Word of Salvation – Vol. 24 No. 13 – January 1978

 

What’s It All About?

Easter Sermon by Rev. C. Moerman, Th. Grad. on Revelation 1:5b

 

Scripture reading: Psalm 118:14-28, Matthew 28:1-10

Psalter Hymnal: 356; 360:1, 2 (after law); 357; 372 (after sermon); 373:1, 4; 360:3 (doxology)

 

Congregation of a living Lord,

“Thine be the glory, risen, conquering Son, Endless is the victory Thou o’er death hast won.”

EASTER… What’s it all about?

Oh, I know, Easter comes around year after year. It is so common! It even runs the risk of becoming part of the humdrum and treadmill of life, even of our church life. A stage, a comma, and on we go again!

The amazement and the shine and the romance have worn off. For Jesus is BORN on Christmas Day year after year isn’t He? And there are no tears on Good Friday for He dies on the cross every year. And the laughter and joy of Easter does not seem to produce more than a smile any more, for He has walked out of the tomb for maybe the 18th, or 36th or 67th time in my life – I am so used to it!

Hey, Easter again! And we start thinking about Ascension and Pentecost, and my birthday, and then holidays… and then its time for Jesus to be born again… the full cycle all over again. Well-trodden paths… worn out news.

Oh curse of religious traditionalism and formalism which so easily steals away MY BLESSING OF LAUGHTER, MY FRESHNESS OF AMAZEMENT, MY BLESSING OF KNOWLEDGE AND EXPERIENCE …in my HEART EASTER…! What’s it all about?

What was really so important about that grand event that rolled the monstrous tombstone aside and sent the women flying with the joyful news that Jesus Christ now lives? What’s so important about it?

Yes, EASTER… what’s it all about? That’s the theme… “what’s it all about?”

And the answer can be very brief: LIFE…! Easter is all about LIFE… and now you have the whole message of Easter in a nutshell: EASTER… LIFE… and now we could say ‘Amen’ – were it not that we need to be reminded to stir up one another on what life is all about – and – what to do with it.

We look at the meaning of Easter against the background of the words of our text: “Jesus Christ the first-born of the dead, and the Ruler of Kings on earth”.

That’s tremendous news isn’t it? THE FIRST-BORN OF THE DEAD.

What’s life all about?

We all, young and old, have our dreams, our high expectations of life. We all believe in an exciting tomorrow. “Tomorrow is better than today” we say.

The young ones want to leave school when they grow up and then they will start living… tomorrow is better then today!

They want to find work which gives satisfaction, and earn money which adds colour to life … tomorrow is better than today!

They want to find boyfriends and girlfriends, have partners and get married, and then, really… then it is that life starts. Then the dreams will come true… tomorrow is better then today!

And then we want to have children, that’s the fulfilment of life – and everything will be BETTER, DIFFERENT then LIFE WILL BE FILLED, EXCITING…! We want to travel, and go and see places – tomorrow is better than today!

And then we reach middle-age – or even past it, the young people say: THEY ARE OVER THE HILL NOW… we’ve got what we wanted: OUR WORK, OUR HOME, OUR MARRIAGE-PARTNER, OUR CHILDREN…! All the excitement we were looking forward to in life has come our way Was tomorrow better than today? Many hopes and dreams have been dashed and blown away by the wind.

And what is now, the NEXT EXCITEMENT WE ARE WAITING FOR? For it seems as if everything that is ever going to happen has happened for many of us now…! What’s next? AND REALLY THE NEXT BIG THING after growing up and getting married and having a family IS… “DYING” I guess.

Yes, dying is the next big thing…! An awful thought? Yes, IT IS; if it never would have been EASTER!

But now… EASTER is LIFE.

EASTER means that the NEXT BIG THING: ‘death’, HAS BEEN CONQUERED.

Easter means that Jesus Christ BECAME PRINCE OF LIFE, WALKED OUT OF THE TOMB, and BECAME JESUS, THE FIRST-BORN OF THE DEAD.

EASTER MEANS THAT the NEXT BIG THING is NOT A FULL STOP, BUT A COMMA….!

It means that WE, following the FIRST-BORN of the DEAD, do not have to be afraid of that NEXT BIG THING … but may conquer too.

