04/16 - He Is Risen!!

He Is Risen!!
 Matthew 28:1-10

Are You Ready for Easter? 

>  If you could pick your own, "Best News EVER," what would it be?

• No war? No famine?  Sicknesses cured?  Death vanquished!?!
• How about the promise of all of the above?

>  That is what the we mean when we say  Jesus the Christ is ALIVE!

• He is RISEN! And we MUST share this, that it happened, and what it means! 
  
  

Christ Risen in History, in Defiance of Meaninglessness and Death

>  Yes, even people back then knew that the dead stayed that way!

• Gentiles believed in nothingness, or that the body was crude and corrupt...
• Jews were divided, only imagining a resuscitation (like Lazarus)
• Even some (sophisticated?) Christians...
• 1 Corinthians 15:14-19 NLT
• For "moderns," we have tried to limit faith to teaching "truth," rather than "facts."That doesn't work on Easter!

>  Paul had it right: if Jesus was not alive on that first Sunday after Passover, then the whole thing is a cheat.  Everything is pointless...

• BetrandRussel represents this view:“...only on the firm foundation of unyielding despair, can the soul’s habitation henceforth be safely built.”

>  Paul: 

• Cor15:20 But in fact, Christ has been raised from the dead. He is the first of a great harvest of all who have died.
• An open challenge to the readers of the letter: go ask the eyewitnesses, or ask the Romans to produce the body (see 1 Corinthians 15:3-8)

>  God doesn't ask us to surrender our reason, but to honestly use it!

>  This is the pivot point of human history, on which all of it turns!

• A world without Christ is a world that retains the practice of slavery, rejects the equality and complimentarity of women and men, retains the horrors of infanticide and the dehumanization of the "other"
• A world without Christ is a world characterized by the human sacrifices of the Aztecs, the gas chambers of Nazi Germany, and the ruler worship and idolatry of modern North Korea (we see their true darkness by the Light of the Son)
  
  
• A world without Christ is a world without challenge to the Rabbinic prayer, "Blessed are You, God, our Lord, King of the universe, who has not made me a Gentile;... not made me a slave; ... not made me a woman."

 

Christ Risen in the Heart of Believers, in the Midst of the Kingdom Work

>  This pivot point of human history is the pivot point of our lives!

• We are called into the world love our neighbors as ourselves, to visit the sick and imprisoned, to act out of compassion and agape (selfless) love.
• We live in a world that still struggles against the darkness, yet where the light of Christ still shines in the hears and through the actions of His disciples
• And we are told, in God's word, that in Christ... Galatians 3:28-29 NLT There is no longer Jew or Gentile, slave or free, male and female. For you are all one in Christ Jesus. And now that you belong to Christ, you are the true children of Abraham. You are his heirs, and God’s promise to Abraham belongs to you.

>  The Choice we make as a body, and as individual disciples: 

• Will we allow Christ to dwell at the center of our lives, will we enthrone Him as the king of our decisions?Will we allow Him to shape and fortify our closest relationships, to make them truly loving and life-giving?
• Will we accept that our actions have eternal meaning and allow Him to work the painful yet joyful process of transformation, making us into what God made us to be?
• Will we choose to be not just on the "right side of history," but on the "right side of His-Story?"
• Will our hearts ring out with joy at the coming of the King in power and glory?

>  The Promise:

• A southern illustration:Do you like blackberry pies?  How do you know a good pie is not far off?  When you walk down the driveway and find that first ripe berry...
• Easter is not just the celebration of what has happened, but what is on the horizon. Jesus is the "first fruit," proving the harvest to come.
• The Promise is one of New Life, and Light banishing darkness, of the fulfillment of our deepest and most sacred desires for reunion and redemption and resurrection!