Acts 2, 13 and other selected passages
Easter, April 8, 2007
Dr. Jerry Nelson
In study and preaching, my own soul is laid bare much too much for comfort.
Good Friday, Easter, observed once again.
I believe in
the death and resurrection of Jesus but I confess a lack of excitement.
Must I, for others, on Easter morning pretend a passion and joy that I don’t feel?
Like going to a football game where the yelling and cheering, including my own, temporarily suggest enthusiasm, Easter-music, well done, can give me a temporary sense of celebration.
I can get
caught up in the moment, but why are my emotions not moved at a much deeper
and lasting level?
Oh how well we know that facts alone don’t move the soul.
· I am a husband but that fact alone does not mean that my heart is engaged.
· I am a Christian made and being remade in the image of God but that fact alone does not mean that I feel love for God.
As I said, I
believe in the facts of the death and resurrection of Jesus, but they too often
feel mundane.
What can awaken my slumbering heart?
And you who do not even profess to be Christ-followers, why are you here this morning?
Is it habit,
or obligation, or is there possibly a faint wishing the resurrection were
actually true?
What can convince you and move me?
This I know: It cannot be conjured up.
As I said, something like it can be ginned up with the right music and sufficient effort but what can bring conviction and passion?
The Bible says it takes the Spirit of God using the Word of God.
Jesus said in John 6:44 “No one can come to
me unless the Father who sent me draws him.”
And the Bible further says in 1
Corinthians 2:14 “The man without the Spirit does not accept the things that come from the
Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him, and he cannot understand them,
because they are spiritually discerned.”
Ephesians 1:17-20 “I keep asking that
the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the glorious Father, may give you the Spirit
of wisdom and revelation, so that you may know him better. 18 I pray also that
the eyes of your heart may be enlightened in order that you may know the hope
to which he has called you, the riches of his glorious inheritance in the
saints, 19 and his
incomparably great power for us who believe. That power is like the working of
his mighty strength, 20 which he exerted in Christ when he raised him from the dead…”
That’s my
prayer this morning for you and for me.
PRAY (using Ephesians 1:17-20)
The most startling truth to which the Bible gives witness is the resurrection of Jesus.
The Bible’s claim that there is a God is not so startling; haven’t all civilizations believed that?
But that God
became a man and died and rose again that is unique!
All of Scripture hangs on that one pivotal historical event.
And it is not too much to say that all of human history hinges on that event.
If Jesus did not literally, physically rise from the dead then we don’t know anything about the purpose of life or the future of it.
If Jesus is dead, then the most we can know is that everything dies, us included.
But listen please to the testimony of those who were there.
The Apostle Peter stood before a crowd in Jerusalem just 50 days after the resurrection and said,
Acts 2:23-24 “This man was
handed over to you by God's set purpose and foreknowledge; and you, with the
help of wicked men, put him to death by nailing him to the cross. But God
raised him from the dead, freeing him from the agony of death, because it was
impossible for death to keep its hold on him.
The Apostle Paul stood before a crowd in the town of Antioch, just a few
years later, and said,
Acts 13:29-32 “When they (those who killed Jesus) had carried out all that was written about him, they took him down from the tree and laid him in a tomb. 30 But God raised him from the dead, 31 and for many days those who had traveled with him from Galilee to Jerusalem saw him. They are now his witnesses to our people. We tell you the good news: What God promised our fathers 33 he has fulfilled for us, their children, by raising up Jesus.”
The Bible says that is the good news, which is the gospel – Jesus has risen, he’s alive!
For a few minutes this morning I want you to please think with me about the implications of a dead Jesus who literally, physically rose from the dead and is alive today.
1. First, the
resurrection
of Jesus establishes who Jesus truly was and is.
Ancient religious literature is rife with stories of the death and
resurrection of gods.
Osiris of the ancient Egyptians and the
avatars of Hinduism were mythical gods who faked their humanity and only
appeared to die and rise again.
