Easter Brings hope

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Sermon

We have some really good news to share with you this morning. I don't know if I should though because it's a bit premature. You see, I received a letter this week that said I might have already won ten million dollars. Now I don't know for sure yet. But it says I am on the list. This envelope says that I am right up near the top. I didn't even have to do anything really, to do this. Now I know it is a bit early and I have to send in some junk, but I may have already won ten million dollars. Wouldn't it be great?

Don't you hate that when they hook you in with that stuff? They do it all the time. They promise us some great prize that we are going to get. We are right there at the top, Mr. Rick Rusaw. They even sent me a letter asking me how I would like to have the money. Would I like to have it in yearly installments, or monthly. I must be close this year.

That annoys me when they do that. I don't know about you, but that frustrates me when I get that. I wish they would be honest. I wish one time this envelope would come and say, "You don't have a chance. You're a loser. You didn't even fill out the material right this time. Where was your head when you were doing this? I don't even know why you enter these stupid contests. There is no hope for you." That is more like reality for us, isn't it?

Disappointment happens. Somebody promises us something and we hope it is going to happen. It doesn't happen. All the way back to our childhood when those stupid little plastic toys in the cereal box were going to be our life-time fulfillment if we could just get it. So mom would buy that stuff. We would be up to our elbows looking for that little tiny plastic ring or little decoder thing. It never did quite live up to its expectations, did it?

It disappointed us, it frustrated us. Sometimes it is a relationship, sometimes it is a job and sometimes it is a wealth we hope to have and don't get. Or when we do get it, it is not quite what we thought it was going to be. Great promises, usually disappointment, rarely meeting our expectations, great hopes. But they usually don't work out.

Peter writes to us some words of hope and expectation. Great hope that we would have found in 1 Peter 1:3-4

Peter says, "Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, in his great mercy He has given us new birth into a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead and into an inheritance that can never perish or spoil or fade kept in heaven for you."

Peter says that because of Christ's resurrection we have this great inheritance. Over ten million dollars and it won't perish, spoil or fade. It is being kept for you. You are a guaranteed winner that is what Peter says.

Now how did Peter get to this place where he can proclaim with such confidence and such great hope. It didn't come easily for him. In fact, this hope came out of much disappointment for Peter. The disciples had been with Jesus. He had been talking about establishing a kingdom. The disciples thought it was going to be earthly. He had been proclaiming this great news of the Messiah being there.

He had been doing miracles for them. They thought it was a wonderful time. Many of disciples, I am sure, were thinking, "We cannot wait to be in those chief spots. We cannot wait to have Jewish authority ruling again. We are going to get to be at the right hand of Jesus, helping to rule in his kingdom."

But in just a moment, things changed. They changed too quickly. They have been in this great triumphal entry, a huge parade where all the people were proclaiming how great Jesus was. The disciples were with him. What a time of joy and celebration that must have been.

Here just a short time later they are taking Jesus off to a mock trial and they are going to crucify him. All the things the disciples had hoped for, all the promises on the outside of the envelope as far as they were concerned, were empty now. It wasn't happening. It wasn't going to work out quite like they thought it was going to. Things change in just a moment sometimes, don't they? How quickly things change.

We were at a parade in downtown Longmont. Our daughter, Chelsea, was just two and a half years old. One minute she was right there on the curbside next to us. The next minute she was gone. We couldn't find her. Several minutes had passed. Our two-and-a-half-year-old was nowhere to be found. You have been there before. You know the panic.

It is amazing all the things you can think of in just a few minutes that may have happened. I don't know how she did it, but she was two blocks away, wandering down the sidewalk. We were glad when we found her. It worked out OK. But for just a moment, there was panic. For just a moment, things were not working out like I had hoped for at all.

Maybe for some of you this past week or month or year, it has been difficult. In an instant, you got a health report that changed your world. It changed how you were going to approach life. Changed how you were going to face the next few weeks, months. And for some of you, finding out that you didn't have that long. Maybe it was the phone call that came or the knock at your door to announce that someone in your family was gone now.

