Easter Sunday 2007
Get the PDF file of the notes here
I didn’t know whether to laugh or cry. In a sincere attempt to sell more chocolate eggs, Somerfield (a UK supermarket chain) issued a press release based on an internet survey of young people. “Many young people don’t know what Easter is all about”, it said before going on to tell us that “Easter is about the birth of Christ”. It took two more press releases before the bright young things at Somerfields PR agency got it right, and then only after they ‘phoned the Church of England’s PR people. “It’s about the resurrection of Christ”, they concluded [1] .
After this morning I hpe that you will never be in any doubt as to what Easter is all about!
On Easter Sunday we remember that Jesus, crucified on Good Friday, came back to life and met up with his disciples to continue his work. An astonishing statement – a dead man came back to life. Did it really happen?
Signs of life
How do you tell if something is alive? Here are a few clues from my school biology text book:
It moves – but a car moves and it is not ‘alive’ is it?
It reacts – poke a crocodile and it may well have you for supper.
It reproduces – living things have a myriad of ways to multiply themselves.
It feeds – it all takes energy, even plants feed by turning CO2 into carbohydrate.
It grows – you may be a bacterium or a giant redwood, you both grow!
There are more tell-tale signs of life, but those will do for now.
When Jesus first appeared to his disciples after his execution what did they notice about him? The eye-witness accounts that we have in the New Testament are pretty helpful here – he reacted to them; he was moving; he ate fish to show them he was not a ghost – that’s feeding. But there was more to come; the small group of witnesses to the resurrection soon began to tell others and the number of followers of Jesus grew rapidly. Within months these believers were being compared to Jesus – the men who had engineered his death ruefully observed that Jesus had reproduced himself many times over! [2]
If biologists are right (and they are) and these eye-witnesses were not lying (which they were not) then Jesus really was alive – Astonishing, but true!
Everything he touches…
Actually, everything God touches turns to life. You see this right the way through the Bible. Let’s look together.
At the dawn of time God created humanity. He gathered together a handful of dust and breathed on it. The breath of God turned dead stuff into human life. This is one of the reasons that human beings are so special – sacred if you like – God has invested something of himself in us. You are special for this very reason.
Then the Bible tells us the story of a man called Job. He was rich and happy and then he lost everything, his money, his children, his home, and most of his friends. The friends he didn’t loose were a bit useless and even his wife advised him to ‘curse God and die’. Job almost took her advice, but he didn’t.
Sometimes, when a person is right up against it, they get a burst of faith. All of a sudden they know that, even though everything is grim, it is going to be alright in the end. They just have to hold on and trust God. Job had one of those moments in he darkest hour, all at once he saw clearly that even if his died God will bring his body back to life and that he would see God with his own eyes.
Job’s flash of insight is one of the most impressive moments of faith in the Bible – remember his faith, you will need to do something similar one day. Job saw that everything god touches burst into life.
And then Jesus came along, and he had the power to raise the dead. Arriving at the grave of his friend Lazarus, he asked for it to be opened. The family were reluctant because the body was decomposing and would smell horrible. Jesus insisted, and the stone was rolled from the cave-tomb. He shouted, “Lazarus, come out”, and the dead man got up and came out. Events like this led people to see that Jesus was not just a great prophet but the Son of God – because everything he touched burst into life.
And then Jesus himself was raised, and showed his disciples that he really was alive, not a ghost or a figment of their imagination but alive and rearing to go on with the work of the Kingdom of God. When you read about him eating fish with his disciples you realise that they were just like us… always wanting a bit more proof before they will believe God and get on with it!
And what about you?
Most people find history boring. I don’t, but most people do. That is why you need to see that Easter is not just about what God did then, it is about what God is doing now. Everything he touches bursts into life, and that includes you.
When my daughter was very young she went down to the kitchen one Easter and looked out at the garden. The lawn was covered in crocus flowers that had opened during that very morning. She ran upstairs and said, ”Mummy, Jesus has been in our garden last night!” Cathie said, “How do you know that?” and Emma replied, “Because all the flowers have come to life!”
Now Jesus may not be directly involved in flowers opening, but he is involved in bringing humans back to life, that is his core business:
He once breathed life into a handful of dust – he can breathe life into you.
He once walked to his own death and out of the grave into new life – follow him and can do the same!
[1] Source – Times Online, April 4th 2007
[2] Read the story in Acts 4:13-14