041406 Easter If we hope for this life only

If we hope for this life only,

we are without any real hope at all.

Did you know what the word Easter means, and where it comes from? Some Christian people today make a big deal out of it because Easter is the name of the Teutonic fertility goddess of Spring. She was known all over the world, but the name she best known by is the Babylonian AAstarte.@

Jesus= resurrection came at the same time of year as these pagan Spring festivals. To change people=s thinking about this time of year from thoughts of pagan celebration to Jesus= Resurrection, the church kept the ancient nameCAEaster.@ But the Christian Easter is by no means anything close to being a pagan celebration. Our Easter is a celebration of the bodily Resurrection of Jesus Christ. And that has significance for you and me that is unparalleled in this world.

Other historical customs celebrating the new life of Spring have also continued. Rabbits and eggs, for example. Rabbits being a symbol of fertility. You know the old saying about how quickly rabbits multiply. That comes from an old pagan custom. Eggs also symbolized the new life that comes in Spring-time. The ancient Druids, Hindus, Japanese, Chinese, and Babylonians celebrated the arrival of Spring with what they called sacred eggs. Of course rabbits and eggs cannot give life that has overcome sin, death and the Devil. But Jesus can, and continues to do so as a direct result of His bodily Resurrection. We could focus on these earthly symbols and risk losing sight of the reality and purpose of Jesus= Resurrection.

Satan works hard trying to get us so absorbed in non-essentials like, bunnies and eggs and celebrations of Spring so that our Ahope in Christ@ might be lost. That should not surprise us. Satan=s goal for us is to leave us with ano hope, bno faith, cno confidence, dno strength, eno forgiveness, fno purpose in living. And if he can lead us off the real thing to focus on non-essentials, he succeeds.

By ourselves, we are hopeless and helpless against Satan=s sly little tricks and onslaughts. Without Christ, there is no strength or confidence to overcome our greatest problemsCsin, death, and the Devil. Our rebellious hearts of unbelief and disobedience just do not allow it.

But this is precisely why Jesus went willingly to the cross of Calvary. His greatest desire is for us to find rest for our souls, and a place of refreshment each and every day of our life. He desires to give us the experience of His Resurrected life even now. Every Lord=s Day, every Sunday is to be a Amini-Easter@ because the Resurrection took place on Sunday. It is the time when we recall all the promises of God that are Yes and Amen in the grace gained for us by Jesus Christ. Someone recently commented that worship for them was a time of refreshment, a time of restoration, a time of rest. They have it right. Worship is about God doing something for us, not us doing something for God.

Easter, you see, is the decisive day in world history that your history even today. St. Paul reminds us: AIf Christ has not been raised, your faith is futile; you are still in your sins@ (1 Cor 15:17). The Resurrection of Jesus is God=s decisive act to bless all humanity with the fruit of Righteousness that has overcome, sin, death, and the Devil. But, we should not think that this is something useful only for this life. As we heard in our text: AIf only for this life we have hope in Christ, we are to be pitied more than all men.@ Pitied more than all people because the Resurrection has to do with eternal, heavenly things, as well as temporal earthbound things.

This is why Satan wants to pervert all great celebrations of the church. He wants us to believe that we are still in our sins. He wants us to feel that faith is only an exercise in futility. He wants us to have no hope in Christ. He wants us to remain in the darkness and despair and aimlessness of the disciples that first Easter morning. He wants us to live as if Christ is not risen. He wants us to be shrouded in gloom and death. There are so many varieties of his lies rampant in the world today. Books, television, radio, and the internet, are filled with them.

So, this raises an important question for each of us to consider: Has our faith in the risen Christ been damaged in some way? Are we absolutely sure that Jesus, the Redeemer of all mankind, lives? Are we still convinced that because He lives we too shall live? Or, have we begun to wonder if what we have here in this life is really all that there is? Religion never saved even one soul. The revelation of the Jesus of the Bible is the basis of Christian faith. That includes creation, the virgin birth, death, resurrection and ascension of Jesus. God=s Word is not a dead letter having no eternal benefit or life. The Word of God is a living Word that God has given to us to connect us to His very own Life through Jesus Christ. This is the point: If you do not know the Savior in your heart of hearts, you Aare to be pitied more than all people.@ Even more than those who live and die as Hindus and Buddhists and Muslims. They may never have had the opportunity to hear what you heard and see what you seen because you are Christ=s. They may never know of the feast the Lord has prepared for all peoples, as Isaiah describes it. They may never know that death has been swallowed up forever by victory because Jesus Christ is risen from the dead (Is 25:6, 8).

There was once an interview with Maya Angelou. She=s the poet who was asked to write for President Clinton=s inauguration in 1993. The  Christian Science Monitor interviewer David Holmstrom, states:

To readers of her five autobiographical books, Angelou has told her life=s story with bone-hard honesty and clarity. As a black child she experienced poverty and physical abuse. For a time she lived in cars in a junkyard.@

Holmstrom: After so many different experiences in your lifeCearly poverty, living in Europe and Africa, awards for writing, international recognitionCwhat do you trust?

Angelou: I have to translate that into the question AWhat do I know?@ I can only trust what I know, and the only thing I trust is the love of God. That is all, and even though my knowledge and understanding of that sometimes wavers, that is the rock of my life.

She continues: I believe I can do three things: I can cook. I can write. And I can drive. Given an assignment in any of those three areas, I believe I will carry out the assignments with grace and maybe even some flashes of brilliance. I trust myself in the kitchen, in a car, and with the yellow pad. But the big trust is that I am a child of God. That is the most amazing thing to me, and it still brings me tears of joy Y

Holmstrom: Earlier I asked you what you trusted. What do you fear?

Angelou: Very little. I go back to the extremely mind-blowing knowledge that I am a child of God. There is a song I love (sings):

My father is rich in houses and land

He holds the wealth of the world in his hands.

His coffers are filled with silver and gold.

My father has riches;

He has riches untold,

And I am the child of the King.

Do you know yourself as the Achild of the King@? I hope so.

St. Paul expresses confidence in Christ: AAs for you, you were dead in your transgressions and sins.Y We were by nature objects of wrath. But because of his great love for us, God, who is rich in mercy, made us alive with Christ even when we were dead in transgressionsCit is by grace you have been saved@ (Eph 2:1, 3B5).

The fertility cults like the Spring celebration of AAstarte@ cannot give you what you need most in life. They cannot give you eternal life in the presence of God=s glory. They cannot bless you with reminders of what God has done for you. That will forever remain in the Easter event of the Lord=s Resurrection. And when His Resurrected life engages our life, we are never the most to be pitied among people, but the most blessed among people. God be praised, Christ is risen. Amen.