(Sermon by Pastor Michael D. Schultz 04/16/06) 

INTRODUCTION: 

So that it hits home for us, maybe we could think of this letter Paul wrote as 1 Atlantans instead of 1 Corinthians.  Their issues are ours.  Paul wrote to them about factions based on favorite pastors, marriage and divorce, Lord’s Supper issues, how they treated each other, all sorts of things that are well known to us.  But he wrapped up his first letter to them with what could easily be viewed as the biggest issue of all – Christ’s resurrection.  If you’re off on that, you might as well pitch all that other stuff in the dumpster.  What’s it going to matter if you get everything straight, and then it all comes to a grinding, permanent halt at the cemetery plot?

In the course of Christians’ lives and Christian churches, it all comes down to this: Is Jesus alive or is he not?  If he’s not, then we’re a bunch of idiots for sitting here today and for struggling through an existence that is supposed to center in him.  But if he is, then for goodness’ sakes let’s live accordingly, with hope and confidence, with love and kindness, with joyful hearts and holy lives.  Jesus is alive, and when it comes to making it through each grief-filled, horrible or joy-filled, wonderful day…

Easter Has It All

If you’re trying to deal with what you’ve heard from God’s Word about sin and guilt, heaven or hell, a God who means business with every one of his commandments, consciences that won’t be quiet and punishment that’s deserved, Satan who prowls like a lion and death as the wages for sin, then you do not have an easy go of it.  Taken at face value, those things will beat you to a pulp.

Now if you die and that’s it, you’d be smart to ask, “Why bother with any of that?”  If your existence stops when your heart stops, you’d be better off forgetting about the Bible, Jesus, preaching, church, heaven and how you’re supposed to live.  Block it out of your mind, go live it up and spare yourself the trouble of worrying about it all.  If this life is it, the Christian faith and life are a pitiable waste of time – nothing but infuriating, far too much trouble than they’re worth, and then you die.

Of course, that would be a major form of denial, because God does hate sin, there is heaven and there is hell and only people who are perfectly holy enter heaven, and it does matter how we get along with people, and whether or not we believe and do what God says.  Dwell on those things for any length of time and they will bother the dickens out of you.  They have to.  Grief, guilt, accountability to God, Satan, death – what did we bring into this world or what could we possibly acquire in this world that would truly let us overcome all that?  We don’t have it within us to win out over all that, and it’s not just troubling, it’s exasperating.  But…

Easter has it all.  It has the answer we need for how troubled we are.  Look at Jesus during what we call Lent – his sufferings and death.  It bothered the dickens out of him.  He was troubled as a person could be over God’s hatred of sin, over guilt that would be counted as his, over hellish separation from God.  Everything that should trouble us to death brought him to his death, because on a cross he bore it all.  But then he rose!  He rose, so that in the midst of everything that troubles you, you might know, “My sin is no longer mine, and this life isn’t it.”

If Jesus rises from the grave as the firstfruits, the first resurrection of many, many more that are scheduled for a later date, then it should comfort you to know that there’s a sequel to Easter Sunday – your resurrection.  By suffering the absolute horror of what death really is for a sinner, Jesus has turned your death into a sleep, something that is truly as harmless as a flea. 

We’re not idiots for sitting here today or for struggling through an existence that is supposed to center in Jesus.  It’s the only way to live.  Everything that troubles me about the sinner I am and the consequences I’ve earned has been resolved.  Jesus became the sinner I was, accepted the consequences I earned, paid for me with his life, took his life back up again, and has given me the life that goes so far beyond the grave that I’ll never even remember where I was buried or that I was buried.  My body will rise from the dust to be joined with my soul to live with Jesus in glory everlasting.  Our present suffering, whatever it entails, is not worth comparing to the glory that will be revealed in us.  Trust God on that.

He did all this in a ridiculous way.  Who’d have thought that every king, queen, lord, lady, man, woman, boy or girl would have to die because one man took a bite of an apple or a pear or a peach or whatever it was?  Ridiculous!  Adam wasn’t a serial killer or a rapist or an adulterer or a thief.  He ate some fruit, and we all die??  But who’d have thought that, completely apart from any good or evil thing they’ve ever done, every king or queen or lord or lady or man or woman or boy or girl would be acquitted and counted holy because one man named Jesus died and lived again.  Who’d have thought?  Only the triune God, so that only he gets the credit for the fact that we will live forever.

Easter has it all.  The answer we need for how troubled we are is that this life isn’t it because Jesus rose and gave us life everlasting.  The proper response to the answer we’ve been given is praise and thanks to God, a life of praise and thanks to God, everlasting praise and thanks to God.  He did the unimaginable in rescuing all through one.

So what’s he waiting for?  Why not end it all now, end the world today and take us home?  That’s really a matter of taking turns.  It was Jesus’ turn to rise to life on Easter Sunday.  It will be our turn when he returns.  Till he comes back, Jesus will be staying busy knocking off your enemies one at a time.  Your sinful nature that wants you to rebel drowned in your baptism, Satan who accuses flattened by the Word of God, a world of people and influences that tempt you to give up on God repulsed by the Lord’s Supper, the threats of the law wasted by the promises of the Gospel, sin absolved by the Holy Spirit’s absolution. 

Till Jesus returns, it’s as if there’s a treasure in your pocket.  You know it’s there but you just can’t see it.  It’s as if the sun is shining on an overcast day. You know it’s there but you just can’t see it.  The resurrection of the body and the life everlasting are already yours, promised and given to you by Jesus, you just can’t see them yet.  Jesus has already defeated your every enemy, and he’s living and ruling in power and glory at God’s right hand so that one thing happens, so that you hold onto the eternal life he’s given you and overcome every enemy that comes against you.

The day is coming when he’ll let you take that treasure out of your back pocket and let you look right at it, when he’ll shove the clouds away and let you look right at the sun, when words like sin and Satan and trouble and even words like faith and forgiveness and hope are taken out of your vocabulary.  You’ll see him and join him and sorrow and sighing will flee away.

Then you’ll watch as the last enemy goes down in flames.  The last enemy to be destroyed is death.  Martin Luther wrote: It would be proper to inscribe this verse with golden letters and to hold it before the eyes of Christians constantly.   Death is not so much our enemy as it is Christ’s.  He hates it, and he is going to get rid of it.  He defeated it when he rose.  He’ll destroy it when he returns.

This is how we live out our days, wrapped in the security blanket of Christ’s resurrection.  Easter has it all, including, for us, the calm confidence that Christ is King.  He lives, and in him so do we!

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