Draft Sermon 19th April 2020
Reflections on Easter, a matter of life and death, and life.
This is the Sunday after Easter Sunday Resurrection Day and for the disciples of Jesus it's been a very busy couple of weeks.
Firstly they followed faithfully behind Jesus as He rode into the city of Jerusalem on a donkey and was hailed as a king by the crowds.
Next they saw Him lose his temper in the temple courts as He overturned the tables of the money changers and chased out the merchants.
Then He returned daily to that very same temple courts and taught and healed those who came to Him.
He cursed a fig tree and taught them about faith and prayer.
He ate the passover meal with His disciples, one of whom had already agreed to betray Him, and He commanded them to eat bread and drink wine, representing His body and blood, in remembrance of Him, in perpetuity.
At the time He did that they did not understand that the bread and wine represented His broken body and His blood shed on the cross. Had they been able to think about it rationally at the time they would have recognised the need for the sins of the world to be atoned for and that Jesus represented that atonement. But that realisation would come later.
The same evening, whilst praying in The Garden Of Gethsemani a crowd of temple followers and temple guards arrested Him, He who had committed no crime. One of the crowd gets his ear cut off and Jesus heals him, and they still took Him away to stand trial in front of the chief priest and the Sanhedran.
If they had their way the Chief Priest and the Sanhedran would have had Him stoned to death there and then but they no longer had the power to execute someone, only the Roman Governor Pontius Pilate could do that.
But Pilate could not find fault with Jesus so he sent Jesus to King Herod Antipas who in turn sent Him back to Pilate.
And then Pilate offers to release Jesus as a gesture for the Passover Festival. He offers the crowd a choice between Barabbas and Jesus, and the crowd, who just six days previously had greeted Jesus with adoration, now cried out for Barabbas not Jesus.
And Pilate, who represents the authority of The Roman Emperor in the vassal state of Israel, now has a decision to make, uphold the law or appease the crowd and prevent large scale civil disorder?
Pilate chooses the latter and as a gesture has Jesus whipped but the crowd still demanded His execution.
The Roman governors word is final. There is no appeal. Their legal system is not supported by a judicial system but rather by armed soldiers and it is soldiers who march Jesus out of the city and up to Execution Hill Golgotha.
And there they nail Him to the cross and raise Him up to hang there among thieves until He dies.
The sun goes dark, the skies turn black, the temple curtain is torn in two and a great wind blows.
Jesus is buried in a borrowed tomb and a stone is rolled in front of the tomb. Guards are posted and the city slumbers into the sabbath day.
And up to this point the cynics of the world might claim that all of these happenings were just the Jewish and Roman way of dealing with an eccentric rabbi who disturbed both their systems of governance. Perhaps the execution of Jesus is the only time that the two opposing systems come together.
But it's in what happens next that history, hindsight and scripture allow us to see The Hand Of Almighty God in the process.
On the third day after the crucifixion Mary Magdalene, and others, go to the tomb with the intention of asking the guards to allow them to anoint the body and prepare it properly for burial, as was their tradition but, to their surprise, the stone has been rolled away from the tomb entrance and Jesus is gone.
When the weeping Mary looks into the tomb she sees two angels sitting there and one asks her why she is crying.
He says, “Do not be afraid, for I know that you are looking for Jesus, who was crucified. He is not here: He is risen, just as He said. Come and see the place where He lay. Then go and tell His disciples: ‘He has risen from the dead and is going ahead of you into Galilee.’”
Mary runs back to the house where the disciples are staying and she gets Peter and John and when they get to the tomb they actually go into the tomb and find it empty and the grave clothes neatly folded inside.
As Mary is standing outside the tomb she sees a man who she thinks is the gardener and she asks him where the body of Jesus is, and when He speaks she suddenly recognises Him as Jesus in His risen form.
Everything, every event mentioned so far is all according to prophecy, the oldest more than 2000 years before the event it predicts actually happened.
That fact, of course, tells us that God’s promises can be relied upon 100% always. He always does what He said He will do, and of course that means that the only prophecy, promise of God, that hasn’t already happened is the The Second Coming of Jesus. Jesus said; “My Father’s house has many rooms; if that were not so, would I have told you that I am going there to prepare a place for you? And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come back and take you to be with me that you also may be where I am.” John 14:2-3 (NIV)
And because God, in this case in the form of Jesus, always keeps His promises then we can be assured that He will come again.
Mark, who was probably the secretary to The Apostle Peter, recorded these words of Jesus describing how it will be in Mark 13:24-26; “But in those days, following that distress, “‘the sun will be darkened, and the moon will not give its light; the stars will fall from the sky, and the heavenly bodies will be shaken.’ “At that time people will see the Son of Man coming in clouds with great power and glory. And he will send his angels and gather his elect from the four winds, from the ends of the earth to the ends of the heavens.”
The last living Apostle, John of Patmos, wrote this, “Look, he is coming with the clouds,” and “every eye will see him, even those who pierced him”; and all peoples on earth “will mourn because of him.” So shall it be! Amen.
One prophecy confirms the other even though they were probably written 40 years apart, but John goes on to record words he hears God say in his vision. God says, “I am the Alpha and the Omega,” says the Lord God, “who is, and who was, and who is to come, the Almighty.”
Revelations 1:7-8. (NIV)
The Easter story shows us that we can rely completely on the promises of God because everything described in the Old Testament came true, culminating in the death and resurrection of Jesus.
That being the case then we can say with confidence that we can rely on the prophecies of Mark and John, and even the one made by God Himself.
He is coming, and my sense is it will be soon.
Let's be ready.
In Jesus name. Amen