But the eternal, preexistent, Son of God, actually became a man.
The Bible says in Romans 1:3-4, Jesus “who
as to his human nature was a descendant of David, and who through the Spirit of
holiness was declared with power to be the Son of God by his resurrection from
the dead: Jesus Christ our Lord.”
It would surprise no one that a man would die or that a god would come
to life.
What is amazing is that God would die and
that a man, a human, would rise from the dead.
Christianity is unique in its claim that a
fully human being, the man Jesus, was raised from the dead.
He died in his humanity and he arose in his
humanity.
And the Bible declares that by his death and resurrection he proved who
he actually is – the infinite God/Man.
And as the infinite God/man he is able to do
for humanity, for us, what no one else could do.
Acts 4:12 “Salvation is found in no one else, for
there is no other name under heaven given to men by which we must be
saved."
The Resurrection
establishes who Jesus is yet today, fully God and fully man.
2. Secondly, the resurrection of Jesus is the
very root of our Christian faith.
The Apostle Paul said it so pointedly in 1 Corinthians 15:14,17 “And if
Christ has not been raised, our preaching is useless and so is your faith…If
Christ has not been raised, your faith is futile; you are still in your sins.”
There is no way
for a sinful people to have a relationship with a holy God other than through a
real forgiveness of sins.
But the forgiveness of sins would be evil, if those sins were not dealt
with justly.
Only through the sacrificial death of the perfect man,
Jesus, could our sins be atoned for and the wrath of God against us be averted.
And
only the resurrection proves the effectiveness of his sacrificial death.
“If Christ has not been raised, your faith is futile; you are still in
your sins.”
Listen again to
the Bible in Romans 4:25 “He (Jesus) was delivered over to death for (on
account of) our sins and was raised to life for (to bring about) our
justification. (See
Cranfield, Romans)
And Romans 5:10 “For if, when we were God's enemies, we were reconciled
to him through the death of his Son, how much more, having been reconciled,
shall we be saved through his life!”
Our life is now bound up with his life – his resurrection being
essential to his life and thus ours.
John Bunyon in his
allegory entitled Pilgrim’s Progress describes a man named Christian who
sets out to find God only to discover that he is irremediably hindered by his
burden of sin.
Then by God’s grace he came to the place of deliverance.
Bunyon described this way: “Christian came up to the cross; his burden
loosed from off his shoulders and fell from his back. It began to tumble and continued
to do so till it came to the mouth of the tomb where it fell in and I saw it no
more. Then was Christian glad and said with a merry heart, ‘He has given me
rest by his sorrow and life by his death… Then Christian gave three leaps for
joy and went on singing.”
The cross and the tomb, the death and resurrection of Jesus, make our
forgiveness possible.
Michael Alison, a
British policeman said,
My conviction about the certainty of the resurrection is based upon the
profound sense of forgiveness which I enjoy, in dissociating myself from the
dark deeds I have done or might do and associating them with the dead and
mutilated Christ. My old self is, in a way I can actually experience with
inward conviction, done away with and destroyed in Christ. The profoundest
element in my fellowship with God lies precisely in this: that he can allow
himself to be destroyed by the worst in me, and yet come back loving me.
Without the actual fellowship of knowing God in Christ, the past transference
of guilt would be merely expediency, a cause for deepening, not relieving,
self-centeredness and remorse.” (In Michael Green, The Day Death Died,
89)
Listen again to
the Bible. 1 Peter 1:3-4 “Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord
Jesus Christ! In his great mercy he has given us new birth into a
living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead,
4 and into an inheritance that
can never perish, spoil or fade--kept in heaven for you…”
The Resurrection of Jesus is the very root of our Christian faith.
3. Thirdly, the
resurrection of Jesus establishes a whole new future for us.
As I said earlier, without the resurrection of
Jesus we can be assured of nothing but death as our future.
And death has always been the great fear of all people,
both those who believe in life after death and those
who don’t fear it the same.
