INTRODUCTION
Opening Statement: Some of you walked in here today and your first thought was, “I need Jesus.” I’ll be extending to you an invitation to do just that today. In addition, I have several things to share with you. I have a dedication to make, a sermon to give, a personal testimony to share, and again, an invitation to extend.
A Dedication to Make
This sermon is dedicated to my father who I had to bury a few weeks ago. Daddy, if you can hear me, this is for you.
A Sermon to Give
Transition: Allow me to set the sermon up. As important as the life and death of Jesus are to all of us, these events mean very little without the historical event that brought them to completion: the resurrection. You see, death is our biggest problem. We don’t know how to stop death. We can prolong life, but we can’t stop death. Jesus’ resurrection from the dead is a defining event in history wherein death was conquered and life won.
Quotation: 1 Corinthians 15:20-26 says “But the truth is that Christ has been raised up, the first in a long legacy of those who are going to leave the cemeteries. There is a nice symmetry in this: Death initially came by a man, and resurrection from death came by a man. Everybody dies in Adam; everybody comes alive in Christ. But we have to wait our turn: Christ is first, then those with him at his Coming, the grand consummation when, after crushing the opposition, he hands over his kingdom to God the Father. He won’t let up until the last enemy is down – and the very last enemy is death (The Message)!”
Transition: Jesus’ resurrection from the dead is a defining event in history wherein death was conquered and life won. But it doesn’t stop there. This truth opens up all kinds of wonderful possibilities for life today.
Title: Why the Resurrection of Jesus Matters?
OUTLINE
Key Word: The resurrection of Jesus makes it possible to trust in who Jesus was, experience a new beginning, receive power for living, and look to the future with hope instead of despair.
His Resurrection Matters Because It Allows Us to Trust in Him
Quotation: Jesus claimed to be God. In John’s gospel he compared himself with the great “I am.” He even said that He would be raised to life again in Matthew 20:17-19: “Jesus, now well on the way up to Jerusalem, took the Twelve off to the side of the road and said, “Listen to me carefully. We are on our way up to Jerusalem. When we get there, the Son of Man will be betrayed to the religious leaders and scholars. They will sentence him to death. They will then hand him over to the Romans for mockery and torture and crucifixion. On the third day he will be raised up alive (The Message).”
Explanation: Jesus kept his word! The disciples never stole his body. The Jewish or Roman authorities never stole his body. The women didn’t go to the wrong tomb. Jesus didn’t just pass out on the cross and revive in the coolness of the tomb. He really died and resurrected! And because of this fact, I can trust him. If he didn’t show up after his death, we would always wonder, “Was He really God? Were his words about life eternal really true?” But He did show up in a resurrected body and now you can trust Him.
Observation: Today is the day to begin trusting him, for the small things and for something as major as your eternal salvation. He has done death and overcome it. You can trust him as the Keeper and Preserver of your soul.
His Resurrection Matters Because It Provided Power for Living
Explanation: The Bible promises a unique power source that is available to all Christians. Jesus called this power the Holy Spirit and the Comforter.
Quotation: In John’s Gospel, Jesus said if I don’t go away, the Comforter couldn’t come. I will go away and he will be here with you in my place. Just before he ascended in Acts 1, the resurrected Jesus told his followers, “When the Holy Spirit comes on you, you will be able to be my witnesses in Jerusalem, all over Judea and Samaria, even to the ends of the world (Message).” They were empowered. They, who were cowering in fear in the upper room for several days, suddenly emerged with a new power at Pentecost. Power to do what? It is power that enables us to be a testimony to the world that Jesus is alive, that his teachings are true, that when obeyed – they lead to life, that there is hope beyond this life.
Today, there is a new power.
His Resurrection Matters Because It Offers Hope for the Future
Explanation: The Bible says that the resurrection offers a sure hope for life after death. 1 Peter 1:3 says, “What a God we have! And how fortunate we are to have him, this Father of our Master Jesus! Because Jesus was raised from the dead, we’ve been given a brand-new life and have everything to live for, including a future in heaven – and the future starts now (Message).”
Observation: Without this hope life would be like a skydiving freefall without the parachute. The trip down would be fun, invigorating, and a rush, but you couldn’t really enjoy because of what awaited you at the bottom. The resurrection matters because it promises life after death, and so this makes physical death a mere passage way into a brighter, wonderful existence. We are free to enjoy life, knowing that death is not the end!
Illustration: One author notes how that a playwright by the name of Samuel Beckett once wrote a play titled Breath. The curtain opens to a stage littered with garbage. A soundtrack plays, starting with a baby’s first cry and ending with an older man’s last, dying gasp. Then the curtain closes. Beckett’s point: Life, when understood from earth’s viewpoint, is meaningless and pointless from cradle to grave. Contrast this scene with the scene at Easter morning. At Easter, God said, “You’re important to me. I want you to live forever. I want you to experience new beginning in a fallen world. I want you to know love like you’ve never known and make it your life’s purpose to share my love with as many people as you can.”
Recap: His resurrection matters because…it allows us to trust Him…it provides power for living…it offers hope for the future.
