At some point around the time that the sun was rising on
Easter morning Jesus Christ rose from the dead.
The coldness, stiffness, and paleness that had set into his body not
long after dying on the cross on Friday afternoon was replaced by warmth, suppleness,
and color. He went from not breathing to
breathing. His heart started beating. Here was new life.
This new state for Jesus, which continues to this present
moment, is not just significant for him, but for the whole universe past,
present, and future. He is the door to
eternal life. Eternal life is something
new and different from the present life—the only life that we have known. The present life is a creation that is in
bondage to sin and is at enmity with God.
The new and eternal life is just the opposite—it is the new creation
where we are reconciled to God.
So what is this new life like? That’s what I’d like to speak about
today. But before I begin we first must understand
the limitation for our understanding of it.
The prophet Isaiah and the apostle Paul write: “No eye has seen, nor
ear heard, nor has it entered into the imagination of the heart of man what God
has prepared for those who love him.”
Over the course of our life we accumulate a great deal of
experience. The accumulation of
experience is an important ingredient for knowledge and wisdom. We can categorize and understand certain
things by comparing them to other things that we have come across. But if there is something that we have never
seen or heard, how can we know anything about it?
Then we might make use of our imagination. The word itself means that we make images in
our heads. None of us has seen a unicorn
or a dragon, but we are able to formulate something about that in our
heads. But how? It is only by comparing these imaginary
things to something that we already know.
A unicorn kind of looks like a horse.
A dragon looks like some kind of reptile.
So here’s the problem with understanding the eternal life
that begins with Jesus’s resurrection from the dead—there’s nothing to which we
can compare it. There are sights that
have not been seen. There are sounds
that have not been heard. And so we
cannot describe them. It is probably
safe to say, though, that if there is any sight that we have enjoyed taking in
with our eyes or any sound that has been thrilling to our soul, then we can
look forward to something so much better and higher in this new, eternal life
we have in Jesus that it does not compare to what we already treasure so much.
And so in trying to describe what this new life is like we
have to realize at the outset that sights and sounds and experiences can’t be
described. That is a pretty severe
limitation in a way. The life that we
know now consists of sights and sounds and experiences. We start our day by doing this and by doing
that. We go here and there, seeing and
hearing. To the question of “How was
your day?” we might go through some of these things that made up our day. It’s not possible for us to know what makes
up the eternal day of eternal life.
But life does not just consist of one activity after
another. There is also the life of the
heart, soul, and mind. These matters are
probably more important than the stuff that we outwardly do. How do we feel as we go about our day? Do we feel good? Do we feel bad? The older words for this is do we feel
blessed? Do we feel cursed? Do we have a clean conscience or is it soiled
by guilt? Are we content with the way
that we are or do we wish that we were somebody better? Do we wish that we were hotter, more cool,
more popular, richer, smarter, more respected?
The older word for that is being envious. There is some nasty stuff that takes place in
the life of the heart, soul, and mind that we don’t tell anybody when they ask
how our day was—if we did we’d lose the respect of family and friends.
The new, eternal life that we have in Jesus straightens all
this out. With this also, no eye has
seen, nor ear heard, nor has it entered into the imagination of the heart of
man, and for the very same reason. We’ve
never experienced anything like it. The
main thing that exists in the natural heart of man in this life is
selfishness. That selfishness then
spills over into covetousness, gossip, anger, hatred, lust, and a whole bunch
of other things that are well known as being sins. But there are other things that selfishness
spills over into as well such as apathy, feeling sorry for yourself, laziness,
being melancholy. The evilness of the
human heart is so boundless that we cannot understand it.
Whoever is honest, then, and takes up the question of God
and what happens when I die and how will God judge me, cannot help but be
worried—to say the least. Most people,
therefore, deliberately put such thoughts out of mind and they resent it when
anybody else brings it up. It seems as
though everybody will be better off if we just don’t talk about how our day
was—that is to say, how our day really was; not the white washed version—and
everybody think positive thoughts and busy themselves with as many activities
and distractions as possible. This
impulse is incredibly strong. To do
anything otherwise is breaking the rules for normal social behavior.
But this is just unbelief.
It is unbelief in the new life that happens when Jesus starts to breathe
again. People don’t think that anything
can be done about the wickedness of the human heart and the disaster of death
and so they play a whole bunch of mind games.
They pretend that there isn’t a God.
They pretend that this life is good enough. They pretend that all the suffering and
troubles of this world are slowly being rectified by human progress. This way of going about your life is
incompatible with the truth because they are all lies.
The truth—and God invites everybody to embrace this truth
and make it their own—the truth is when we point to the dying and dead Jesus
with all the ugliness of death hanging about him and say, “That is me.” And then point to the resurrected, glorified
Jesus and say, “That is what I am and what I will be.”
This is being a Christian.