Someone who had been there at the table, now was no longer going to be able to be there. You are experiencing the loss and the grief that comes with the loss of a loved one. For some of you, it was a job change. For others it was a spouse that said, "I don't want to be with you any more." For others, maybe something going on with your children or your family. In just a moment, circumstances can change. Our outlook changes with them.

Look what happened to the disciples. Jesus had told them it was going to be like this. He was going to be crucified and He would rise again from the dead. They did not understand that. In fact the good news had been so good, they did not want to believe the bad. How did they respond? Peter who had promised loyalty and faithfulness and "I will fight with you until the end", had promised Jesus that he wasn't going to give up on him, that he was going to stay right there.

Luke, chapter 22, we see Peter denying Christ three times. "I never knew him. I wasn't with him." When Jesus needed him the most, Peter was gone. When it really mattered. When it was on the line. Peter was saying, "I never had anything to do with this guy." So Peter, even though boasts of promise and great loyalty and "I will fight to the death for you", Peter gives up and caves in.

We have the women who had been following Jesus. Many of his followers, many of the disciples, went to the garden. Jesus has been crucified. They are going with all the spices and cloths. They are going to finish the burial preparations. They did not understand either. Jesus had said something about rising from the dead. But somehow these ladies had missed that.

Scripture says that on the very first day of the week, early in the morning, the women took spices they had prepared. They went to the tomb. They found the stone rolled away from the tomb. When the entered, they did not find the body of the Lord Jesus. While they were wondering about this, suddenly two men in clothes that gleamed like lightening stood beside them. In their fright, the women bowed down. But the men said to them, "Why are you looking for the living among the dead? He is not here. He is risen.

Remember how he told you he was going to do this? They said a man must be delivered into the hands of sinful men and be crucified and on the third day be raised again." Then they remembered Jesus' words. The angels were saying to them, "What are you doing here with all of those dead things? Don't you remember? This one you had been following, this one you had been celebrating; He told you he was going to die and be buried. Then rise again in three days. Why do you seek the living among the dead?" Luke 24:1-11

You see, for Mary and Joanna and the other women, it had been hopelessness. The graveyard was not a very good place for them. In fact, this Scripture says they went back to tell the disciples. The disciples said, "Your words seems like nonsense to us. How can someone who has been dead, rise again?" They did not understand Jesus' words. They didn't understand what Jesus had been teaching. Their hope had been turned into hopelessness. Their excitement had been turned into despair.

All these great promises of something they were going to be a part of, now seemed to be ending in that cemetery.

I have been in enough cemeteries to know that there is not much excitement or enthusiasm there. A sense of loss, a sense of grief, a sense of departure for us. What is death really like? That great thief. Oh, we joke about it some. I like what Erma Bombeck says. She wants written on her tombstone. "No big deal, I am used to dust."

Or maybe, your family will receive a letter like this from the government some day. Like this family in Greenville, South Carolina. The husband had passed away. This is the letter they received from the government. "Your social service benefits will be stopped effective March, 1992 because we received notice that you passed away. May God bless you. You may reply if there is a change in your circumstances." Not likely to happen.

We joke about death because that is the one way for us to deal with it. Yet, there is not much good news in the graveyard. Death is that great thief. Death is that great interrupter of hopes and dreams. Death is that which many of us fear. We don't want to talk about it. We don't want to think about it. We hope it doesn't affect us. Yet, all of us inevitably have to deal with death.

Whether it is the loss of a family member or friend or at some point our own death, we see it as not being fair. Death is not what God intended for us. So the women and the disciples had all this great hope and promise. All these things they were going to see happen. Now it ended in a cemetery. But the angel says to them, "What are you doing here? What are you doing here looking for the living among the dead? Don't you know Jesus did exactly what he said he was going to do?"

There is power in the resurrection of Jesus. Christianity would be an empty religion if Jesus were just a great teacher who had come and dumped out some nice parables and a few nice sayings and some things that all of us ought to live by once in a while to get our lives together, to live pretty decent lives. That would be one thing.