And all religions
and philosophies, in some way or another, attempt to deal with that fear.
William Butler Yeats in his poem “Death” wrote,
“Neither dread nor hope attend
A dying animal;
(but) A man awaits his end
Dreading and hoping all.”
(In Michael Green The Day Death Died, 99)
But those with no reason for hope, are left only with what poet Dylan
Thomas wrote:
“Do not go gentle into that (dark) night,
Old age should burn and rave at close of day;
Rage, rage against the dying light.”
But the Bible
proclaims the death and resurrection of a man.
The resurrection of the man Jesus introduces humanity to a new
experience – to real hope.
The resurrection of the MAN Jesus means a whole new possibility.
C.S. Lewis wrote,
that by his resurrection Jesus has “forced open a door that had been locked
since the death of the first man. Jesus has met, fought and beaten the king of
death. Everything is different because he has done so. This is the beginning of the new creation: a
new chapter in cosmic history has opened.” (C.S. Lewis in Miracles)
Another said, “In
the man Jesus the human race commenced its journey through death to life… As
forerunner, Jesus became our high priest and mediator. Opening the way for us,
he was the first to pass through every stage of human existence and experience,
including the stage of death resultant from the fall of Adam, and to attain
mankind’s new and definitive state, the Resurrection. Rising from the dead, he became
the true and efficacious Head of the human race… God’s eternal son became man
(and) took upon himself the fallen race of men, in order to re-create all
humanity through his own humanity.” (Richard Reardon, “The
Son Risen with Healing” p18-24 in Touchstone Journal April 2007)
Those who trust in
Jesus have begun their journey through this life, and eventually through death
into the life to come – resurrected life.
The resurrection of Jesus establishes a whole new future for us.
4.
Now fourthly, the resurrection of Jesus assures us that there is a physical life after death not just a
theoretical or ethereal life.
Jesus had a real physical body before his death and he had a real
physical body after his resurrection.
Luke wrote in Acts 1:3 “After his suffering, he (Jesus) showed
himself to these men and gave many convincing proofs that he was alive.
He appeared to them over a period of forty days and spoke about the kingdom of
God.”
Peter said it this way, Acts 10:40-41 “God
raised him from the dead on the third day and caused him to be seen.
He was not seen by all the people, but by witnesses whom God had already
chosen--by us who ate and drank with him after he rose from the dead.
Paul testified in Acts 13:30 “But God raised him from the dead, 31 and for many days
he was seen by those who had traveled with him from Galilee to
Jerusalem.”
Just over a month ago the Discovery Channel released a film entitled,
Before the press conference to
announce the $4 million documentary, the director said, "It's
mind-boggling. It's an altered reality.”
The burial box of Jesus and one belonging to Mary Magdalene will be on
display.
James Tabor, chair of religious studies at the University of North Carolina… says the film cannot be as easily dismissed as The Divinci Code novel, even though it too suggests that Jesus had a child with Mary Magdalene.
"This
is archeology. We’ve got the casket. We've got the bones; I think we can say,
in all probability, Jesus had this son, Jude, presumably through Mary
Magdalene." February 26, 2007
Toronto Star http://www.thestar.com/article/185708
As I mentioned a couple of weeks ago, even the press found this whole thing absurd, as did most historians and archeologists.
But to me the claim that the remains of Jesus’ body were in a grave in Jerusalem was not the most striking feature of these stories.
What is most disturbing was the director’s claim that it shouldn’t matter to Christianity.
He said that the discovery of Jesus’ bones should not shake anyone's belief in the resurrection of Jesus, saying he consulted several theologians in making the film.
They believe
Jesus rose spiritually but not physically.
But that belief is even harder to accept than Jesus marrying and fathering a child.
Because the Bible is very clear about Jesus physical resurrection.
He went to great lengths to demonstrate his physical body to them.
He talked to
them, he walked with them, he ate with them, and they touched him.