This is what the thief did on the cross next to Jesus. He told the other thief who was mocking Jesus
that they both belonged on the cross because of the awful way that they had
lived their lives. But he says to Jesus,
“Remember me when you come into your kingdom.” So when we consider Jesus upon the cross,
crushed with our sins, panting with terror and asking God why he was forsaken
by him, we have to understand that that is exactly where we belong, but Jesus
has taken our place. And just as that
thief says “Remember me, Jesus,” we should believe that we also can say
that to him. Although that thief was a
sinner and was in fact dying because of particular sins he had committed, Jesus
says to this guilty man, “Today you will be with me in paradise.”
This brings us to the heart of what this new life in the
resurrected Jesus is. When we speak
about this new life we cannot leave out how things are changed between us and
God. There is peace between us and God
through our Lord Jesus Christ. Peace is
different from a ceasefire or an armistice.
Bad feelings are put away and replaced with good feelings. There is reconciliation and friendliness.
How different this is from how we act towards God otherwise! Whenever sin raises its ugly head in us we
want to be a million miles away from God.
It’s not that different from the way we used to hide from our parents
when we did something naughty when we were children. The person with a guilty conscience can’t
bear to lift their eyes to God or to pray to him—that is, to speak with
him. It is blindness and hardness of
heart that causes us to be this way. Our
desire to be far removed from God is a problem on our part, not on his part.
But through our Lord Jesus Christ we have peace with God and
reconciliation. So think of your
friend. Isn’t it the case that you like
to be together with your friend? You
like each other’s company. You think
that what the other has to say is interesting.
The new life that is in Jesus opens up this friendship with God that
Adam and Eve used to have before they fell into sin. This friendship can and should be exercised
already now in this life, but we find it very difficult. Our faith is not nearly so strong as we would
like it to be. We should realize that
this is only foolishness on our part and that God, for his part, is our friend
for Jesus’s sake. But this hesitancy and
unwillingness to consider God as our friend will also go away when our sinful
flesh dies. When we are resurrected our
friendship with God will be enjoyed the way that it already should be, but
unbelief and sin get in the way of it.
I’d like to wrap up my examination of the new life that is
present for us in Jesus’s resurrection from the dead by saying that it is going
to be life with a capital “L.” Again, this
is something that we have not yet experienced in our fallen state. From the day that we were born we have all
been dying. With each day that passes we
are all one day closer to our deaths.
And we can even feel this and sense this in our flesh and bones. We cease to be limber and strong and
energetic. Our skin dries out and
becomes wrinkly. Our hair starts to fall
out and what is left turns white. This
is the only life that we have known. We
are all subject to death. And so we don’t
know what life with a capital “L” is like where there is no sin or death to get
in the way of it.
With the resurrection from the dead we will awaken to a life
that is fresh and new and we will be young, limber, strong, and full of
energy. To have the weight of sin and
death lifted off our backs is something that no eye has seen, nor ear heard,
nor can we imagine it. I think the best
that we can say of it is that we have to think of those moments in our life
when we have experienced real joy—those best times. Have you noticed how exhilarating those times
are, but also how rare they are? We only
get a few handfuls of them over the course of our entire life. And have you also noticed how short lived the
joy is? It’s almost like it has a half
life. A minute after the good thing that
has happened the joy is cut in half. A
minute later that joy is cut in half again.
That is not how it will be in heaven.
Joy will not be short-lived. The
heart will pound with excitement. The
best of life will be our whole life.
Now realize that all of this is here for you in the way that
Jesus wakes up from the dead on Easter morning.
This new life is his doing. The
weight of sin, death, and the devil has been lifted by him. There isn’t a single thing that you need to
do in order to activate this new life.
There isn’t a single thing that you can
do to contribute to this new life. Jesus
did it all, and he did it for every single sinner, the whole world over.
Furthermore, Jesus has brought it about that you should hear
this promise and thereby receive the new life that he has worked. Nothing is done by accident. God has brought you here today so that you
could know of the salvation he has worked in Jesus. Some of you are visitors. This word is for you. Some of you have been coming here for
decades. It is still God, nevertheless,
who has brought it about that you should hear of the new life in Jesus, that
you should want it, and that you should look forward to it.
So if you hear the Word of God speaking to you today, do not
harden your heart. Set aside the vain
thoughts that cannot save you from death and hell, and embrace the truth that
does save. If you haven’t been coming to
Church, then start coming—not because I want your money or so that you can put
in your time, but so that you can learn and grow in the good things Jesus has
worked for you and the that Holy Spirit still works in you. If you have rejoiced in the glad tidings of
great joy that Jesus has caused you to hear today, I’m very thankful. But then don’t neglect the other
opportunities to hear God’s Word that this congregation works to provide for
the good of those who cross our path.
Our faith lives from the Word of God.
Without nourishment faith will die and we will revert back to those
thoughts and ways of living that are actually more natural and easy for us.
Now may the God of peace sanctify you completely, and may
your whole spirit, soul, and body be kept blameless at the coming of our Lord
Jesus Christ. He who calls you is
faithful; he will surely do it.
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