What Does It Feel Like To Know Jesus Is Alive.

This sermon was delivered to St Oswald’s in Maybole,

Ayrshire, Scotland on the 9th April 2023

(a Scottish Episcopal Church in the Dioceses of Glasgow and Dumfries).

“Please join me in my prayer.” Let the words of my mouth, and the meditation of our hearts, be acceptable in your sight, O Lord, our strength, and our redeemer. Amen. (Ps. 19:14)

Introduction: The Resurrection!

We have just heard the familiar story of the women who went to the tomb of Jesus to pay her final respects; just as we hear almost every single Easter … and we never tire of this story as it has so many meanings; the most important being, that Jesus has risen from the dead.

In fact, this is so important because it sets Christianity apart from all other religions, as Jesus was the only man to conquer death … and that is no mean feat, but what is even more extraordinary is that he did so for us, not because we deserved it, no, he did it for us because he loved us, and that we deserved better. … This is a claim that no other religion can make … mind you, no other religion can claim they wrongly condemned, and killed their founder, but no other religions founder rose again after they had died … regardless of how much they were praised.

And what about those who disliked Jesus, hated him in fact, and who plotted and killed him? … Well … this happen in a manner he foretold, Luke 9:22 for example, "The Son of Man must suffer many things, and be rejected by the elders, chief priests, and teachers of the law, and he must be killed, but on the third day be raised to life", … and Jesus told this to his disciples many times; saying this will happen, because, it needs to happen, to demonstrate amongst other things, the power Jesus had over life, and death.

The resurrection therefore was truly the pivotal point in Jesus’ ministry, (in fact the most pivotal point ever), … as our calendars bears out … but the resurrection validated Jesus’ claim that he is the Son of God, made man in the flesh, … which means that because of him, we do not need to follow any set of impossible rules and regulations from the Old Testament to make us right with God, and find our salvation. … No, we find our salvation through him, by following him, through Grace, meaning that although we don’t deserve it, it is ours by our association to him.

Now let us ask the question, what would be so different if Jesus had not been raised from the dead; in other words, let us say he died like every other living thing?

Well … everything really, because if we still had a Christianity, … people would just be following just another holy man, with just another set of rules and regulations, and our sermons would be full of nice wee moral stories, the likes we had in the 70’s tv programs, with the odd reference to politics and society.

In fact, the words of Jesus would merely join the countless words of all the other religions, and people would still be striving for God to love them just the same … usually by trying to be “good people or good persons”, without any assurance that the Lord actually wants to work through them … never mind the thought of a life thereafter.

How are we different

And yet, this may still be a problem for us, because it can be really difficult at times, to see how the resurrection changed everything, because at times we do not see ourselves as being all that different to those who do not worship the lord. … But we are so much different, because in our minds somewhere, we are grounded very securely, knowing that Jesus is Lord. … We know without thinking, that he is Lord of all … Lord of everything, and that he is either looking down on us, or guiding us within … changing us for whatever, we really know … but with him rooted in our hearts, whatever we do … whether we do it right, or whether we make a complete and utter mess of it, we will return to him, and he will see us alright. … Correct?

In fact, he makes sure we return to him, because he is the one in charge, he is the “alpha and omega”, and I love that expression because it reminds me that he is looking after us, whether it is from the past, from the present, or from the future …whether it is from above, or within us, he is all powerful and we need to be constantly aware of this.