Easter Sermon

The Wonder of It All

Matthew 28 

¹ Now after the Sabbath, as the first day of the week began to dawn, Mary Magdalene and the other Mary came to see the tomb. ² And behold, there was a great earthquake; for an angel of the Lord descended from heaven, and came and rolled back the stone from the door,^[a] and sat on it. ³ His countenance was like lightning, and his clothing as white as snow. ⁴ And the guards shook for fear of him, and became like dead men.
⁵ But the angel answered and said to the women, "Do not be afraid, for I know that you seek Jesus who was crucified. ⁶ He is not here; for He is risen, as He said. Come, see the place where the Lord lay. ⁷ And go quickly and tell His disciples that He is risen from the dead, and indeed He is going before you into Galilee; there you will see Him. Behold, I have told you."
⁸ So they went out quickly from the tomb with fear and great joy, and ran to bring His disciples word.

⁹ And as they went to tell His disciples,^[b] behold, Jesus met them, saying, "Rejoice!" So they came and held Him by the feet and worshiped Him. ¹⁰ Then Jesus said to them, "Do not be afraid. Go and tell My brethren to go to Galilee, and there they will see Me."

¹¹ Now while they were going, behold, some of the guard came into the city and reported to the chief priests all the things that had happened. ¹² When they had assembled with the elders and consulted together, they gave a large sum of money to the soldiers, ¹³ saying, "Tell them, 'His disciples came at night and stole Him away while we slept.' ¹⁴ And if this comes to the governor's ears, we will appease him and make you secure." ¹⁵ So they took the money and did as they were instructed; and this saying is commonly reported among the Jews until this day.

¹⁶ Then the eleven disciples went away into Galilee, to the mountain which Jesus had appointed for them. ¹⁷ When they saw Him, they worshiped Him; but some doubted.
¹⁸ And Jesus came and spoke to them, saying, "All authority has been given to Me in heaven and on earth. ¹⁹ Go therefore^[c] and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, ²⁰ teaching them to observe all things that I have commanded you; and lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the age." Amen.

 

Good Friday I was sitting in my office. While I was sitting in my office I had made a playlist with my Itunes so that I could listen to songs about the cross. Most of my favorite songs in our hymnbook are about the sacrifice of Christ. Old Rugged Cross. Nothing But the Blood of Jesus. There is Power in the Blood. I Love to Tell the Story. I love the old-time gospel hymns.

Even more though, as it comes to Good Friday, if I really want to meditate on Christ and the cross, I prefer the songs with minor keys that end in question marks. "What Wondrous Love Is This, O My Soul?" and "Were You There?". Like the songs of Advent, the songs of the cross have more questions than you might expect. Songs like "Why Should You Love Me So? Or songs like And Can it Be? Consider the hymn At the Cross which says "Alas and did my Savior bleed? And did my sovereign die? Would he devote that Sacred Head for sinners such as I?" Why all of these questions in all of these hymns?

Here is what I think? Because the proper response to the cross, once we have received the forgiveness of Christ, is awe and wonder. That is why we have hymns like "When I Survey the Wondrous Cross", "What Wondrous Love Is this?" As the hymn "My Savior's Love" expresses it, "I stand amazed in the presence of Jesus the Nazerene, And wonder how He could love ME, A sinner condemned unclean. How Marvelous! How wonderful! And my song shall ever be…"

I had a seminary professor, who has sense went to be with the Lord, who challenged us with this charge as pastors often in his class. "If you learn anything from me," he said, "Learn this. Never forget the wonder of it all. Never get so caught up in being pastor and in managing a church that you forget 'the wonder of it all".

Yet often when we get to Easter morning, with our pretty dresses and hats, our family and friends in church with us, the bright and shining sun outside, it becomes easy to lose the awe and wonder of what Jesus has done in the middle of the festivities of this wonderful holiday. Pastors, on the other hand, often miss the wonder too. We get very eager on Easter morning. We know for many of you that are here this morning, it is a one-shot deal. You are here with a grandma, grandchild, wife, or friend. And we might see you today at Easter, and that is about it. We try and preach the perfect sermon, thinking that it is in our power to win some of you over in one fantastic sermon. So we get wound up and try and fit 4 sermons into one message, and you end up sleepy in church and late for dinner.