But it isn't anything to give our lives to. But Jesus was more than just a good moral teacher. Jesus was more than just a historical person. Jesus conquered death. It changed the course of history. For Peter, the one who had been the denier. For Peter, the one who had given up. Peter learned that his failure wasn't going to be final, that Jesus was going to accept him. That God was going to love him. Peter goes on to make significant contributions to the church. There is good news because of the resurrection of Jesus.

Several years ago while on vacation we took our kids to see Lion King. If you have children, you probably have that movie memorized by now. We went, and again our youngest Chelsea, (she is four now) when Mufasa the father dies--gets trampled there. She started wailing. She did not stop crying the whole movie. The entire movie. I am shoving popcorn in her mouth, she was still crying. Recently one of the grandparents sent the video to us. So now we watch Lion King pretty much 24 hours a day. You know what she told me the other day? "Dad, don't worry. Mufasa, he dies, but he comes back to life! Because when we start the movie over, he is there again!" I must have looked skeptical because she said, "I'm not kidding!" Pretty simplistic for a four-year old.

But you know I think that is what God is saying. That is what God was saying to the disciples. That is what God is saying through the course of history to us. "I am not kidding! He came back! He is coming back and there is power in his resurrection because he has defeated the one enemy that all of us fear."

God has taken care of death. Jesus, risen again from the dead. That hope gave Peter power. That hope helped the women discover that there could be sense even in the midst of nonsense and grief. That mourning could be turned to joy. That tears could become laughter. That hopelessness could become hope again. The disciples celebrate his resurrection.

Do you remember when the city of Chicago, and for that part most of America, celebrated the return of its hero when sports writers proclaim, "He's back!", speaking of Michael Jordan. The disciples, how much more do they have to celebrate. When the world proclaims, "He's back." Not to win a championship, not from retirement, but He has conquered death. He has come back from the grave and we can place our trust and our hope in his resurrection. He's back! So the disciples have much to celebrate now.

Thomas said, "I am not going to believe this. I am not going to buy this stuff. There is no way someone is going to rise from the dead. I won't believe it until I can see his hands and touch his side." It is that same Thomas, who later fell down before the Lord, Jesus Christ, and said, "My Lord and my God." There is power in the resurrection of Jesus.

There is hope, not just for the disciples, not only for the women gathered in that cemetery. But there is hope for us today. An inheritance, Peter says, that will not perish or fade or spoil. Given for us so that we might have hope. It is tough to live without hope. It is tough for us to see how we are going to make it when there is no hope. Today in our society there is a lot of talk about spiritual things. There has been a lot of interest in that over the last year and a half.

More and more people are looking at moral issues and spiritual issues. USA Today in December posted a survey that 96% of us in America believe in God. 90% believe in heaven. 79% believe in miracles. 72% believe in angels. Those are all well and good. But the point is, there is a hunger going on in our society today because I believe we have reached a brink of hopelessness. Programs and money and careers and jobs and relationships don't quite satisfy us. They are like the envelope that promises us, "You may have already won 10 million dollars." We pursue it and it is never quite what we want it to be.

The real hope for us is to fill that empty spot in our lives. The real hope for us is to anchor to something. The real hope for us is to place our trust and our confidence in God. What God is saying through the resurrection of Jesus Christ is you can trust my promises. You can count on them. When I give you my word, you can count on it. God is so graciously giving us his word that each of us who would come to believe in him and place our hope and trust in him would have an inheritance that would not disappoint us. I have some good news for you. You can trust his promises.

The good news is that we can have hope in one who has conquered death. Risen from the grave, so that we might have hope in him. An inheritance that never fades or spoils or perishes. Kept in heaven for us. This time you are guaranteed the prize. This time you are guaranteed to be a winner. This is not some marketing gimmick. This is God's word saying to us, "You can trust my promises."

This morning we are going to sing a song of invitation. There are those of you who are outside of a relationship with Christ. We want to invite you to come. The real hope and power is not simply in Jesus' words or that we get together and talk about it. The real hope and power is that we celebrate his resurrection from the dead, conquering death. Not only do I know that from a personal experience of accepting Christ, but history validates Jesus' claims. We hope this morning that some of you would accept it. Maybe others want to become a part of our church family.