EASTER means LIFE.

Someone has said: “THE RESURRECTION OF JESUS CHRIST IS THE MOST TREMENDOUS MESSAGE WHICH THE CHURCH MAY PROCLAIM ON THE EARTH: an event most central in the history of the world, whereas at the same time it goes AGAINST THE WHOLE HISTORY OF THE WORLD…!”

For the history of the world is nothing else than a continuous DYING. The world is one big open graveyard, in which not only people, but also CULTURES are buried, we see the tombstones everywhere… and now standing in the midst of that big cemetery, the world, the CHURCH MAY PROCLAIM: ONE HAS CONQUERED, ONE DIED, BUT BEHOLD HE LIVES… THE FIRSTBORN of the DEAD…!

Dying has come to an end… THE CHANGE HAS STARTED… THE COURSE REVERSED… LIFE HAS CONQUERED… LIFE HAS CHANGED.

We notice the change for His disciples.

The women and the apostles coming to the tomb on that FIRST EASTER MORNING, walked with slow steps, dashed hopes, bent shoulders, tear-filled eyes…!

But after the message of the OPEN TOMB was made known to them: “JESUS LIVES, HE HAS RISEN HE IS NOT HERE,” THEY WERE CHANGED PEOPLE… endowed with LIFE, WITH FIRE, WITH NEW HOPE, IDEALS, ENTHUSIASM, ENERGY.

They could look now at the horrors of the cross in the light of Christ’s great victory on Easter morning.

They understand the message of the cross which is FORGIVENESS OF SINS in the light of the empty tomb, which means NOW “LIFE WITHOUT END, FORGIVENESS OF SINS AND LIFE ETERNAL” – that’s the heart of the gospel message.

THEY UNDERSTOOD THAT ON GOOD FRIDAY JESUS PAID FOR SIN and on Easter morning He removed the consequences of sin: DEATH
   Death, where is your sting…
   O Death, where is your victory?
SWALLOWED UP ! swallowed up in the victory of LIFE.

And it changed them from a bunch of lifeless, despairing, down-hearted pessimists who had stopped on a dead-end track into a band of FIERY PREACHERS, PIONEERS OF THE CHURCH, SPIRIT-FILLED BUILDERS… people who through the power of the Holy Spirit changed the whole course and future of history and IT ALL CAME ABOUT THROUGH EASTER… LIFE…!

The First-Born of the dead; THEY ALSO KNEW THAT their labours were not in vain. They would share in the resurrection with – not only the First-born, but with countless millions resurrected from the dead. Death would no longer be the end BUT BEHOLD, THE BEGINNING… LIFE IN ALL ITS FULLNESS.

When I say LIFE IN ALL ITS FULLNESS, I do not mean that life here and now is nothing and that we should pin our hope only on the life to come, or in other words, life is only say 50% now, then there is death, the great comma, AND THEN IT IS LIFE IN FULNESS IN HEAVEN.

Oh no, a Christendom which writes this world off as lost and worthless and sin-sodden, and HOPES ONLY FOR THE GOLDEN FUTURE in life to come, is NOT a truly Biblical Christendom.

And our TEXT WHICH SAYS: “Jesus Christ, the Ruler of Kings on earth,” points to a different picture it speaks of Christ’s rule today.

On Easter morning – by walking out of the grave – JESUS, AS LORD, RENEWS HIS CLAIM OF authority in HEAVEN and ON EARTH. LORD OF THE KOSMOS.

Ruler of Kings on earth. this is no empty claim! JESUS IS VICTOR… JESUS IS KING… JESUS IS LORD… right HERE and NOW.

And that is part of the EASTER MESSAGE WHICH THE CHURCH ALSO WILL HAVE TO PROCLAIM TO A DYING WORLD, TO SINKING CULTURES: JESUS IS LORD.

Too often in our minds we narrowly restrict the benefit of Jesus’ resurrection to our personal salvation. Jesus lives, and we shall live with Him, now and forevermore and then that forevermore’ means to many Christians: “with Christ in heaven”… and meanwhile we let the world go by. We sit in our little corners, sing our songs of praise in the Church, etc., but accept the status quo in the world … in the sinful, rotten condition of the world as it is – and we say, “Well, that’s what sin does.”

