Sermon Tone Analysis
Overall tone of the sermon
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BMX for Jesus
Pool about 6 feet from building.
Jumping off the roof into the pool.
Awesome.
What is the natural next step?
Clearly we should form a chain gang from ground, passing to someone standing on the fence, passing to someone reaching down off the roof… we should pass up my Mongoose BMX stunt bike.
Naturally.
Obviously.
and then, once you have a bike on the roof, of course you ride it off the roof into the pool.
… then fish it up from the deep end and pass it back up.
I think once my parents killed that particular activity… and maybe we were a bit relieved when they did.
Have you ever been in the middle of doing something and thought: I hope someone stops me!
Because this was insanely risky.
And it was all or nothing.
(Or rather, it was all in or severely broken).
You can’t “kind of” ride a bike off a roof into a pool.
You go… or you don’t.
and you go all in, fast enough, sure enough, leaping hard enough that you make it across the gap… or you don’t.
Better to not go at all then to try for halfway.
Are you all in?
Christianity without Resurrection
Yesterday we had a seder together, the Passover Feast.
This was the meal Jesus would have eaten with his disciples the night he was betrayed - the same meal we remember in communion.
Last night was essentially a large communion, the full version of which our regular practice is a piece.
There was so much symbolism there pointing to the Messiah, pointing to his suffering, and above all, pointing to his fulfillment as the Lamb of God whose sacrifice takes away the sin of the world.
In so doing, we remembered the cross, we celebrated the cross.
Today is “Holy” Saturday.
also called “Black” Saturday.
(or Black Sabbath).
The disciples in a room mourning.
Not full of power, full of grief.
Not full of faith, full of desperation.
Now what if it all stopped there?
What if that was the end?
Lots of people believe that Jesus was a good man or good teacher, maybe even a prophet, but that his story ended there.
And I have these talks with friends all the time, and they affirm my faith for these kinds of reasons:
“Christianity” makes you a good person.
Jesus teaches us to love each other.
Church forms a good social community.
So in light of all these great things, does the whole “resurrection” thing really matter?
Does the resurrection matter?
Now there is truth in all those things… but none of those are the reason we gather.
None of those are central to who he are and what we are doing as a people.
None of those are why I am all in.
and I don’t think any of those would have been enough to hold the disciples together.
They would have mourned and then scattered.
And the walking and teaching Jesus would have been a fun couple of years they spent awhile back.
Probably never written down.
The crucifixion would have been a tragic event better left behind.
Instead, something happened that transformed a grieving group of men and women into a tidal wave sweeping across the world.
Something happened that transformed disillusioned fishermen into titans of faith, preachers and teachers, evangelists who changed the world.
This is the great mystery of history.
Something happened that changed everything.
The resurrection of Jesus Christ.
So does the resurrection matter?
All-In Paul
Some people are saying that it doesn’t matter.
It doesn’t matter if there is resurrection.
And does that matter?
Does it really matter if Christ has been raised.
Yes, then EVERYTHING IS FALSE!
We are lying about God
That’s bad news.
Paul expresses here reality as he experienced it.
Think about how radically Paul has now based his life on the resurrected Christ.
Paul changed everything, risked everything, based his whole life on the resurrected Jesus.
As we will come to read in Acts, he abandons his career as a rising star, a religious professional… then he meets Jesus.
And he throws his life away and lives the rest of it in poverty, in trouble with the law.
It is an absolute disaster… if Christ is not risen.
Right now, where we are in Acts.
Peter and John have abandoned their jobs.
Peter at least is married, but here he is in Jerusalem about to get arrested for the name of Christ.
He is risking it all, recklessly for the name of Christ… because He is risen.
Is that your present reality?
Are we all in like Paul is all in?
Like Peter and John are in?
Am I that bold in the name of Jesus?
Am I safe or am I Recklessly His?
If you woke up tomorrow and somehow “discovered” it was all a lie.
What would change?
If Jesus’ resurrection was just a metaphor, how much of your life would change?
How much have you bet on the truth of His resurrected life?
Are you recklessly bold for the name of Christ, recklessly chasing after the Risen Christ, recklessly abandoned to Him, are you Recklessly His?
The answer is “yes” even if I think the answer is no.
Even if my current experience is “no”.
Here is the funny thing.
Regardless of how you experience the resurrection of Jesus as the foundation of your life… the truth is that the resurrection is the center of your life and mine… The resurrected Jesus is the center of the universe.
It is the resurrection that justifies everything Jesus ever taught.
Everything he ever claimed about who he was.
It is the resurrection that reveals the power of the cross.
It is the resurrection that transforms tragic execution into absolute victory.
We understand the birth of Jesus in the light of the resurrection.
The teaching of Jesus.
The suffering of Jesus and, above all, we understand the cross in the light of the resurrection.
This is, by the way, the best and most powerful argument for going to church on Sunday.
Let’s give our brothers and sisters in faith this credit: it was on Sunday morning that the women and then the apostles discovered the empty tomb.
and that is the VERY BEST of reasons to celebrate.
We Are All In
Not that Paul says “we”. “We are of all people most to be pitied.”
We, including ones who thing the resurrection is “no big deal”.
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