Joyce Hollyday tells the story of a schoolteacher who was asked to work with children in a large city hospital. Another teacher, knowing that she had been assigned to the hospital, called and requested that she visit a child who had been in her class. The teacher took the boy’s name and room number, and was told by the teacher on the other end of the phone: “We’re studying nouns and adverbs in class now. I’d be grateful if you could help him with his homework, so he doesn’t fall behind the others.” What the teacher did not realize was that the boy was in the hospital’s burn unit. She was unprepared to find a young boy horribly burned and in great pain. But she knew that if she fled from the room that it would frighten the boy, and so she began somewhat awkwardly, “I’m the hospital teacher, and your teacher sent me to help you with nouns and adverbs.” The boy was hardly able to respond because he was in so much pain. It seemed so senseless and heartless that the teacher could hardly force herself to go through the lesson. But the next morning a nurse on the burn unit asked her, “What did you do to that boy?” And before the teacher could say anything, the nurse said: “We’ve been very worried about him. But ever since you were here yesterday, his whole attitude has changed. He’s fighting back; he’s responding to treatment. It’s as if he has decided to live.” Later, when the boy had recovered somewhat, he said that he had completely given up hope until he saw the teacher. He realized something very important. He said: “They wouldn’t send a teacher to work on nouns and adverbs with a boy who was dying, would they?”
The message of Easter is that we are going to live There is hope for us. Jesus came to us, not to perform last rites, but to give us life. God would not have sent Jesus to rise from the dead if we were going to die and stay in the grave, now would he? We will need the lessons he came to teach us. Life may have wounded us, but Jesus came to heal us. He said, “I have come that they may have life, and have it to the full” (John 10:10). Easter tells us that life is not over; the story has not ended; the best is yet to come. This is not the end, it is the beginning. What is ending is the night, the confusion, the dysfunction. What is beginning is the day, the solution, the answer. Jesus’ triumph over death has opened the door to eternal life and eternal joy.
The human story begins with such disaster. We read about in the first book of the Bible. God had created a beautiful world full of good things and meaningful opportunities. Relationships were so real and transparent the first people were naked and unashamed. Their relationship with God was unspoiled and intimate. The world was a place where only good existed — except for one evil personality which made the couple question the goodness of God. You know how the story goes from there. The Satan gets them to question God, and they choose to do the one and only thing which God has asked them not to do. They hardened their hearts against God. They rebelled. They wanted to know and experience evil, regardless of what it would do to them. (Is any of this sounding at all similar to the world today?) There were two trees growing in the middle of the garden: the tree of the knowledge of good and evil from which they ate, and another tree — the tree of life. If they ate from that tree they would live forever, and so would evil, so God banned them from the garden and the tree of life. The Bible tells the story this way: “And the Lord God said, ‘The man has now become like one of us, knowing good and evil. He must not be allowed to reach out his hand and take also from the tree of life and eat, and live forever.’ . . .After he drove the man out, he placed on the east side of the Garden of Eden cherubim and a flaming sword flashing back and forth to guard the way to the tree of life” (Genesis 3:22 & 24). Thousands of years came and went as the descendants of the garden couple wandered in exile from paradise, living East of Eden. We gained the knowledge of evil, and lost the knowledge of good.
And into the despair and hopelessness of the world, Jesus came. One day he entered a garden as he commenced his work to restore the breach between the human family and God. From the garden he made his way to a tree. He would die on that branchless, barren tree, and as he died, he would hold out the gift of eternal life with nail pierced hands. Now, as broken, wounded sinners, we can eat of the fruit of that tree of life and live forever. Every time we partake of communion, every time the fruit of that tree touches our lips, as we partake of the blood and body of Jesus Christ, we eat and drink the gift of eternal life. The tree is no longer hidden or barred from us. This was made possible by Christ, for as the Bible says, “Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law by becoming a curse for us, for it is written: ‘Cursed is everyone who is hung on a tree’” (Galatians 3:13). But this forgiveness was not merely a legal transaction, its intent was that we should be new people. Hear the words of Scripture which say, “He himself bore our sins in his body on the tree, so that we might die to sins and live for righteousness; by his wounds you have been healed” (1 Peter 2:24).
The tree of life appears in the first and the last books of the Bible. In the first book, access to the tree of life was lost. In the last book it is restored. We read in the book of Revelation: “Then the angel showed me the river of the water of life, as clear as crystal, flowing from the throne of God and of the Lamb down the middle of the great street of the city. On each side of the river stood the tree of life, bearing twelve crops of fruit, yielding its fruit every month. And the leaves of the tree are for the healing of the nations” (Revelation 22:1-2). Later it says, “Blessed are those who wash their robes, that they may have the right to the tree of life and may go through the gates into the city” (Revelation 22:14). The work of Jesus Christ on the cross reversed the curse and condition of mankind. The Bible recognizes the connection between Adam and Christ, when it says, “For if, by the trespass of the one man, death reigned through that one man, how much more will those who receive God’s abundant provision of grace and of the gift of righteousness reign in life through the one man, Jesus Christ” (Romans 5:17).