But Jesus is Ruler of the kings on earth … and the Christian who BELIEVES IN EASTER may never accept THE STATUS QUO… may never leave the world to perish… BUT IS CALLED TO PROCLAIM THE LORDSHIP OF CHRIST HERE AND NOW. And we know that this was the burden of the preaching of the disciples: JESUS IS LORD…! World-wide redemption… ENDLESS IS THE VICTORY.

And studying the letters of Paul, the history of the early Christian Church and its victorious conquest of a pagan world, we see that NOT ONLY PEOPLE CHANGE but i CHANGE, cultures change, GOVERNMENTS START TO RECOGNIZE THE AUTHORITY AND VICTORY OF CHRIST.

We see that where Christianity touches the hearts and souls, it changes people into new creatures – they spread their influence and people start to work and create a new world, a new climate, a new justice, new social structures.

RULER OF KINGS ON EARTH… the reward of the Prince of Life Who walked out of the tomb on Easter morning and CONQUERED DEATH.

Ruler of Kings on EARTH – even today.

And the Easter message of the First-born of the dead, REMINDS US that He is also RULER OF KINGS… BEARER OF ALL AUTHORITY… SUPREME IN ALL AREAS OF LIFE.

But is that not all a big laugh? JESUS CHRIST, RULER OF KINGS ON EARTH?

Looking around us in the world we can ONLY SEE that His supreme authority is IGNORED, DENIED, REBUKED.

We cannot see much of that rule at all.

True, but is that not exactly the reason why the world totters on the brink of disaster; that nations are staring at each other with hatred and power-filled eyes?

Is that not why governments fail to deal effectively with problems of social injustice?

Is that not why societies are destroying themselves from within?

Is that not why families are ripped apart and become beyond repair?

Is that not why young people are despairing and cannot find any sense in living?

Is that not why God’s laws are violated in all spheres of life?

Is that not why packs and gangs of young people roam around and make the cities unsafe?

Is that not why the judgement of God is hanging over this world?

RULER OF KINGS ON EARTH…. and yet no empty phrase… Jesus Christ the first-born of the dead…! GOD MADE A NEW BEGINNING ON EASTER MORNING – that was the turning point.

God is with us, with the world, on the way… en route… on the way TO A NEW HEAVEN AND A NEW EARTH. AND WE ARE NOT TRAVELLING ON OUR OWN. And the foundation of this NEW LIFE is the resurrection of Jesus Christ… the resurrection to life NEVER-ENDING.

God is ON THE WAY with us, and the new beginning is made on EASTER MORNING, and God does not need us, but we need Him, WE NEED JESUS CHRIST – we need Him desperately!

Because God is on the way with us, He wants us as co-workers, as co-builders. He wants us as dynamic workers not lazy good-for-nothings. He wants to use us right now to proclaim the Lordship of Christ over rulers and authorities, over governments and magistrates. He wants the Church to move out of its ghetto to change the world.

God wants us to be fighting for Him everywhere. To be in the frontline, claiming this world as His. Not the sort of fighting we so often engage in IN the Church, but the fighting the Church ought to be doing in the world: to again plant the banners of Jesus Christ mast-high in all spheres of life; to bring into practice the Kingship of Jesus Christ, the Ruler of the Kings on earth.

Christ in the classroom; Christ on the Campus; Christ in Parliament; Christ in the laboratory; Christ in politics; Christ in social and labour relationships.

Christ is King, changing the world in which we live today.

We are to be working to the FUTURE when Christ will be ALL and IN ALL.

So… YESTERDAY on that first Easter morning CHRIST AROSE AND BECAME VICTOR (past)… and TODAY: Ruler of Kings on earth working towards the establishment of His Kingdom (present)… AND TOMORROW…. we all – resurrected body and soul re-united – in LIFE ETERNAL IN FULL GLORY with everything and everyone subject to Him and placed under His feet (future).

So Jesus Christ, the same Yesterday, Today and FOREVERMORE… LIFE WITHOUT END… EASTER… Feast of Life…!

Easter – east of world-wide redemption ENDLESS IS THE VICTORY THOU HAST WON.

HALLELUJAH..

Amen!