April 7, 1996
What Easter REALLY Means
Revelation 1:17 Do not be afraid. I am the First and the Last. I am the Living One; I was dead, and behold I am alive forever and ever! And I hold the keys of death and of Hades.
MY EARLIEST RECOLLECTIONS of Easter are in the Great Depression, when, although I don't recall being "poor," I do recall how often we were literally "penniless." And yet somehow Easter was special— Easter we boiled eggs and colored them— Easter my mother somehow always took us to church looking fresh and scrubbed and greased and creased— and usually wearing something brand new— even in the Depression.
I got the idea that Easter was important— and of course that the Resurrection was the central thing about Easter.
EASTER REALLY MEANS RESURRECTION
ALL MY YEARS as a Christian pastor I have seen Easter as important, and have seen the Resurrection as the center of what Easter stands for. But I think there has been a subtle change as I have been growing older. I no longer see the Resurrection as the most important part of Easter. I see the Resurrection of Jesus Christ as the heart and soul of all our faith, and Easter is an important part of the Resurrection, and not the other way around. As Paul wrote some twenty years or so after the Crucifixion, in 1 Corinthians 15:14 "If Christ has not been raised, our preaching is useless and so is your faith." It is as simple as that.
HOW MANY TIMES have we heard this Resurrection Day story? How can we hear it again as for the first time? J. B. Phillips was a translator of the scriptures. I remember when his translation seemed very modern indeed, and his words still carry a freshness. I came again recently across his words about translating the resurrection passages in Corinthians. He wrote:
For me, the translator, this fifteenth chapter seemed alive and vibrant, not with pious hope, but with inspired certainty. Quite suddenly I realized that NO MAN HAD EVER WRITTEN SUCH WORDS BEFORE. As I pressed on with the task of translation I came to feel utterly convinced of the truth of the Resurrection. Something of literally life-and-death importance had happened in mortal history, and I was reading the actual words of the people who had seen Christ after his resurrection and had seen men and women deeply changed by his living power. Previously, although I had known something of the "comfort of the scriptures" and had never thought them to be false, I must have been insulated from their reality simply because they were known as "Scripture." Now I was compelled to come to the closest possible terms with this writing, and I was enormously impressed, and still am. On the one hand these letters (of Paul) were written over quite a period of years, but there is not the slightest discernible diminution of faith. And on the other hand, it was borne in upon me with irresistible force that these letters could never have been written at all if there had been no Jesus Christ, no Crucifixion, and no Resurrection.
Easter IS Resurrection— and specifically, the Resurrection of our Lord Jesus Christ from the grave. So actually Easter means specifically JESUS IS ALIVE—
EASTER REALLY MEANS A LIVING SAVIOR
JESUS LIVES AS OUR PROPHET OF THE ETERNAL WORD
When Jesus appeared to the eleven that same evening of the day he rose from the dead he said these words (Luke 24:44) "This is what I told you while I was still with you: Everything must be fulfilled that is written about me in the Law of Moses, the Prophets and the Psalms." In other words the Risen Savior was making the flat statement that the Old Testament Scriptures existed to help us know who Jesus is, in order that we might come to understand what God wants us to know of Himself. When Jesus appeared to the two on the Road to Emmaus (in that same chapter in the Gospel) he warms their hearts, and enlightens their understanding by beginning with Moses and the Prophets and speaking to them from the scriptures the things concerning Himself.
JESUS LIVES AS OUR HIGH PRIEST IN GOD'S PRESENCE
When Jesus appeared to Mary Magdalene (in the passage in John read this morning) he made it clear where he was heading. "Do not hold on to me," he said (John 20:17), "for I have not yet returned to the Father. Go instead to my brothers and tell them, 'I am returning to my Father and your Father, to my God and your God.' " The Prophet awakens us to the truth of God, and to our need to be holy so we can walk with God in fellowship, as God intended in Creation. But the Priest makes a way for us to come to God. He bears the sacrifice of his own life into the Holy of Holies for our sins and infirmities, so that he can assure us we may call His Father OUR Father, and His God OUR God!
JESUS LIVES AS OUR OMNIPOTENT KING FOREVER
Jesus rose from the Tomb as the Sovereign of an entirely NEW WAY OF LIFE. He never "LOST" His life— Our KING LAID IT DOWN as a sacrifice to take it again forever as the Conqueror of death and evil.
Because the Risen Savior could say, (Matthew 28:18) "All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age."— because He could say THAT— we are citizens of a NEW KIND OF KINGDOM— A NEW WAY OF LIVING.
Other kings have kingdoms that pass away. Jesus says His kingdom will not pass away. Eternal life is not just this life patched up and going on forever and ever. It is beyond the bounds we know as time and space— more real than we can now understand. In a beautiful passage in The Everlasting Man, in a chapter called "The Strangest Story Ever Told" G. K. Chesterton wrote these powerful words:
On the third day the friends of Christ coming at daybreak to the place found the grave empty and the stone rolled away. In varying ways they realized the new wonder; but even they hardly realized the world had died in the night. What they were looking at was the first day of a new creation, with a new heaven and a new earth; and in the semblance of the gardener God walked again in the garden, in the cool not of the evening but the dawn.
Easter is Resurrection, and Easter is a Living Savior. But Easter is of absolutely no lasting worth to you and me until Easter becomes very personal. And I am happy to tell you on the authority of God's Word this Easter Sunday that
EASTER REALLY MEANS THE GIFT OF LIFE BY GOD'S GRACE
ROMANS 10:9,10 tells how simple, really, it is to become a part of Christ's kingdom. "Confess with the mouth— believe with the heart that God has raised Him from the dead..." IF YOU TRULY BELIEVE JESUS IS ALIVE, YOU ARE BLESSED. Do you believe? 2 CORINTHIANS 5:16,17 indicates that even we, who have not seen the glorified, risen Lord can know Him. If you truly want to believe ask Jesus to walk with you in your seeking. He is nearer just now than you may imagine.
INVITATION TO CONFESS JESUS AS LORD!
Prayer "He is Lord, He is Lord...He is Risen from the Dead and He is Lord.."
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Dr. Russell Metcalfe is Pastor Emeritus of the Wollaston Church of the Nazarene. Permission to reprint or publish this material is GRANTED as long as the reprinting or republishing is not-for-profit.
You can access more of Dr. Metcalfe’s sermons at his scripturally indexed sermon archives web site. Now with MP3 audio sermons and audio bonus material. http://russellmetcalfesermons.nazarene.nl/Sermons/Sermons.htm
