Our Beliefs : Sermons : Sermon Archive - 2007 : February 11, 2007

Theme: A Tale of Two Easters

Church year occasion: Epiphany 6

Charles Dickens' novel A Tale of Two Cities is really a tale of two men, one French and the other English, who looked so alike they could have passed for twins. The Frenchman was from the upper class, which wasn't a good thing because the story was set during the French Revolution, and as a result he was condemned to die by the guillotine. But the hour before his execution he was visited by the Englishman who drugged his friend and exchanged clothes with him. He asked the jailor to have the unconscious man removed and returned to his home. After taking the man's place, on his way to the guillotine, the young Englishman comforted himself with Jesus' words: "I am the Resurrection and the Life; he who believes in me will live, even though he dies." (John 11:25) As he faced the grave the young man's only hope was Jesus' resurrection. He knew that, because Jesus rose from the grave on the first Easter, he and all believers would also rise at the end of time. That's why it has been said that Christians live between two Easters in this New Testament Age: Christ's and their own. Charles Dickens' story, A Tale of Two Cities, was only that: a tale and untrue. This morning Paul tells A Tale of Two Easters, and we rejoice because it is absolutely true.

First let's set up the background for Paul's absolutely true Tale of Two Easters. Paul was writing his first letter to the Christians in Corinth. As you may know, the congregation in Corinth had a number of problems, and one of them had to do with the resurrection of the dead. They believed that Jesus rose from the dead, yet some of them still had trouble believing that any body could rise from the grave. The problem for these Corinthians came from their background. They were Greeks. And Greeks loved wisdom. They prided themselves in being the wisest empire ever to rule the known world. How do you think they would react when they hear about someone talking about a person who rises from the dead, even after their body had decayed for many years, even centuries? They would think it's ridiculous. It could never happen. In fact, when Paul had been speaking about Christ's resurrection from the dead to the Greeks in Athens, some of them sneered at him and let him know they were done listening, saying he was just making it up.

But the Greeks didn't only have a problem with their wisdom getting in the way. They also had a false belief about the body and soul. Their false religion that they had grown up with taught them that a person's spirit gave rise to all the good things in a person, but that the physical part, the body of a person, was evil. They didn't understand sin. They didn't see that sin is the reason for everything bad that happens in life. It was simple to them -- the soul was good; the body was evil. So they thought of a body rising from the dead in glorified form and perfect as ridiculous as well since a body can't be perfect.

If the people of Corinth and Greece had a problem with the resurrection in Paul's day because of their wisdom and background, how do you think people today react to the resurrection? If anything, our society is founded even more on its own wisdom. "We built the atomic bomb! We put a man on the moon! It's only a matter of time before we harness DNA and eradicate every disease known to man. The sky is the limit for what we can know and do!" Basically, we look at man as the measure of all things. But try as we might, we can keep death off for a few months or years or even decades, but we can't keep it away forever. There are things that are beyond us. But not many want to believe anything that can't be proven. If it's only based on faith, then it can't be true. If anything, our society would scoff even louder at the suggestion of the resurrection than the Greeks did. Can that rub off on us? You better believe it can.

The grade school student who hears about how important the resurrection is in church, but has never heard the word so much as mentioned at home -- that grade school student begins to wonder if the resurrection is so important if his family doesn't talk about it. Faith gives way to doubt. The young high school or college student raised on Christianity who goes off to school and hangs around friends who can use their reason to punch holes in the idea of the resurrection -- that student might think twice about bringing it up or he might even start thinking that maybe it's not very believable after all. Is Christianity the only true religion? That's pretty self-centered! These other religions are based on goodness. Why can't they be just as legitimate as Christianity. Faith gives way to doubt. The Christian single mother can't understand how someone rising from the dead 2000 years ago can help put food on the table or comfort her lonely heart. She was forced to go to church as a girl by her parents, and look at what happened to her. Why should she go through the trouble of taking her kids to church? Again, faith is giving way to doubt. Maybe that's not you or me, but maybe we are the ones who just roll over the words, "I believe in the forgiveness of sins, the resurrection of the body and the life everlasting" when we say the Apostles' Creed. How important is that resurrection of the body for Christians and all people? Paul tells us with so much logic that it will amaze the wisest and most doubtful person on earth.

Paul had to show them how important the resurrection of the dead is to our faith -- it is essential. Listen to Paul's words: "If it is preached that Christ has been raised from the dead, how can some of you say that there is no resurrection of the dead?" Paul wanted to show them in his Tale of Two Easters what living without the resurrection meant for their faith and their lives. They had to leave their faulty human wisdom and their faulty man-made religion behind and cling whole-heartedly to Jesus and his resurrection.