I am not smart enough or skilled enough as a preacher to pull off that kind of perfect sermon. So this morning, I want us to do something simple. I want us to take time this morning, to just ponder the wonder of it all. The wonder of what Jesus did as he rose from that grave on Easter. The wonder of what that means for us, even today.

You cannot read the Gospel of Matthew without sensing the wonder of those disciples and friends of Jesus. After Jesus died the Bible says that the curtain of the Holy of Holies was torn in two. The earth quaked. Rocks split into pieces. Graves were opened.

The Bible says that right about sunrise, that the women came to the tomb of Jesus. They came to the tomb to care for his body. And as they were coming to care for him, just as the sun was rising, there was an earthquake. And then there was something that looked like lightning. All of this happened right as they were about to arrive at the tomb. They came to the entrance of the tomb and something amazing happened. The stone was rolled away from the tomb. An angel was sitting on top of the stone he rolled away. The soldiers that were guarding the tomb because the Jewish leaders feared that the disciples would stage a resurrection, were cowering in fear. They were paralyzed with fear. The Bible says they were shaking and that they were at the same time unable to move otherwise…paralyzed like dead men. It was like those movies where all of the sudden time stops and everybody else is frozen except for the main characters. That is the way it was as the women came to the tomb, except it was real life.

The angel said to not be afraid. The angel said that Jesus was risen. That the tomb was now empty. The angel said to go get the disciples, and to have the disciples meet Jesus in Galilee. The were shown that there was no body where the body was laid. Then the Bible says that the women hustled back to tell the disciples that Jesus was risen.

On the way back to the disciples, Jesus met them along the road. The Bible says that they women fell down at his feet and worshipped him and tried to hold on to His feet. Did you notice that. They saw the resurrected Jesus and what was their first response? Awe! Wonder! Worship! O the wonder of it all. This risen Jesus. It is far more than what they expected. It was far more that we expect. And we wonder. What does this mean? What kind of Messiah is this? What kind of hope does this Jesus offer? It moves us to wonder and awe.

So often in our world, we think of Jesus as something other than we see him in Scripture. There is this movie, rather irreverent toward Catholics, called Dogma. In it there is this priest that offers absolution of sin if people will come to a church in New Jersey, and worship before this statue of Jesus called "Buddy Jesus". "Buddy Jesus" is a creation of priest played by George Carlin, who believes that the church has gotten too serious and drab. So people need to just think of God as their cosmic Buddy and everything will be alright with the world. There is also this TV show on almost every week called South Park. In the show South Park, Jesus makes regular appearances. Primarily, Jesus shows up as this self-help guru that wants everyone to be nice and get along. Once in a while he does a little miracle to keep people interested. But Jesus is not the Lord of the Universe really. He is just a very nice man who wants to help people.

Both of these shows present Jesus this way, not because they believe Jesus is like this. If you pay attention to the show's message, they intend this to challenge people. Why? Because we try to make Jesus into our buddy, or this nagging do-gooder a lot of times. And the Biblical truth is that Jesus is something completely different than that.. The risen Lord comes to us victorious. The Resurrected Jesus comes to us with might and power. And when we encounter him, when we truly meet Him, we must either cower and run away in fear, or fall down in worship, awe and wonder.

In the Gospel of Matthew, it is Jesus' power that fills us with awe and wonder.

Jesus is more powerful than the Jewish leaders. They heard that Jesus has said that he would rise again. So they got the Romans to send guard to the tomb. They put him in this tomb. And they rolled a rock in front of the tomb. The way that these tombs worked is that a slope was dug out so that once the rock was rolled down it, 5 or 6 men would have a hard time rolling it back up. This is so that people don't go and rob graves. When Jesus rose again, he proved the righteousness of the religious leaders wrong. They were exposed for the money-grubbers and political hacks that they were. Instead of being proved righteous by God, they proved themselves to be liars and crooks. Jesus was more holy, and true and powerful than the Jewish leaders. He rose again, just like he said he would.

Jesus proved himself more powerful than military superpowers of this world. There were Roman soldiers guarding the tomb of Jesus. A seal was put on the tomb. They were to guard that seal with their lives. These soldiers guarding the tomb were the best soldiers in the best army in the world. They were used to killing. They were feared by the whole world. If they failed in their mission, they most likely would either be facing dishonorable discharge or death. And yet, at the resurrection, these manliest of manly men, these most violent of violent men, were shaking and cowering like a 5 year old little girl trying to hide behind her mother's leg when forced to greet a stranger. Then they took a large bribe to disappear after they failed in their mission. Jesus proves himself, at his resurrection, more powerful than any military might. A crucified, bloodied, and then resurrected Jesus was more powerful at his weakest moment than all the soldiers of Rome.

