Sermon Tone Analysis

March 28

March 28th is a really really important date to me.

Probably one of the most important days of the year.

It is the anniversary of my very first date with my wife Melanie.

She was a senior in high school, I was a softmore in college.

She used to stand right over there with her friends after church, much the same way different groups of young people will form after church…and so I started to lurk around her group.

She had a boyfriend.

Why she dated him, I will never know.

I had a girlfriend.

Both were long term relationships.

Serious.

And I still remember the Saturday before Easter that year, we had an all day rehearsal for an Easter concert we were doing, and so we went to lunch at wendy’s on route 40.

I figured out a way to sit right across from her and her best friend who is the daughter of one of our greeters and long time deacons.

And I said to her, I think you should break up with your boyfriend.

He needs to go.

She claims she was going to break up with him anyway.

So she broke up with him.

I had already broken up with my girlfriend.

Such a sad story for Easter Sunday.

It gets happier.

That Tuesday night, I was in my college apartment.

And I picked up this thing called a phone that was actually plugged into the wall.

And I called Melanie.

And I had to speak to her Dad first.

Imagine that.

And I asked her to go out on a date with me.

And as I wrote the directions to her house on a piece of paper, I wrote “this is the one I am going to marry.”

And on March 28 we went to Chi-Chi’s…and we went to a park, I was a perfect gentleman.

We sat on the see saw…on opposite sides.

And we just had the most amazing talk.

March 28…a day that changed everything for me.

There was my life before March 28th and my life after March 28th.

Everything in my life changed.

For the better.

WE

And we have moments like that in life.

It could be the first date with a soul mate.

It could be the date of a huge accomplishment.

It could be the birth of a child.

Every thing changes.

Easter Sunday-the day everything changed

And that is what Easter Sunday is.

It is a dividing line.

It is a date when everything changes.

Easter is a day that changes the way you see the world.

Your priorities.

That which you worship and value.

Easter is a day that changes the way you relate to others.

The way you raise your children.

Easter changes everything.

Because there is the pre-Easter way of living and the post-Easter way of living.

There is living on the wrong side of Easter and living on the right side of Easter.

In 2 Corinthians 15, the Apostle Paul gives us the most detailed defense of the resurrection of Jesus.

He tells us that Jesus appeared to his disciples.

That he appeared to 500 others.

Most of the passage is this awesome defense of the resurrection.

But for a few verses, Paul imagines what life would be if Jesus didn’t truly rise from the grave.

12 But if it is preached that Christ has been raised from the dead, how can some of you say that there is no resurrection of the dead?

13 If there is no resurrection of the dead, then not even Christ has been raised.

14 And if Christ has not been raised, our preaching is useless and so is your faith.

15 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.

16 For if the dead are not raised, then Christ has not been raised either.17

And if Christ has not been raised, your faith is futile; you are still in your sins.18

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

19 If only for this life we have hope in Christ, we are of all people most to be pitied.

In other words, Paul says if Jesus wasn’t raised from the dead our faith is pointless, our sins remain unforgiven, those who have died before us are just gone, they just cease to exist, that we are wasting our lives, and people should feel sorry for us.

In other words, Easter is the whole ball game.

UCONN

The women’s basketball team from the University of Connecticut was undefeated in the regular season last year.

But they were shocked in the semi finals of the championship.

They were undefeated again in the regular season this year and played Notre Dame in the semi finals and lost again on a last second shot.

They are 146 and 2 in the last 148 games.

But for two years now, they were undefeated all season long but lost in the semi-finals.

The head coach said, it’s as if all our wins, all the success of the season was all for nothing.

We didn’t win when it counted.

If Jesus had lived the life he lived, performed the miracles he performed, died the death he died on the cross, and had even remained morally perfect throughout, but if he didn’t rise from the dead, it was all for nothing.

It was like a basketball team being undefeated all year, but not winning when it counts.

Just like the final four and the championship round is the whole ball game for a team like UCONN, Easter is the whole ball game for Jesus.

If Jesus didn’t rise from the dead…we are living in a perpetual Holy Saturday.

Holy Saturday

Holy Saturday

The day between Good Friday and Easter Sunday is the lowest and saddest day of the church year and is known as Holy Saturday.

When we recite the apostles creed there is that little phrase that says, “he descended into hell.”

That is a loaded statement, because it encompasses the many Holy Saturday events that are recorded in the Scriptures.

While Jesus was descending into hell, says he was preaching to the spirits in hades, preaching to the dead during this time, raiding Hades, the waiting place of the saints who had died in the OT, and paying the ransom to free them from Hades.

Holy Saturday was a day of despair for the disciples and the followers of Jesus.

A dead Messiah was no Messiah at all.

They had seen him die.

They dispersed, began to go back to their old lives.

If Jesus wasn’t raised from the dead, it is still Holy Saturday.

And if Jesus didn’t rise from the dead, it shouldn’t even be called Holy Saturday because if Jesus didn’t rise from the dead there was nothing holy about that Saturday at all.

And go back even further before Holy Saturday, go back in time further to before Good Friday and to Jesus’ ministry and life.

See that whole time period as pre-Easter, Easter as the day that changed everything, and post-Easter.

Which side of Easter are you living on.

I didn’t ask you if you believe Jesus rose from the dead, I am sure most sitting here either believe he rose from the dead, or hope he rose from the dead…I am not asking you if you believe in Easter Sunday, I am asking you which SIDE of Easter Sunday are you living on?

Because it is two different ways of living, two different ways of seeing the world, two different ways of interacting with others, two different sets of priorities, two totally different ways of living.

The pre-Easter way and the post-Easter way.

And I’m not just talking to those who are either far from God, maybe you are here because someone made you attend, perhaps you don’t believe all this Jesus stuff, or you are skeptical, I am talking to you, but I am also talking to those who claim to be Christians.

Who claim to love Jesus.