And this is why: "For if the dead are not raised, then Christ has not been raised either." His first point: If it's not logical that a body that has rotted and turned to dust in the grave can be raised, and if it's true that bodies are evil, then Jesus couldn't have risen. But there's one big problem with that. Paul and the other apostles had seen the risen Christ -- body and soul, he had risen. More than 500 people had seen Jesus alive at one time after his resurrection. It makes no difference if it's not logical -- God's logic and wisdom are greater than ours! It makes no difference if it goes against everything we think or have been taught -- then we have to get rid of what we've been taught because God clearly tells us it is the truth and proved it by raising Jesus from the dead.

Paul gives the result if the resurrection isn't a fact and Jesus didn't rise. "And if Christ has not been raised, your faith is futile; you are still in your sins." Is the resurrection important? Not only is it important; it's absolutely vital and central to our faith. Jesus predicted in John, chapter 2: "Destroy this temple, and I will raise it again in three days." He was talking about his body. He would rise from death three days after he died. That's quite a prediction! Just for the sake of argument, let's say that every miracle Jesus' did was only slight of hand or science that only he possessed, so it looked like miracles to everyone else. But how can Jesus make this prediction? He said he would rise from the dead a number of times in the Gospel accounts. If he didn't keep that promise, he was a liar. If he was a liar, he wasn't God or God's Son and also wasn't perfect. If he wasn't perfect and was just a man like us, then he was a sinner. And if he was a sinner, then he isn't our Savior. That's how important the resurrection is. If Jesus didn't rise, then he's a liar and our trust in him is foolish, and even idolatrous. And we're still in our sins and we're doomed to eternal damnation.

But Paul takes it a step farther. "Then those also who have fallen asleep in Christ are lost." If we look at a loved one who died and Jesus didn't rise from the dead, then this person has no chance of rising either. It is only by Jesus' power that anyone will rise on the last day. If Jesus isn't the Savior, then all those who died believing in him are now in hell.

And then Paul makes the final logical step: "If only for this life we have hope in Christ, we are to be pitied more than all men." In other words, if you don't have the certainty of the resurrection when you die, you also don't have any hope while you are living on this earth before you die. In essence, you don't have Christianity. Why? Because we are trusting in something that won't happen. When we die, that's it. We're done. No heaven. No God. No nothing. If there is no resurrection, then everything we gave up for Christianity and all we suffered in the name of Christ meant nothing. We would be complete fools. That is how essential the doctrine of the resurrection of the dead is to Christianity. Without the resurrection, Christianity doesn't exist.

But then Paul brings up a big word: "BUT." "But Christ has indeed been raised from the dead, the firstfruits of those who have fallen asleep." Paul tells the tale of the first Easter. The resurrection of Christ means that God the Father has put his stamp of approval on Christ's work of redemption. The world is forgiven, and that means you are forgiven. The world is declared not guilty, and that means you are declared not guilty, because God's wrath was poured out on his own Son who lived and suffered and died for sin in our place. That sets Christianity apart from other religions: we can't earn our salvation; Christ, our Savior, earned it all for us; we did nothing. A human being's natural reaction to that message is unbelief, because we assume that we have to do something to earn our own salvation. We have to show ourselves worthy of it in at least some small way. No. Christ did it all. Gives it to all as a free gift.

How can we be so sure about that? The tale of the first Easter. Jesus was raised to life for our justification -- to show that we were already declared guilt-free by God on Good Friday when Jesus shouted, "It is finished!" But that is the other thing that sets Christianity apart from all other religions: our Savior died, but he's now alive. He rose from the dead. That meant that death could not hold him. He destroyed death and brought life and immortality to light through the gospel. What beautiful words those were for the world: "He is not here. He is risen, just as he said. He lives!" That is the tale of the first Easter. The resurrection of Christ. But then Christ's own beautiful words tell us about the second Easter, our Easter: "Because I live, you also will live."

That is the tale of the second Easter. "But Christ has indeed been raised from the dead, the firstfruits of those who have fallen asleep." We know we will rise from the dead just as Christ did. We have no fear of death and what death will bring to us, because we know that death is actually the portal to eternal life. Death has lost its sting and its victory over us, because Christ already took death out of the way by his own resurrection. We don't have to have any fear or doubt as we approach that final day of our lives, but instead a faith firmly rooted in Christ's promise: "Because I live, you also will live." But we don't just leave that certainty for the future when we are about to pass through death's door. We live in the resurrection as a part, an essential part, of our everyday lives.

In telling us a tale of two Easters, Paul also told us a tale of two kinds of lives: the life lived without the resurrection and the life lived with the resurrection. If we live without the hope of the resurrection, we have no hope and no life at all. But if we live with the resurrection as the center of our lives and faith, no doubt or fear can possess us, because we have Christ and his promise: Christ rose on the first Easter; we too will rise from death on our Easter. The Tale of Two Easters is no fairy tale -- it is the essence of our faith in the resurrected Christ. No, it's not just a tale -- it's reality. Amen.