Jesus is more powerful than any of the great philosophers. The great philosophers were full of wonderful ideas. Ideas on how to run governments, and on how to live with honor. They also died. They were killed by governments. They killed themselves. They died in their own beds and had funerals with honor. Jesus died a painful death. The hung him on a cross. He suffered there and he died. They ran a spear through his side to prove that he was dead. He had no pulse. No breathe. He said, "It is finished". But on Easter morning he rose again. He proved the truth of his teachings with his actions. His philosophy was not just something to think about. It was THE WAY to live by.

Since then philosophers have tried to reason their way out of the resurrection. They have said that his body was stolen. The witnesses prove them wrong. They have said he just passed out. It is clear this is not true, the spear in the side proves he was dead. They have said there were mass hallucinations. The amount of people he appeared to, and the diversity of places he appeared proves this wrong. So does the rapid growth of the church, who based their whole exisitence on the resurrection of Jesus. If he wasn't risen, don't you think they could have gone to his grave and pointed to it and said, "There he is! Right there!" But they can't do that, because the truth of Jesus triumphs above all other truths, and it is what anything called true is judged by. I don't know about you, but for me that moves me to wonder and awe. How wonderful, how amazing Jesus is! There is none like him. It leads me to awe and wonder and worship and praise.

Jesus was more powerful than Satan. Satan attempted to tempt Jesus in the beginning. He attempted to use Judas to thwart Jesus' mission in the world by sending Jesus to the cross. Satan tempted disciples to run away in fear and doubt. And the Enemy thought he had won when Jesus died on the cross. But the presence of the angel at the tomb saying he is risen tells us something else. It tells us that Jesus was victorious over the Devil and his schemes. Jesus at his weakest defeated Satan when he was landing his strongest blow. Jesus has triumphed over the evil one, and he rises again to offer his disciples that victory as well. And to me, that leaves me in awe and wonder. Than inspires worship and praise.

Jesus is more powerful than sin and death. The Bible says that at the time Jesus was resurrected the saints of old were resuscitated, and they wandered around and shared the good news of new life to those around them. They showed that Jesus had conquered sin and death. And Jesus rising from the dead, THE DEAD, on the third day, shows that death has no power over him. Death cannot hold him. He holds the keys to death and life. He has conquered death on the cross.

Tony Campolo tells the story of his wife's father upon his death. Knowing he was about to die, he got a far off look in his eye. And he sat up, and he cried out "O Death Where is thy victory? O Death where is thy Sting?" Then he fell down to his bed, barely able to breathe. Again "O Death, where is thy victory? O Death where is thy sting?" He fell down again. Finally "O Death where is thy victory? O Death, where is thy sting?"

This last week we lost our previous Pastor, Rev. Fred Allen. He had pastored here faithfully for 7 years, obeying his Lord in coming to Fowler. Leaving this church as God led him on. We grieve him. Heck, I feel his loss on my heart this weekend and I have never met him or spoken with him. I have only seen the fruit of his labor,

While Pastor Fred was here, he had the honor and privilege of burying many of your loved ones. I was told he had nearly 30 funerals in one year. He shared Christ's compassion with you as you cried, and he shared the hope of Christ with you during those hard times. He buried people with names. Names that are on your lips now. I am not going to make a list, because I know I will forget some very special people if I do. Some of them have crosses around the building hanging in their honor, others have plaques on pianos, or have hymnbooks dedicated in their names.

The Scripture says we are surrounded by a great cloud of witnesses. I have some idea of what that means, but I can only imagine what it is like. And when I do, I see several loved ones I know,ones that have loved me, ones that have taught me about Jesus, and ones that have taught you and shown you about Jesus too.Aand now I see Pastor Fred, even though I have not met him he is my brother, and I see his guitar in hand. And when we cry out HE IS RISEN, they cry out in a might chorus through the ages with full knowledge of what Christ has done AHHHH HE IS RISEN INDEED. HE IS RISEN INDEED.

He is risen friends. HE IS RISEN (Gesture to the congregation) He is risen indeed!

OH THE WONDER OF IT ALL MY FRIENDS! THE WONDER OF IT ALL!