CONCLUSION
A Personal Testimony to Share
Illustration: Easter means so much more to me this year. Most of you know that I had to bury my father a few weeks ago. In this regard, I would like to say that I am deeply grateful to those of you who have expressed your prayers, concerns, cards, conversations, flowers, and visits for our family during this difficult time.
Two prayers that our collective families have prayed in one way or another as we have dealt with and are dealing with this ache within our chests: “Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.” And “Help me. Help me. Help me.”
“Lord, Thank you. Thank you. Thank you for your providential care.” My dad was at home with my mother and Becky when he died. He died quickly and peacefully after 73 years of life. Thank you. As a baby, Daddy just about didn’t make it. After about 3 months of life, he could fit in a shoebox because his mother’s milk “did not agree with me” as Daddy would say. But somehow he survived. Thank you. His first day in the mines, slate fell on him and broke his foot and hand, but somehow Daddy survived. Thank you. Then, there was that time in the army – snipers shot the tires off of his truck but they managed to miss Daddy. Thank you. There was pneumonia in 1990 when at the last minute Daddy consented to go to the hospital. That night he respiratory arrested but it was not fatal due to his location. Thank you. There was cancer in 1998. Then there was a build up of fluid, but thanks to a new drug and some good medical care, his fluid problem was alleviated and life was extended for another year. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.
“Lord, help me. Help me. Help me as I process this loss.” It is difficult to refer to Daddy in the past tense as I realize that he is not accessible to us anymore. Help me, as I balance all of this with Easter.
The hardest thing I ever had to do was to go into the “My Documents” folder where I have a “Funeral Sermons” folder and there create a “jakenelson.doc” file. It’s one of the hardest things I’ve ever processed, but it was cathartic for me. It helped me talk out my feelings alone. I knew that I could not conduct the funeral service, but I also knew that I wanted to say something in my Dad’s honor. I would like to share with you a quotation from the eulogy I wrote for my Dad.
“One of my first thoughts daddy, when I heard about your passing, was that ‘I wish I could have had one more conversation with you.’ I wish I could have hugged you. I wish I could have told you that I loved you. I wish I could have been there for you when you were making the crossing from this world to the next. I would have liked to thank you one more time for sacrificing your body to make a living so that I could live and have a happy home to grow up in. In your diary, you wrote that you would have liked to have been a truck driver, but the extended hours on the road would have kept you from your family. Thank you for loving me in your way; for fixing my cars; for being with me when I got my first squirrel; for taking me fishing at Indian Lake; for the times we went camping in the summers; for telling me army stories about your days of service in the Korean War; left-over dinner bucket cakes; for not totally destroying me the time I accidentally gouged your lip with the frog gig; for the letters you wrote to me after I graduated from high school and left home (I still have many of them in my filing drawer and will always keep them); for the long trips that you made to see me when I lived so many miles away; for loving my kids and making our West Virginia trips always a joy; for always having the four-wheeler gassed up and ready to go; for your little riddles that would make my kids chuckle (riddles like if a hen and half would lay an egg and a half for a day and a half, how many eggs would you have?). Thank you daddy for always standing by your wife, for raising such a wonderful family. If our families turn out as good as yours, we’ll be a happy success.
Most important of all, thank you daddy, for placing your trust in Christ as Savior and for giving to each of us the hope of a better tomorrow when we all can be together again. Daddy, I make this commitment to you today. I will never allow your memory to die. When I fish the rivers and ride in the mountains of home and feel the sun on my back, I will remember you and your stories that you lived out in these places when you were growing up. While the world may little note the life that you lived, I will never forget what a precious gem we had among us in you. For now, even though our hearts are heavy and filled with aching as we think about the separation, we say ‘Good night, daddy. And you have our word; we will see you in that eternal spring-morning.’”
This is why the resurrection matters so much more to me now than ever before!
Closing: Paul said to us as he was preparing to conclude his letter to the Corinthians After pointing out that Jesus resurrected from the dead, and after noting how that we will all be changed into imperishable people after death, Paul then looks at death as if looking at a human being. He addressed death like death was a person (personification), and he questioned death: "O death, where is your victory? O grave, where is your sting? (1 Cor.15:55)." Paul was taunting death in light of what Christ had done in the resurrection.
That verse always reminds me of a story that one author tells about. A bee had got into the family car and his kids were going nuts. "It’s going to sting us daddy. It’s going to sting us!" He managed to trap the bee between the dashboard and the windshield and it stung him. But before the bee died, it managed to fly around a little bit, creating more pandemonium. The dad yelled, "Kids, it’s OK; I’ve got the stinger in my hand. He can’t hurt you."
That’s what Christ has done for us. He’s got the stinger in his hand as it were and the bee of death cannot frighten us like it once did. Death still frightens us; it still speaks chaos and pandemonium into our lives. But we are free to live and enjoy life to the fullest without having to worry about death like we once did. We can believe this and live in hope.
Application: You believe this and live differently.
An Invitation to Extend
If you believe and would like to celebrate that today, come forward and do communion with us as we file around the communion elements together.
