200412 Easter Order of Service
Sermon manuscript:
There is a lot of peace that can be gained from the thought
that everything is going to go back to normal. It is encouraging when we think
of that time when we will no longer need to meet in cars or listen to sermons
on our computer. It will be nice when we can go sit down in a restaurant
somewhere or go to the golf course. But maybe what will be nicest of all is when
we won’t have to worry about getting sick. We’ve had this trouble of this
disease come upon us. We will all have a greater peace of mind when the trouble
is taken away from us.
The peace that comes from troubles being taken away from us
is a peace that everybody immediately understands. We’ve understood since we
were babies. When we had the trouble of being hungry we let Mom know about it.
When we were filled up with milk, we had peace. When we stubbed our toe and it
throbbed painfully, we had peace when the pain went away. When we have trouble
we are not at peace. When the trouble goes away, we have peace.
Now let’s apply this thinking to Easter morning. To call
what had been going on “trouble,” is such an understatement that it is almost
farcical. Jesus did not just have “trouble.” He lost his reputation and his
dignity. People treated him as though he were a fool. He was beaten and whipped
and spit upon. All his friends left him. Peter denied him three times. Nails
were pounded through his hands and his feet and his body was suspended from
these nails until he could no longer breathe. His heart gave out, and he hanged
limply upon the cross, dead. To make sure that he was really dead the soldiers
callously thrust a spear into his side, further mutilating his beaten and
scarred body. Just before sunset on Good Friday he was placed into a cold dark
grave.
That was a heap of trouble for Jesus personally, but this
also extended to his disciples. His disciples loved him tremendously, and so to
hear of the terrible things that happened to him was dreadfully painful. And he
had died. There is a special kind of sadness that comes from young people
dying. Jesus was in the prime of his life—around 30 years old. But, more than
that, Jesus was so good and loveable. The disciples adored him. Now he was so
suddenly and violently dead.
But there’s more. The disciples did not think that Jesus was
just an ordinary man. They believed that he was the Christ who was promised to
come according to the Old Testament Scriptures. They believed that he was by
all rights in heaven and on earth the king of the Jews. The twelve apostles had
left their livelihoods behind to be his students. They had preached and urged
others to believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of the living God, and that
through that faith, they would be blessed by his rulership. According to their
way of thinking about how Jesus should be the Christ, Jesus’s death meant was
all over and done with. How can someone who is dead be king? You can’t prop his
corpse up on a throne, can you?
And so all of Jesus’s disciples had a heap of troubles too
as they all entered into that Easter morning. All of their most pressing
troubles came from the fact that Jesus was dead. So according to the logic that
we’ve looked at this morning, with the removal of these heaps and heaps of
troubles that comes with Jesus being resurrected—no longer dead—Jesus’s
disciples should have had peace—tons and tons of peace. So my question to you
is, “Where’s the peace?” The angel told these women the good news: They should
not be alarmed. Jesus, who was crucified, is risen. That’s why he isn’t there.
He lives and is out and about. That’s why he’s not lying there as the women
expected him to be.
You’d think that after hearing how all their troubles have
ended that they would go out from the tomb leaping and skipping for joy—peace
having taken complete possession of their hearts. But what Mark says is that
they bolted for the door and got out of there as quickly as they could. A
shiver was running down their spine. They were shaking and bewildered. They
didn’t say anything to anyone because they were afraid. How’s that for peace? And
these women’s reaction was by no means limited to them. All who heard it, all
who realized the truth of it, were shaken and bewildered. They couldn’t make
heads or tails of it. By no means was the reaction of the disciples like,
“Whew, I’m glad everything turned out all right in the end.” No, there were
shivers and their stomachs were doing flip flops.
So what is going on here? We’ve already got the answer with
the logic that we’ve discussed. The reason why they are not at peace is that
life was not going to go back to “normal” ever again! They perceived
immediately that something new was here. They were swept up to a higher plane
of life. Life was no longer about dollars and cents, viruses and vaccines,
plugging along with tomorrow hopefully being a little better than today. All
this stuff is only dealing with the various elements of creation. What the
disciples were realizing; what was new, was that they were dealing with the
Creator. In their dealings with this Creator they were even tied up with the
necessity of human sacrifice, for that is what Jesus did—but of course it was
not just the sacrifice of an ordinary man, but a sinless man, and not just a
sinless man, but a man who also is God’s own Son.
Meeting God, having to come to grips with the necessity of
Jesus dying in your place—these things are far from what people consider
normal, daily life. The Gospel is not like horse tranquilizer, meant to deaden
the pain by putting you into a stupor. The Gospel says that there is a life
that is higher and more exciting where we are not just dealing with God’s
creation, but with God himself.