As Luke said it, “he showed himself to these men and gave many convincing proofs that he was alive. He appeared to them over a period of forty days.”
Most people then
and now believe in some kind of spiritual presence after death.
But Jesus impressed his followers with the truth of his physical
presence, a flesh and bone resurrection, so much so that they were fully
convinced and radically changed men and women.
And one of the
most central and encouraging claims of the Bible is that because Jesus lives we
too shall live.
And our future is not merely in the short-lived memory of those who follow us.
Neither is our future found only in our absorption into the great oneness of the cosmos.
But neither is our future found only in disembodied spirits floating forever in some God-consciousness.
The Bible tells us that when Jesus comes again, our bodies will be raised and joined with our spirits; we will be whole again.
And the Bible says that when Jesus comes again, God is going to recreate the heavens and the earth.
And in real, touchable, physical, human bodies we will be forever with the Lord and his people on the new earth.
The
resurrection of Jesus assures us that after death there is physical life with
Jesus when he comes again.
1 Thessalonians
4:13-17 “We do not want you to…grieve like the rest of men, who have no hope.
We believe that Jesus died and rose again and so we believe (that when Jesus
comes again) the dead in Christ will rise…”
5.
But now fifthly, the resurrection of Jesus is not only about life yet to come,
but Jesus’ resurrection also gives purpose and dignity to our lives now as easy or difficult as they
may presently be.
If there is no
resurrection, if death is the end, then what is the point?
Life becomes meaningless.
There is so much
injustice, unfairness, cruelty, and evil in this world and if in the end death
wins, is that it?
Is there no vindication?
If I labor to do right and good and it all ends
in death, what is the point?
But if Jesus, God,
the righteous judge is alive and is coming again, the right and the wrong
matter – really matter.
Life is not meaningless
But life has dignity and value.
Not only will good
be vindicated in the end but also the risen Jesus said that the Kingdom of God,
the rule of God, is growing now.
Something good is happening now and God calls us to participate in his
kingdom work.
My part may be
large or small.
My part may be obvious to all or my part may be so obscure that it is
even hidden to me so that all I can do is be faithful.
My getting up, being kind to others, living ethically
and morally, doing what is before me day after day is exactly what God has
called me to.
Micah 6:8 He has showed you, O man, what is good.
And what does the LORD
require of you?
To act justly and to love mercy
and to walk humbly with your
God.
I have spoken
before of one our Partners, Ervin Innes.
Ervin has lived most of his 70 plus years of life in relentless pain
that has kept him from being able to earn a living for his family and has kept
him from being able to do what his highly intelligent mind is capable of.
And yet Ervin is
one of the most joyful people I have ever met.
Until eyesight failed him, he would peck out letters of encouragement on
an old typewriter and send them to the people for whom he spent hours each day
in prayer.
When I think of
Jesus’ words about the servant to whom he gave only a few talents to invest, I
think of Ervin.
And then I think of the greatest words one could possibly wish to hear
from the King of the Universe: “Well done good and faithful servant, enter into
the joy of your Lord.”
Whether our
actions are perceived as great or small, they matter.
My life matters because Jesus is alive and that risen Jesus says it
matters and it matters to Him!
Jesus’ resurrection also gives purpose and dignity to our
lives now as easy or difficult as they may presently be.
6. The sixth
implication of the resurrection of Jesus is that I’m not alone.
Jesus stood with his disciples and said in Matthew 28:20 “Surely I am
with you always, to the very end of the age.”
The Jesus who claimed that “with-ness” was the resurrected
Jesus.
It is
so very possible to be alone in the midst of a crowd.
One man said, “Jesus is the only person with whom I can
communicate in every situation, knowing immediately that he has understood
completely…I find it difficult to believe that he loves me and cares about the
smallest as well as the largest details of my life; that he is willing and able
to forgive me time after time for doing what I know to be wrong. But experience
has show that all this is true and I am assured it always will be.” (quoted
in Michael Green, The Day Death Died, 91)
The Bible says, Deuteronomy 31:8 “The LORD himself goes before you and
will be with you; he will never leave you nor forsake you. Do not be afraid; do
not be discouraged."
