Easter
March 31, 2013
Luke 24:1-12
Some of you know that I am not musically gifted. I can’t carry a tune, I don’t know melody from harmony from rhythm. I don’t play any musical instruments, partly because I can’t read music; and maybe you don’t know it, but I don’t know melody from harmony from rhythm.
BUT, I’ve come to learn I can play a musical instrument. The beauty is that I don’t have to practice it, you can never tell me if I missed a note or messed up on anything. Why? Because I’ve learned to play the AIR GUITAR!!
What’s air guitar? It’s simply playing an imaginary guitar. You pick up your imaginary guitar, strap it on and play away to a song. Air guitar is so serious that there’s even a World Championship. This year it’s in August, in Oulu, Finland.
Here’s what I love about “playing” air guitar.
You can’t hit a wrong note.
You can’t sound bad.
You can’t even sound better.
You don’t even need a guitar to play air guitar.
You can even slam your guitar on the ground as part of your act and there’s always
a newer model waiting for you.
You can look good without ever practicing a single note.
The bad thing about playing a real guitar is that you have to practice very hard in order to sound good. I know I’ve said it and inferred it to my children, and I know it can be annoying, but we teach it because it’s true — — “practice makes perfect.” In sports, they call it muscle memory.
Practice isn’t always much fun. If you’re an athlete, practice is running suicides, crunches, weights, repeating and repeating drills and more. If you’re a musician, practice is endless scales, chord repetitions, memorization, learning new ways to listen, to hear, to breathe, to feel. Without practice you can never get better, you can never really improve.
Well, today is Easter Sunday! And on Easter we celebrate the most perfect event in the history of the world - the perfect enactment of divine love, the greatest expression of life ever given and gifted to the world — the resurrection of Jesus, the Christ.
I wonder how many times God went over His perfect plan in His heart. He didn’t need to practice it over and over again. God knew what He was going to do, and never deviated from His plan. I can picture God smiling because of the gift which was ins store for you and I. You ever buy the perfect gift? It took planning and searching to make it all come together. Well, folks, we’ve got the perfect gift in Jesus, and that gift is right in front of us.
In the play by Eugene O’Neill called “Lazarus Laughed,” Lazarus is facing Caligula, the Roman emperor, and instead of begging for mercy, Lazarus laughs and proclaims “DEATH IS DEAD.” And the chorus shouts, “Laugh! Laugh! Fear is no more! Death is dead!”
Did you hear it? “Death is dead.” Whatever is killing you right now, whatever grave clothes have trapped and wrapped themselves around you like a python, whatever straightjackets you find yourself in, you can escape. You can walk into the light and experience the miracle of life. “Death is dead.” And because “death is dead,” there is a new world of new possibilities for all of us.
Let me share with you the story of the resurrection from the gospel of Luke ~
1 On the first day of the week, very early in the morning, the women took the spices they had prepared and went to the tomb.
2 They found the stone rolled away from the tomb,
3 but when they entered, they did not find the body of the Lord Jesus.
4 While they were wondering about this, suddenly two men in clothes that gleamed like lightning stood beside them.
5 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! Remember how he told you, while he was still with you in Galilee:
7 ‘The Son of Man must be delivered over to the hands of sinners, be crucified and on the third day be raised again.’ ”
8 Then they remembered his words. 9 When they came back from the tomb, they told all these things to the Eleven and to all the others.
10 It was Mary Magdalene, Joanna, Mary the mother of James, and the others with them who told this to the apostles.
11 But they did not believe the women, because their words seemed to them like nonsense.
12 Peter, however, got up and ran to the tomb. Bending over, he saw the strips of linen lying by themselves, and he went away, wondering to himself what had happened.
This is the last thing the disciples expected. All hope was gone. Jesus was dead, and after all, Jesus was the only person they knew who could bring someone back to life . . . and He’s dead. Death was real, there was not a lick of hope.
Aah, but they didn’t fully understand, did they? And the disciples aren’t a whole lot different than we are. Where did Jesus get His power to raise the dead, to heal the sick, to see into the heart, to offer eternal forgiveness? Where did it come from? It came from the Father. The disciples lost total sight of that. They were stuck in their self pity. They couldn’t get beyond the cross and death.
