[[[The following sermon includes a video which is a simple line-drawing narrative of the Christ Event. The video is not original. It was purchased from www.sermonspice.com and is available (as of March 2013) at http://www.sermonspice.com/product/53535/easter-drawing.
The timings that are indicated below are there to assist in having a synchronized live reading of the written narrative. For a sample of how the audio fits the line drawing video see here: http://youtu.be/8MpZkrk-MZM
Again, the video is not mine, not original, and I simply added the gospel narrative, that you see below, as a way of further illustrating the Passion as part of an Easter Sermon.]]]
Here's the message:
How many here own or have owned an iPhone or an iPod or a Mac computer or and iWhatever? There’s a reason for that. There’s a story behind that. There’s a story behind everything.
In 1983 Steve Jobs, founder of Apple Computers met with John Sculley, then-president of Pepsi Cola. He asked him: "Do you want to sell sugared water for the rest of your life? Or do you want to come with me and change the world?" [Pause]
How many people here would either call themselves a Christian or a Christ-follower, or have had your life significantly impacted by a Christ-follower? There’s a story behind that. There’s a story behind everything.
In about 33 AD, Jesus, walking by the Sea of Galilee, saw two brothers, Simon called Peter, and Andrew his brother, casting a net into the sea; for they were fishermen. 19 Then He said to them, “Come, follow Me, and I will make you fishers of men.”
Those were two transformative moments in history, although they were about completely different things.
One was to do with modern technology, which in part is about how life is lived in some ways differently now due to the advent of the computer, and in particular due to the advent of one particularly innovative computer company.
The other transformative moment in history was about the human heart, and particularly it was about One Man who was to offer a whole new way of living to every person who would become a follower of His.
His teachings and His life would culminate in one act, The Christ Event, His crucifixion and resurrection from the dead.
Now John Sculley responded with a ‘yes’, and that’s largely why we have the iPod, the iPhone, the iPad and the iWhatever.
Peter and Andrew and others also responded with a ‘yes’, and became part of a movement that, 2000 years later, impacts nearly every part the world on a daily basis.
Now Jesus was a teacher, teaching people how to live, how to love and how to be part of a movement - God’s movement designed to alter and improve for good the lives of everyone the movement touched.
Some, of course, throughout that history, who liked to wear the name of Jesus without following His teachings have at times seriously fowled the water within God’s movement. But it’s a movement that continues none the less.
Yonge Street Mission is part of that movement that Jesus started. Church at the Mission, this church, is part of that movement. I spoke with a dear brother freshly arrived in Toronto from Uganda this part Thursday, a pastor named William from Uganda, and He is here today because of the movement Jesus started.
[START VIDEO] And after 30 years of living, and after 3 years of public ministry Jesus, who said He came to proclaim good news to the poor, to proclaim freedom for the prisoners and recovery of sight for the blind, to set the oppressed free, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor…
Jesus who taught us the Beatitudes, Who taught that He was God etc. found Himself in a room. An upper room of a house. And He was celebrating the Passover with His friends. [:29]
After the Passover meal, He picked up the bread and then the wine, gave thanks, and gave them to his disciples, saying, of the bread: “Take and eat; this is my body,” and of the cup He said , “Drink from it, all of you. 28 This is my blood of the covenant, poured out for many for the forgiveness of sins.” [:47]
Later, in a garden, knowing all that was about to happen, Jesus prayed. His connection with God had always been intact, and now as His mission on earth was about to reach its climax, Jesus’ prayers were so intense He sweated, as it were, drops of blood. [1:02]
Shortly thereafter, Jesus was arrested and taken to the religious leaders who listened to what they knew were fabricated testimonies against Him. Wanting to kill Him because of the threat to their authority that He posed, and because he claimed to be the Son of God, they sent Him to the governor, Pilate.
Pilate said to the leaders and the people gathered there,“I find no basis for a charge against him. It was the day of Preparation of the Passover; it was about noon. “Here is your king,” Pilate said to the Jews. But they shouted, “Take him away! Take him away! Crucify him”. Finally Pilate handed him over to them to be crucified. [1:38]
Then the governor’s soldiers took Jesus into the Praetorium and gathered the whole company of soldiers around him. They stripped him and put a scarlet robe on him, and put a crown of thorns on his head. They put a staff in his right hand.
Then they knelt in front of him and mocked him. “Hail, king of the Jews!” they said. They spit on him, and took the staff and struck him on the head again and again. After they had mocked him, they took off the robe and put his own clothes on him. Then they led him away to crucify him. [2:10]
Pause [2:20]
Two other men, both criminals, were also led out with him to be executed. When they came to the place called the Skull, the soldiers crucified him there, along with the criminals—one on his right, the other on his left. Jesus said, “Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing.”
Jesus told one of the criminals hanging next to Him who believed: “Today you will be with me in paradise”. At the moment of greatest agony and separation from God He cried out: “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” As He drew near to the end He said: “Father, into your hands I commit my spirit”, and just before His last breath, He said: “It is finished”. [2:57]
Jesus was taken off the cross and buried in a tomb cut out of rock. A large stone was rolled against the entrance of the tomb. the women took the spices they had prepared and went to the tomb.
The next day, very early in the morning, as some of Jesus’ female disciples approached His tomb to anoint his body they found the stone rolled away from the tomb, but when they entered, they did not find the body of the Lord Jesus.
While they were wondering about this, suddenly two men in clothes that gleamed like lightning stood beside them. In their fright the women bowed down with their faces to the ground, but the men said to them, “Why do you look for the living among the dead? 6 He is not here; he has risen!
He has risen. He has risen!
There is one Christ event. One moment in history when everything changed. One moment when hopelessness and despair was dealt a crushing blow. One moment when your life and my life received the promise of being enfolded into the love of God.
Now we are at another moment. A moment where we stop to consider the impact of the Christ event on our lives.
I think the biggest challenge for those who wonder about all this – it certainly was for me, coming to faith in Jesus from a completely atheistic worldview – the biggest challenge is…what do we do with Jesus Himself? Because – it all hinges on what Jesus said.
He said He is God. He said that whoever believes in Him has eternal life. He said that He is the Way to the Father and that one can come to God only through Him.
It all hinges on what we do with Jesus.
A quote from Britsh author C.S. Lewis as we wrap up: He said: “I am trying here to prevent anyone saying the really foolish thing that people often say about Him, which us: I’m ready to accept Jesus as a great moral teacher, but I don’t accept his claim to be God. That is the one thing we must not say. A man who was merely a man and said the sort of things Jesus said would not be a great moral teacher. He would either be a lunatic — on the level with the man who says he is a poached egg — or else he would be the Devil of Hell”.
Lewis continues: “You must make your choice. Either this man was, and is, the Son of God, or else a madman or something worse.
“You can shut him up for a fool, you can spit at him and kill him as a demon or you can fall at his feet and call him Lord and God, but let us not come with any patronizing nonsense about his being a great human teacher. He has not left that open to us. He did not intend to.”
It all hinges on Jesus. What will we do with Jesus. That was the challenge I faced. For as long as it was unresolved in my life, man was it an irritating issue for me! It was only as I began to let the voice of Jesus in that I started to have a semblance of peace.
But God leaves the choice up to us. Each person in this room was free will. Each person here chooses what we will love.
After a service today, after a weekend such as this Holy weekend, will we nod and say: “That’s nice. I’m glad I came to church”? (Or if you’re like me before my conversion – that was nice, but also somehow really, really irritating), or will we respond with wonder at the empty cross, the empty tomb?
Will we say in our hearts, perhaps for the first time ever today: “You know, I think the Christ event, the narrative of Jesus, is my event, it belongs somehow as the narrative of my life”.
33 years ago this past March 15 I received a similar challenge. Every year since then, the challenge is new and fresh…with God calling upon me to once again turn to Him and proclaim: “Because He lives…I live!”
Will you take a moment right now to speak to God in silence? In your thoughts, will you quietly and reverently consider the goodness of God?
Will you embrace the fact that when you trust Jesus’ Christ and believe in His sacrifice for your sins, you are forgiven, and reconciled to God.
Will you carefully consider the love of God and the promise of that love…that He wants you, that He forgives you, and that He has given us together a mission to fulfill.
Let’s pray in silence for a moment.
Holy God, the events we mark on this weekend…the bleakness and sadness of Good Friday and the power and joy and glory of this Easter Sunday…they are such a gift to us…to remind us of Your humility and Your love and Your mighty power.
Turn our longing hearts and thirsty souls to You once again, that we might live joyfully and for the One who laid down His life and took it up again on that first Sunday of resurrection. This we pray with gratitude in the name of our risen King, our Redeemer, our Saviour Jesus Christ. Amen.