The resurrection of Jesus means that he is with me.
7. The last
implication I mention today is that the resurrection of Jesus feeds my passion
for obedience and witness.
Look with me
briefly at those men and women who were convinced of the physical resurrection
of Jesus.
In the first
public appearance of the disciples after Jesus’ ascension to heaven this is
what they so boldly declared:
Acts 2:23-24 “(Jesus) was handed
over to you by God's set purpose and foreknowledge; and you, with the help of
wicked men, put him to death by nailing him to the cross. 24 But God
raised him from the dead, freeing him from the agony of death, because it was
impossible for death to keep its hold on him… 2:29-32 “Brothers… (Christ) was not abandoned to the grave, nor
did his body see decay. God has raised this Jesus to life, and we
are all witnesses of the fact.
Later, standing in the Temple courtyard, Peter dared to say,
Acts 3:14-15 “You disowned the Holy and
Righteous One and asked that a murderer be released to you. 15 You killed the
author of life, but God raised him from the dead. We are witnesses
of this.”
No one misunderstood what the disciples were teaching.
Acts 4:2
“They were greatly disturbed because the apostles were teaching the
people and proclaiming, in Jesus, the resurrection of the dead.
Threatened, to
keep them from speaking,
Acts 5:29-32 , “Peter and the other apostles replied: "We must obey
God rather than men! 30 The God of our fathers raised Jesus from the dead--whom
you had killed by hanging him on a tree. 31 God exalted him to his own right hand as
Prince and Savior that he might give repentance and forgiveness of sins to
Israel. 32 We are
witnesses of these things, and so is the Holy Spirit, whom God has given to
those who obey him."
Again Peter declared to a Gentile audience:
10:39-41 “"We are witnesses of everything he did
in the country of the Jews and in Jerusalem. They killed him by hanging him on
a tree, 40 but God
raised him from the dead on the third day and caused him to be seen. 41 He was not seen
by all the people, but by witnesses whom God had already chosen--by us who ate
and drank with him after he rose from the dead.
Even the pagans
understood what the Christians were preaching:
Acts 17:18: “They said this because Paul was preaching the good news
about Jesus and the resurrection.
This is what we
find throughout the book of Acts and the rest of the New Testament.
Those disciples believed it!
They staked their lives on it.
And it was not
just the apostles.
Acts 8:1,4 “On that day a great persecution broke out against the church
at Jerusalem, and all except the apostles were scattered throughout
Judea and Samaria… Those who had been scattered preached the word
(the “good news” of the resurrection) wherever they went.”
For all of us who
accept the truth of the resurrection of Jesus we can say with the Apostle Paul:
Romans 1:16 “I am not ashamed of the gospel,
because it is the power of God for the salvation of everyone who believes…”
1.
The resurrection of Jesus establishes who Jesus is yet today, fully God and
fully man.
2. The resurrection
of Jesus is the very root of our Christian faith.
3. The resurrection
of Jesus establishes a whole new future for us.
4. The
resurrection of Jesus assures us that after death there is physical life with
him when he comes again.
5. The
resurrection of Jesus gives purpose and dignity to our lives now.
6. The resurrection
of Jesus means that he is with me now and forever.
7. The resurrection
of Jesus feeds my passion for obedience and witness.
Pray:
“Oh Spirit of God,
capture not only our minds but our hearts with how stupendous this truth of the
resurrection of Jesus truly is.
Deliver us from being so accustomed to the facts that we miss their
power.
Stir in our hearts the awesome reality and
significance of a risen Savior.
The words of Mary
and Peter express our desire:
"My soul glorifies the Lord and my spirit rejoices in God my
Savior.”
“Praise be to the
God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! In his great mercy he has given us new
birth into a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead