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Our Old Testament lesson is taken from Deuteronomy 14:3-20:
Our New Testament lesson is 1 Corinthians 15:50-57:
May God bless this the reading of His holy and infallible Word.
Has it ever occured to you that every new day begins in total darkness?
Twelve AM or midnight is the darkest hour of the night.
This was even more evident for the Hebrews, as they marked the beginning of a new day with the setting of the sun.
We are told the women came to the tomb of Jesus in the darkness.
Of course, it was not just the darkness of the night, but their souls were filled with the darkness of grief.
My sermon this morning will begin in the darkness.
There is a reason for this.
We cannot appreciate the light, until we have experienced the darkness.
This pattern of darkness followed by light was intentionally ordained by God for this very reason.
Psalm 30:5 says, “Weeping may tarry for the night, but joy comes in the morning.”
So let us be brave this morning and look intently at the darkness in order to experience the full joy of the resurrection.
Our World is Filled with Death and Decay
It is easy to deny this fact, because our world is filled with so much beauty and life, especially in Springtime, but the fact remains that everything and everyone now living will die.
The rotting leaves of Fall and Winter are testament of this.
Where did this death come from?
Scripture reveals to us that it is from sin.
Writing to the Roman Christians, Paul says,
The beauty and life of this present world are the residual glory of the original creation.
Scripture tells us that Moses met with God in the Tent of Meeting and when He came out his face shown with the glory of God.
However, as time went on that glory faded.
This is what is happening to our world.
Scripture teaches us that this present world will become so evil that it is destined to be destroyed by fire!
As I said earlier, we live in denial of this fact.
This is why God has given us His Law:
The Law was Designed to Remind Us of This
One of the purposes of the Law according to Paul is to “shown to be sin, and through the commandment might become sinful beyond measure.”
(Romans 7:13) This is especially true of the cleanliness laws.
Most modern readers are confused by these laws, but there is a common thread that run through them all that teaches us their purpose.
All the things in the Old Testament that were to be considered “unclean” had to do with death and decay.
Meat could only be eaten if its “life blood” is drained out of it.
Think about it, our blood more than anything else represents our life.
Consequently, any animal that was a carnivore or omnivore was “unclean”, because obviously they did not properly drain the blood out of the meat they ate.
In addition, scavengers and bottom feeders were “unclean” because they ate plants and animals that were decaying.
Finally, there were those animals that either walked or crawled around in the filth, such as pigs.
Even if a Jew perfectly followed all these dietary rules, there were other cleanliness laws that every Jew would break at one time or another.
All the was to remind them that they were “unclean” because of their sin.
This is the reason Paul writes in our text today, “flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God”.
The Law is God’s “one, two punch”; the moral law is God’s left jab that knocks us back on our heels and the cleanliness laws are God’s right hook that sends us down to the mat!
As strange as it might seem, this is a good thing!
Only those who know how great their sin and misery are, will turn to Christ as their Lord and Savior.
Now that we know how dark the night is, let us walk into the joy of the morning!
Jesus Gives Us Victory Over Sin and Death!
Victory over sin and death is the meaning of Easter.
Easter is not a celebration of the new life spring brings, but the new life Christ brings!
Many in the Corinthian church thought the resurrection was an optional doctrine.
“Why do we need our bodies resurrected,” they would argue, “do our spirits not go directly to be with the Lord when we died?”
Using the same reasoning, some would even ask, “Why did Jesus have to be resurrected?”
The answer to their questions, is that we would still be “unclean”!
The flesh and blood of “unclean” animals is only “unclean” because it is associated with the effects of sin.
If Jesus did not rise from the dead, even our spirits would be “unclean”.
The resurrection of Jesus is the proof that Jesus’ death on the cross truly took care of the sin problem.
Because Jesus died and rose again, we can be clean both body and soul!
This is the victory that Paul is speaking of in our text this morning.
In Mark 7:19, Jesus declares all food clean, in Luke 11:41, he declares all things clean, and in Acts 10 Peter had a vision:
There is a very good reason why an Easter Ham is the show piece of the family feast in a Christian home.
It is a bold reminder that Jesus has won the victory over the sin that makes us unclean!
There is perhaps no animal more unclean than a pig, but even a pig’s filth is made clean by the blood of Jesus!
Perhaps you feel filthy today, because of sin.
If this is the way you feel, be assured Jesus can make you clean!
What is the proof you ask?
The proof is the empty tomb.
“O death, where is your victory?
O death, where is your sting?”
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