Christ's Resurrection Changes Us!
The power of death is real, as strong as the pull of gravity that grabs us so tightly to this planet. Death gropes at us to keep us in the grave, but Jesus won the victory over death! Death cannot win. 1 Corinthians 15:51-57 makes that certain. Here's the truth, "Christ's Resurrection Changes Us!" April 24, 2011.
Visibly upset, she approaches the tomb with tears. She points to the place where the dead man has been laid to rest in peace and the volume of her sobbing reveals her confused fear that his body has been stolen, “We don’t know where they have put him” (John 20:2). Mary, apparently not thinking as much as she should about this being the third day since her Master had died, had heard Jesus make promises about rising from the dead but concludes that his body is now gone for good because his enemies took it.
It’s Easter Sunday and we who stand on the future side of the third day find it somewhat incredible that we are still hearing women weep and seeing disciples disturbed. What about Jesus’ promises that he’d rise? We listen to the Easter gospel and there’s a part of us that feels sorry for Mary but another part that looks at Mary and can’t help but ask with the angels and Jesus, “Why are you crying?” (John 20:13,15). How could it be, Mary, that Jesus spoke to you so concisely about rising on the third day – and even proved his power over death by raising Lazarus and the widow’s son at Nain and Jairus’ daughter – yet you think he’s gone for good because his enemies took him? It could only be, Mary, because you are so much like me.
How could it be that Jesus speaks to us so convincingly about the power of prayer, but our prayer life is ho-hum and inconsistent, and the prayers we’ve memorized we can pray even without thinking? How could it be that Jesus speaks to us so assuredly about trusting him in times of trouble, but we so quickly give into our fears? How could it be that Jesus speaks to us so vividly about the slam dunk certainty of our forgiveness, even giving us his body and blood, but we insist on taking care of our own guilty by punishing ourselves? How could it be that Jesus speaks to us so accurately about the commitment and cost of discipleship, and then we’re so surprised when we encounter discomfort or inconvenience in our Christian life? Like you, Mary, we are confused by a human nature that concludes too much from the earthly perspective. Human tears can be so blinding to heavenly truth. Here’s the truth: Christ’s Resurrection Changes Us! “Death has been swallowed up in victory.”
We might think that our risen Lord would want to shake the champagne on the victor’s stand and bask in glory. Instead, the Bible portrays a glorified, exalted, resurrected Jesus with a ground-level concern for his fickle followers, their confused fear and crippling forgetfulness. Jesus won forgiveness for us on the cross. Now that he’s risen he doesn’t become some egomaniac too busily important for slow-to-believe disciples. Although his death to resurrection transitioned Jesus from humiliation to exaltation, exaltation hasn’t changed his heart of love. However, here’s what has changed: “He gives us the victory.” All 58 verses of the Bible’s great resurrection chapter in 1 Corinthians 15 declare one grand truth. Death is dead. “Where, O death, is your victory? Where, O death, is your sting?” the Bible taunts death like a 5-year-old might taunt a tiger in its cage, because they can’t hurt us no matter how threatening they are. Christ’s resurrection changes death from terminal to transitional. Death doesn’t end our existence but escorts us elsewhere. Christ’s Resurrection Changes Us!
Death for those who belong to Christ by baptism is not permanent and so it’s really not death at all. 1 Corinthians 15 refers to those who have died in faith as “those who have fallen asleep” (v. 20). After believers die and our souls go to heaven, our bodies – asleep – will someday wake up from death to join our souls in eternal life. If there’s one thing we know for certain, it’s that sleep does not last. Just as your alarm announces a new day, so the Bible says that believers who have died will wake up on Judgment Day when Christ returns; “we will all be changed, in a flash, in the twinkling of any eye, at the last trumpet. For the trumpet will sound, the dead will be raised imperishable, and we will be changed.” Christ’s Resurrection Changes Us!
Spring is a season of change. This spring, however, has resisted that change with a might comparable to death. This spring the clouds have clamped shut and refused to let the sun shine. The snow has grabbed onto the arctic jet stream with its icy claws, pulled it south, and if it can’t float gently down in flakes it has pelted us with plague-like hail and sleet. And the temperatures. Brrr! The cold days have ganged up on the two or three days over 60 degrees since October and chased them away never to appear in southeastern Wisconsin until May-be June. Yet, the daffodils are blooming, the trees are budding (my allergies tell me so), the grass is turning green, and the birds are singing. The changes of spring are all around us despite the surrounding circumstances of weather making it seem otherwise. Christian, Easter’s new life is all around you – even in you – despite the surrounding circumstances of this earth making it seem otherwise. Christ’s Resurrection Changes Us!
So I will, next week, go drop some beans and peas and carrot seeds, lifeless as they seem, into their tomb in the suffocating black earth of my garden, which also seems lifeless. Jesus explained, “I tell you the truth, unless a kernel of wheat falls to the ground and dies, it remains only a single seed. But if it dies, it produces many seeds” (John 12:24). Every year, without fail, the seeds that perish in the dirt of my garden clothe themselves with new life and produce vegetables filled with seeds and flavors. “The perishable must clothe itself with the imperishable, and the mortal with immortality.”Every believer, without fail, dies physically as a perishable human being but is planted like a seed in the ground to one day become clothed with immortality in heaven’s eternity. Christ’s Resurrection Changes Us!
Oh, the power of death is real, as strong as the pull of gravity that grabs us so tightly to this planet that if we try to jump into the sky it yanks us back down. So death gropes at us to keep us in the grave, but Jesus won the victory over death! Death cannot win. 1 Corinthians 15 makes that certain. Jesus doesn’t serve death, and neither do we! Death has been conquered. Death is slave and servant, obeying the orders of Jesus, who gives us the victory. “Thanks be to God!” Amen.
Preached at Grace Lutheran Church, Milwaukee, WI (www.gracedowntown.org) on April 24, 2011
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