But Jesus did not stay on the cross, and neither did he stay in the grave. The apostles said, “We are witnesses of everything he did in the country of the Jews and in Jerusalem. They killed him by hanging him on a tree, but God raised him from the dead on the third day and caused him to be seen” (Acts 10:39-40). And if his death was effective in its power to give life, how much more was his resurrection? The Bible puts it like this: “For if, when we were God’s enemies, we were reconciled to him through the death of his Son, how much more, having been reconciled, shall we be saved through his life ” (Romans 5:10). That is to say, his resurrection Life.
When Jesus rode into Jerusalem on what we celebrate as Palm Sunday, the children and crowds shouted his praise waving the palm leaves in their hands. Some of the Pharisees in the crowd said to Jesus, “Teacher, rebuke your disciples ” But Jesus said, “I tell you, if they keep quiet, the stones will cry out” (Luke 19:39-40). On Easter morning the stones did cry out. The stone was rolled away and the stone grave cried out: “He is not here He is risen ”
When that stone was rolled away, it opened the door to the future. Paradise was opened again, and the path was made possible by Jesus’ victory over death. Death came because of the transgression of Adam and Eve in the garden. God had said, “You must not eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, for when you eat of it you will surely die” (Genesis 2:17). But they did eat, and the process of death began in their bodies. But through the resurrection of Jesus Christ, eternal life is now available to each of us. The Bible says, “If the Spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead is living in you, he who raised Christ from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through his Spirit, who lives in you” (Romans 8:10-11). Without the resurrection of Christ there is no hope, no future, no forgiveness, no heaven. The apostle Paul wrote, “If Christ is not risen, your faith is futile, you are still in your sins” (1 Corinthians 15:16). James MacDonald said from his pulpit one Easter Sunday, “What would I preach on if I didn’t believe in the resurrection of Jesus Christ? What would I say? ‘I read this great book, and I want to review it with you this morning.’ I’d say, ‘I’m going to preach on social reform; I’m going to preach on horizontal goodness with generic references to a god we can never know.’ In that case, the church would be empty and Paul would be right.” Our faith would be futile.
There may be someone here today who is living East of Eden. You have never experienced the power of God’s forgiveness made available through the tree of life on which Jesus hung. You don’t know the power of the empty tomb and the indwelling Spirit of God. You have never experienced his presence. You don’t have assurance that the resurrected Christ is a part of your life or that he has personally opened the way to heaven for you. Today is your day.
Dr. Joseph Haroutunian was from Armenia. In 1940 he was brought to McCormick Theological Seminary to teach systematic theology. A friend of his once suggested that he change his name, saying: “Your name is difficult to pronounce and difficult to spell — it could hurt your professional career. Why don’t you change your name to Harwood or Harwell or something like that?” Dr. Haroutunian asked him, “What do those names mean?” His friend answered, “Well, nothing. They’re just easier to remember.” Dr. Haroutunian said, “In Armenia, when my grandfather was baptized, they named him Haroutunian which means ‘Resurrection.’ I am Joseph Haroutunian and I will be a son of Resurrection all my days.” That is the same privilege which can be yours. You can be a son or daughter of the Resurrection. The promise of the open tomb is yours.
You may have never heard of Nikolai Ivanovich Bukharin, but in his day he held a great deal of power. He took part in the Bolshevik Revolution of 1917, was editor of the Soviet newspaper Pravda, and was a full member of the Politburo. He wrote books on economics and political science. The story goes that in 1930 he took a journey from Moscow to Kiev to address a large audience on the subject of atheism. As he talked, he spoke against Christianity using insult and argument. He spoke for an hour, and looked out over the crowd, absolutely sure that he had crushed any remnants of faith among the audience. “Are there any questions?” he asked smugly. There was an appalling silence until one man slowly walked to the platform and then stood behind the lectern next to the communist leader. He looked over the crowd gazing to one side and then to the other. Suddenly he raised his voice and shouted the ancient greeting known well in the Russian Orthodox Church: “CHRIST IS RISEN ” And from the great crowd there arose a deafening response: “HE IS RISEN INDEED ”
Doubt always loses.
Faith always wins.
Because Jesus lives!
Rodney J. Buchanan
March 27, 2005 – Easter Sunday
Mulberry St. UMC
Mount Vernon, OH
www.MulberryUMC.org
Rod.Buchanan@MulberryUMC.org