The two angels at the tomb said to the women, 5 WHY DO YOU LOOK FOR THE LIVING AMONG THE DEAD? Do you see the connection to our lives today? What is it most of us are looking for in life? Let me ask you 3 simple questions – –
First,do you want to be happy?
Second, do you want your happiness to be partial or full?
Third, do you want your happiness to be temporary or to last as long as you last?
I hope those are pretty simple questions. The reason I count these questions worthy of Easter Sunday morning is not just because I think every person in this room cares about them, but also because these questions are the rock bottom concerns of the Bible.
You see, Jesus came offering us the gift of life. He offers us eternal life when we die, but the offer is for our time here on earth. We don’t wait to live until we die, we should be living until we die, then we continue living forever with God. It’s a total WIN - WIN situation. But I think we choose a LOSE - WIN situation.
You see, too often we’re looking for life among the dead. It’s the question the angels asked the women. Why are you looking for the living among the dead? Great question! It’s true for us as well. You see for too many of us, our happiness, or joy, is not found in Christ, as it should. Our happiness and contentment is found in the external things of life.
• If our kids succeed, we feel happy, but then we want more for them, so that happiness is fleeting.
• We want more material things. We aren’t satisfied with what we have, we buy more and feel good, then we want more, because we lost that good feeling.
• We want better health, so we eat better, exercise more, yet we’re not fully satisfied, because someone else is getting more compliments.
• We want others to approach us and make us feel important, which leads to happiness, but they don’t, so we’re not happy.
Let me give you another example. Here’s a new ad by Nike of Tiger Woods, WINNING TAKES CARE OF EVERYTHING! Supposedly he hasn’t changed anything about his personality on the golf course. Lots of people don’t like him because of his affairs and attitudes, but the perception, WINNING TAKES CARE OF EVERYTHING! Supposedly solves all problems! Really!? Isn’t that a superficial approach to living? Winning will not make me eternally happy. Only temporarily. Only a vital and active relationship with Christ will.
Do you get the point? We’re looking for this contentment, this inner joy, through happiness when it’s already been given to us in Jesus. Why are we looking for real life through the dead things in life? Why not look for real life through the author of life? Through Jesus. You won’t find Him among the dead, because death is dead. He’s with the living. Oh, don’t get me wrong, Jesus is with the person who is dying and has proclaimed Jesus as Lord and Savior, but remember that person’s body dies, their soul doesn’t, so Jesus stays with the living.
You see, we have what I’ll call THE EASTER CHOICE. The problem for most of us is that we aren’t surprised enough by Easter to realize we face a choice. Easter is part of the background scenery of our lives. We've never been afraid of Easter and we’ve never been bewildered by it. Maybe we asked a few questions about it.
But believing that Jesus rose again from the dead becomes a little like believing the earth is round and that it orbits the sun. Once upon a time people didn't believe that. They thought the earth was flat and that the sun orbited the earth. It caused quite a controversy when this view was first published. That was a long time ago and now we accept that picture of our solar system without much thought. Sure the world is round and we orbit the sun, but what does that have to do with anything? It doesn't change what I have to do at work tomorrow, does it?
Is that what Easter becomes for us? We believe it happened but then — — we've always believed that. Even Easter has somehow become part of the "routines" of this world. So why would it have much of an effect on what we do tomorrow? Easter is no longer shocking for us. It doesn’t WOW us. When our team wins, we walk away excited. When it’s unexpected, we storm the court or run onto the field. Folks, the resurrection was totally unexpected. But I don’t see any of our fans storming the court in wild jubilation that He’s alive and we won!
It seems like we’ve just taken the resurrection as an everyday fact. And that’s great. But it’s also not so great. Because we expect it, it doesn’t surprise and shock and wow us.
The truth of the resurrection changes everything. It must change everything. It must change us, it must change our hearts. We can’t stay the same and say the empty tomb has impacted us. The truth of the resurrection needs to be lived everyday. It needs to still be a sparkle in our eyes — — today, tomorrow and 50 years from now.
The resurrection is not just some great fact we bring out of the Christian woodwork every 12 months. The resurrection changes everything . . . today and every day. Why? Because we’ve received the perfect gift from God, a gift we don’t have to practice for, a gift Jesus and the empty tomb. It’s a gift we must accept, unwrap, and then move into life and celebrate life. Remember . . .
Death is dead! Amen? Praise God.