There’s an old way of talking about death that has almost
completely disappeared from our people’s consciousness. It used to be said much
more frequently that when a person died, he met his Maker. When he met his
Maker, he would be judged. One possibility, when he was judged, was that there
was something even worse than temporal death—an eternal death—punishment for a
life ill lived. This fork in the road is what we all deserve to receive because
of our sins.
The other possibility was life together with a holy and all
powerful God. Frankly, this way of life is a complete impossibility for us, for
sinners do not belong together with a holy God. Sinners belong with the devil.
But the reason why Jesus came is to redeem us from the devil, and to open for
us the way to everlasting life. Jesus indeed did this by living a perfect and
holy life in our place, fulfilling the Law, and also suffering and dying as
punishment for the sin that we have committed.
Either way—whether you are talking about going to hell or
about going to heaven—either way you most certainly are not dealing with
something boring, or even “normal” or “peaceful” in the way that we commonly
use those words.
Contrast this with the way that our people have come to talk
about what happens when you die. There’s no meeting of your Maker. There is no
judgment. There is no hell. Neither is there really a heaven. People will use
the word “heaven,” but what they mean by that is that everything will go back
to normal. If you were sick or sad or whatever, when you die that will all go
back to normal. Heaven, in the popular imagination, is a place where you greet
loved ones who have died before you. It is where you get to farm if you really
like farming, or ride horses if you really liked horses. In the way that people
talk about heaven all the focus is on created things, the removal of troubles,
of getting things back to normal. Therefore, it is also peaceful. Because this
vision is so comforting, and it goes down smooth, and gives you a good buzz, most
folks greatly prefer this tranquil, soothing talk to the heart-pounding thought
of being before God’s all-knowing presence.
This is a great tragedy. It is so heinous that I have to
think that it comes from the father of lies himself. And here’s why: The
message of Easter is such good news. There is no reason to be scared away from
it. It is God’s offer and bestowal of grace that is so gracious we have a hard
time believing that it is true. When Jesus rose triumphant on Easter morning,
having atoned for the sins of the whole world, did he say, “I’m only going to
give this hard won redemption to a few? Did he say that he would only give it
to people who are good enough to deserve it? Heavens no! He says it is for you
and for your children; for those who are far off and for those who are near. There
isn’t a single sinner whose sins were not atoned for by Jesus’s blood, and so
there isn’t a single person who cannot take hold of the forgiveness of
sins and eternal life that Jesus says to
you today: “Here. This is for you.” There isn’t a single person who cannot
become a child of God by being baptized into Christ. All people—everyone who
believes—can walk through the door of death, meet their Maker, and be
graciously received for Jesus’s sake into eternal life with the awesome and
holy God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.
With Easter we are given peace, but it is not the peace that
the world gives. The world’s peace says that you don’t have to worry about God.
There probably isn’t a God anyway. Just make sure to keep the good times
rolling. Keep checking off the things on your bucket list. Seize the day by
grabbing this experience and indulging in that pleasure. In this way it would
have you deal with created things, with trinkets, rather than coming to grips
with God himself who has created you. It is to the devil’s advantage to keep
you preoccupied with trinkets. He says that you can always play with the
trinkets—even eternally: “If you like horses, then you get to ride horses in
heaven.” But this is a lie. There are only two ways when it comes to the afterlife
and both of them deal very intimately with God rather than with created
trinkets. Either we will get what we deserve in hell or we will get what we
don’t deserve through Jesus.
Easter, indeed, gives peace. It is peace with a capital P.
But it is not like horse tranquilizer that puts people to sleep. The peace that
Easter gives is enlivening. Jesus says that he came so that people may have
life and have it to the full. The peace of Easter is that God has taken your
side, and God is a good guy to have on your side. All powers and principalities
must submit to God. You are not dependent upon having trouble taken away from
you to be happy and blessed. Even such a severe trouble as an incurable disease
or death itself must submit because God has taken your side and worked your
salvation through Jesus’s death and resurrection. Though you walk through the
valley of the shadow of death, you shall fear no evil, for God is for you. If
you die today, then tomorrow you will be resurrected from the dead when Jesus
comes at the end of the world.
It’s not surprising that the disciples had a shiver go up
their spine on Easter. It’s not unusual that they trembled, and, in a sense,
were afraid. We all are so accustomed to a worldly peace. We are all accustomed
to relying upon the things of this creation being predictable and eventually
returning to normal if given enough time. We are not accustomed to being drawn
up so intimately to God’s own bosom and invited to trust in him for our help in
everything and anything that comes our way. But just because it is new, and not
normal, doesn’t mean that it is good.
Remember: God’s peace is not like being in a coma. God’s
peace is having him as your powerful friend who’s going to fight and conquer
all your enemies including sin, death, and the devil. You know that your
Redeemer lives. He is your friend. All your enemies better watch out!
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