the hope of a resurrected body listen to her words.
Somewhere in my broken paralyzed body is the seed of what I shall become.
The paralysis makes what I am to become all the more grand when you
contrast atrophied, useless legs against splendorous resurrected legs. I'm
convinced that if there are mirrors in heaven (and why not?), the image
I'll see will be unmistakably "Joni" although a much better, brighter
Joni. so much so, that it's not worth comparing…I will bear the likeness
of Jesus, the man from heaven."
Jesus resurrected body was a real body…He didn't return as a Ghost or a mist…He told his followers "Look at my hands and my feet, it is I myself! Touch me and see; a Ghost does not have flesh and bones, as you see I have" (Luke 24:39)
He walked with them…He ate with them…He touched them….Jesus had a real body...and yet Mark tells us it was radically different…."He appeared in another form…so different Mary Magdalene, his disciples by the sea and his followers on the Road to Emmaus did not recognize Him…though He invited Thomas to touch his body, he passed through a closed door to be in the disciples presence.
What do we know about the resurrected body of Jesus? It wasn't like anything this world had ever seen!
Maybe that's exactly why John the beloved disciple says…
Dear friends, now we are children of God and what we will be has not yet been made know…but we know that when he appears, we shall be like Him, for we shall see Him as He is." (1John 3:2,3)
This is the hope we rely on…it's the mystery of Easter waiting to be revealed in us.
Death doesn't win…death causes the sting of grief, but Jesus pulled the sting out…
"Thanks be to God…He gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ."
Let me end this message with a challenge…
3.
II THE TRUTH OF THE RESURRECTION ISN'T JUST ONE DAY A YEAR.
As this resurrection chapter ends Paul says
"Therefore my dear brothers, stand firm… let nothing move you. always give yourselves fully to the work of the Lord, because you know that your labor is not in vain" (v 58)
"Therefore" is an important word…if you see it in scripture…look at what comes before it…See what the "therefore" is there for.
This challenge is at the end of this discussion because of the resurrection…this challenge is for believers to never forget the hope they have…and to live in expectation of it.
For the genuine believer in Christ…Easter isn't a one day holiday…the resurrection of Christ impacts how they live 365, 24/7.
Why? Because they've met the risen Savior…Jesus is really alive to them and in them.
You see folks there is a huge difference between knowing about someone…and having a genuine relationship with someone.
[I was watching a show the other day called "Biography"…it's where they show the life of a famous person and interview them. and the actor that was being interviewed was Don Knotts shortly before his death in 2006…Don said at the age of 81 people still called him Barney…they approached him as if he was their dearest friend and wanted to talk about episodes from the Andy Griffith show…He said "people really believed they knew me because they'd seen and heard me as that character for so many years…It was flattering, but it wasn't the truth…they didn't know I was born dirt poor in Morgantown, W.V., or that my father had a nervous breakdown when I was born…they youngest of 5 because he didn't want to raise another child…they knew a character…they didn't know the real Jesse Donald Knotts...nor did they really want to.]
Christianity isn't a religion…it’s a person…His name is Jesus and He's alive. Maybe you've heard about all the characters, shaken hands with him once or twice…but to you he's still a Story book character…Easter is his day…but His life, His death, His resurrection really isn't that big a deal on most others…His name is one I'll use when I'm in trouble or mad, but its not one I use daily in relationship to a real person…"My prayer is God's Spirit will open your heart to a real Savior who can become really Lord"
The saddest truth Paul's addressing is that some had had this intimate friendship with Jesus…but had moved…or been moved…and now He was just a name…A character from the past…and the resurrection was about death instead of life.
4.
