Easter Sunday 2006

The World’s Greatest Comeback!

Written in the Daily Mail, 8:13am 26th May 2005 - “Liverpool last night came back from three goals down to draw 3-3 with AC Milan in the Champions League final, before beating the Italians in a penalty shoot-out. “ Here we look at 10 more great comebacks in British sport.

FA Cup final, Wembley 1953, Blackpool 4 Bolton 3.

Blackpool, with Stanley Matthews on the wing, come back from 3-1 down after Stan Mortensen scored a hat-trick for Bolton.

US Masters, Augusta, 1996. Nick Faldo goes into the final round trailing Greg Norman by six strokes. Faldo goes on to win as Norman's nerve breaks.

Grand National, Aintree, 1973. Red Rum comes back from 30 lengths or more behind to pip Crisp at the finishing post for first of a hat-trick of wins in the great race.

Embassy World Championships, The Crucible, 1985. Dennis Taylor comes back from several frames down to beat Steve Davis on the black in the last frame in the final.

Champions League final, 1999. Manchester United are trailing 1-0 for most of the game to Bayern Munich, who have dominated. Then in injury time substitute Teddy Sheringham equalises, before setting up a sensational winner a minute later for Ole Gunnar Solskjaer.

Grand National, Aintree, 1981. After his recovery from cancer, Bob Champion warms a million hearts by winning on Aldaniti.

Charlton 7 Huddersfield 6. December 1957. The comeback to end all football comebacks. Huddersfield are 5-1 up and down to 10 men after an hour before Johnny Summers hits an astonishing five goals to make it 6-5. John Hewie's own goal levels the scores before John Ryan grabs the winner in the dying seconds.

England v Australia at Headingley in 1981. Ian Botham inspires Ashes comeback with 149no, and Australia are bowled out for 111, Bob Willis taking 8-43.

Mike Catt, 2003. The Bath centre was a surprise inclusion in the squad for the Rugby World Cup but the veteran came on at half-time to turn the quarter-final with Wales in England's favour.

Steve Redgrave at Sydney 2000, four years after vowing not to return to rowing, Redgrave wins his fifth gold medal at the Olympics.

I have a greater comeback than these to tell you about - “But God raised him from the dead, freeing him from the agony of death, because it was impossible for death to keep its hold on him. — Acts 2:24

Jesus felt the pains of death truly and really. His body was dead But from the pains of death his body was loosed by resurrection. This was inevitable….

I. IT WAS INEVITABLE BECAUSE OF WHAT JESUS SAID

Matthew 16:21 “From that time on Jesus began to explain to his disciples that he must go to Jerusalem and suffer many things at the hands of the elders, chief priests and teachers of the law, and that he must be killed and on the third day be raised to life.”

II. IT WAS INEVITABLE BECAUSE OF WHO JESUS WAS

Jesus is the creator of life - John 1:4 “In Him was life. And the life was the light of men”

Jesus has power over life and death - John 10:18f, "No one takes it from me, but I lay it down of my own accord. I have authority to lay it down and authority to take it up again. This command I received from my Father."

Jesus is the only hope for life after death - John 11:25 “I am the resurrection and the life”

As Vice President, George Bush represented the U.S. at the funeral of former Soviet leader Leonid Brezhnev. Bush was deeply moved by a silent protest carried out by Brezhnev's widow. She stood motionless by the coffin until seconds before it was closed. Then, just as the soldiers touched the lid, Brezhnev's wife performed an act of great courage and hope, a gesture that must surely rank as one of the most profound acts of civil disobedience ever committed: She reached down and made the sign of the cross on her husband's chest. There in the citadel of secular, atheistic power, the wife of the man who had run it all hoped that her husband was wrong. She hoped that there was another life, and that that life was best represented by Jesus who died on the cross, and that the same Jesus might yet have mercy on her husband. (Gary Thomas, Christian Times, October 3, 1994, p. 26).

III. IT WAS INEVITABLE BECAUSE GOD WAS WITH HIM

Acts 2:22 “Men of Israel, listen to this: Jesus of Nazareth was a man accredited by God to you by miracles, wonders and signs, which God did among you through him, as you yourselves know. 23This man was handed over to you by God's set purpose and foreknowledge; and you, with the help of wicked men,[d] put him to death by nailing him to the cross. 24But God raised him from the dead, freeing him from the agony of death, because it was impossible for death to keep its hold on him.”

John 10:17-18 “The reason my Father loves me is that I lay down my life—only to take it up again. No one takes it from me, but I lay it down of my own accord. I have authority to lay it down and authority to take it up again. This command I received from my Father."

IV. IT WAS INEVITABLE BECAUSE OF THE CONSEQUENCES IF HE HAD NOT

1 Corinthians 15:17” if Christ has not been raised….

our preaching is useless and so is your faith.

More than that, we are then found to be false witnesses about God, for we have testified about God that he raised Christ from the dead. But he did not raise him if in fact the dead are not raised. For if the dead are not raised, then Christ has not been raised either.

And if Christ has not been raised, your faith is futile; you are still in your sins.

Then those also who have fallen asleep in Christ are lost.

If only for this life we have hope in Christ, we are to be pitied more than all men.

“I scarcely need to remind you of that grand chapter of massive argument, Corinthians Fifteen. Beyond all doubt the testimony of the Holy Spirit is that the dead shall rise, and granted that there is an Almighty God, we find no difficulty in accepting the doctrine and entertaining the blessed hope. At the same time it may be well to look around us and note what helps the Lord has appointed for our faith…I am quite certain, dear Friends, that there are many wonders in the world which we should not have believed by mere report if we had not come across them by experience and observation. The electric telegraph, though it is but an invention of man, would have been as hard to believe a thousand years ago as the resurrection of the dead is now. Who in the days of packhorses would have believed in flashing a message from England to America? When our missionaries in tropical countries have told the natives of the formation of ice and that persons could walk across frozen water, and of ships that have been surrounded by mountains of ice in the open sea, the water becoming solid and hard as a rock all around them—the natives have refused to believe such absurd reports! Everything is amazing till we are used to it, and resurrection owes the incredible portion of its marvel to the fact of our never having come across it in our observation—that is all. After the resurrection we shall regard it as a Divine display of power as familiar to us as Creation and Providence are now. I have no doubt we shall adore and bless God and wonder at Resurrection forever, but it will be in the same sense in which every devout mind wonders at Creation now. We shall grow accustomed to this new work of God when we have entered upon our longer life. We were only born but yesterday and have seen little as yet. God’s works require far more than our few earthy years of observation—and when we have entered into eternity and are out of our minority and have come of age—that which astounds us now will have become a familiar theme for praise.” (Spurgeon)

Application:

1. If you're a Christian, it will be impossible for death to hold you.

In a certain sense you have already been raised with Christ. (Colossians 3:1) Your resurrection is guaranteed. 1 Corinthians 15:20f speaks of Jesus being the firstfruits of the total harvest - "But Christ has indeed been raised from the dead, the firstfruits of those who have fallen asleep. For since death came through a man, the resurrection of the dead comes also through a man. For as in Adam all die, so in Christ all will be made alive. But each in his own turn: Christ, the firstfruits; then, when he comes, those who belong to him."

Romans 8:11 : "And if the Spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead is living in you, he who raised Christ from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through his Spirit, who lives in you."

Benjamin Franklin penned his own epitaph. “The Body of B. Franklin, Printer Like the Cover of an old Book Its contents torn out, And stript of its Lettering and Guilding, Lies here, Food for Worms, But the Work shall not be wholly lost: For it will, as he believ'd, Appear once more In a new & more perfect Edition, Corrected and amended by the Author.”

2. If you're not a Christian and you die without trusting in Jesus, death will hold you forever and ever.

You will never be able to escape it. It will be impossible for you to escape it. You need Christ more than anything or anyone else: “If our greatest need had been information, God would have sent us an educator; If our greatest need had been technology, God would have sent us a scientist; If our greatest need had been money, God would have sent us an economist; If our greatest need had been pleasure, God would have sent us an entertainer; But our greatest need was forgiveness, so God sent us a Saviour. “

Which will you choose? Will you choose Jesus and have it so that it will be impossible for death to hold you? Or will you reject Jesus, and ensure that it will be impossible for you to escape death. Choose Jesus. Choose life. May God give you grace to do so.