Living Resurrection a sermon fo

New Creation Unleashed

a sermon for Easter on John 20.1-18 by David C. Mauldin Westminster Presbyterian Church, Mobile, Alabama

Do you believe this story? Or do you consider it a fairy tale? Wishful thinking? A delusion? A dream? Or something more sinister—a deception?

I have preached before about why you ought to believe in the resurrection. It is a matter of more than faith. Sound historical reasoning makes faith credible—although not unavoidable. If you want to believe the resurrection never happened, you can still convince yourself it didn’t. But you ought not think that people who believe Jesus lives are kidding themselves. So long as you are willing to admit that you do not possess comprehensive knowledge of everything in the universe—and thus there may be someone out there who can do things your experience has taught you not to expect—then you have to be open to the possibility, at least in theory. And from there the evidence speaks for itself. Faith has its reasons.

As I say, I have preached these reasons before and will again. But today my aim is different. Today I want to present the literal meaning of the resurrection. By literal I mean the practical, on-the-ground consequences of a risen Jesus—as opposed to symbolic interpretations. Symbolic interpretations have value too. For example, Paul says Christians ought to consider themselves dead to sin but alive to God [Rom 6.11]. Resurrection functions here as a metaphor for a new way of life, one in which God’s will is more important than your own. What he says is both true and good, and it is appropriate because the resurrection of Jesus does change your life dramatically when you come to know Jesus for yourself. Yet the idea of resurrection here is not literal—it is not about what happens to you after you die—it is metaphorical. Metaphorical meanings have their place, but they have whatever force they do because there are first literal consequences of the resurrection. And there are literal consequences of the resurrection because the resurrection of Jesus was a concrete, historical event. It really happened.

Jesus died on the cross. He was buried. On Sunday morning he was alive again. The tomb was empty, and Jesus was alive. Not figuratively. Not metaphorically. Not just in the minds or hearts of his disciples. But really and truly, with the flesh and bones he had before—alive again and somehow glorified.

I believe this with more confidence and certainty than I believe anything else. Even a pastor has doubts from time to time. The condition the world is in should make anyone wonder what God is up to. The brokenness I constantly find in people’s lives—including my own—raises a host of difficulties. With the church fragmented into so many denominations and our own denomination so enslaved to the culture, all those grand ideas about the church in scripture can sound like hot air. I can doubt myself. I can doubt the church. I can doubt whether God is doing anything at all. But whenever I do, I always fall back on one solid, bedrock truth that I simply cannot shake: God raised Jesus from the dead. He is alive.

I haven’t always had this certainty. It is the result of hard study and fearless questioning, as well as a gift from God. But I can always fall back on it and build on it. It is the foundation for everything. I build not only my beliefs but also my whole life on the resurrection of Jesus. If it happened, that is the only logical thing to do.

Why? What makes the resurrection so significant? Even granting that it happened, why does it change our lives today so dramatically, or even at all? To answer that question, we need to explore the literal meaning of the resurrection. We do not have time to get into everything the resurrection means, so I offer you the four I consider most important.

1. In the resurrection of Jesus, God revealed himself. One evening some years ago I met a young man who was a Muslim. He was an aggressively evangelistic Muslim, and he liked to argue about religion. So he asked me about my faith. I began talking about the resurrection of Jesus. He surprised me by saying, “So what? What about (and he said some long Arab name I had never heard of)? He came back from the dead.” It took me a minute to regain my footing. I am not used to people who take for granted that of course people come back from the dead. I have no idea who he was talking about, but it doesn’t matter. It doesn’t even matter whether some guy did come back from the dead, although I am a skeptic and would need a lot of convincing. Jesus is unique for two reasons.

First, Jesus was not just anybody. He made some very bold, specific claims about God and his own relationship with God. We know people do not rise from the dead naturally. If such a thing were to happen, God would have to do it. If God raised Jesus from the dead, we are safe to believe God endorsed Jesus’ message.

Second, Jesus did not merely resuscitate. That is, he was not the same after his resurrection as he was before. He was the same person. He had the same body. His wounds prove that. But his body was not the same. He had been glorified. After the resurrection he pops in and out of locked rooms at will. Sometimes his friends recognize him, and sometimes he has to reveal to them who he is—as in today’s story when Mary thought he was the gardener until he spoke her name. Jesus is alive, but not with the same old life he knew before. He lives the glorious new life of the resurrection.

Both these reasons are important to us. One consequence of Jesus’ resurrection is: we ought to take his message seriously. It turns out there is a God after all, and it is the God we meet in the Old Testament. In the Old Testament we meet a God of grace and love, who created this world and is committed to making it right. His plan unfolds until it reaches its climax with Jesus. It will continue to unfold until the end when God makes all things new. Because Jesus lives, we can be sure of a lot more about God and Jesus than we could before.

Jesus’ resurrection means his message and his death are relevant for us. Because he rose, we know his death was not a sad but meaningless ending to a colorful life. His death was for us. God’s plan and purposes include us. That is exciting and amazing, and I do not think we could ever dream of such a thing, much less be sure of it, if Jesus had stayed dead.

Thus, in the resurrection, God made himself known. He made clear to us his plans and purposes. Because Jesus rose, we know that “in Christ God was reconciling the world to himself” [2 Cor 5.19].

2. Jesus lives! This has to be the most obvious meaning of the Resurrection. Jesus lives—and he has more work to do.

When Jesus presented himself alive to his friends after his crucifixion, their reaction was confusion, joy, and fear all mixed up together, reacting like volatile chemicals until they exploded into worship. When they saw him, they knew he was not just restored to life as before only to die again later. Seeing him they could not fail to realize he was raised the Lord of life, never to die again. Take Thomas as an example. Not being present the first time Jesus appeared to his disciples, Thomas didn’t believe their report. He must have spent a long week being badgered by the other 10. They were convinced Jesus was alive. Despite their unanimous verdict, however, Thomas refused to believe. “I will have to see for myself,” he famously declared. And he did. Jesus showed up again the following Sunday and presented himself to Thomas. What was Thomas’s reaction? He didn’t say, “Praise God! It’s a miracle!” or “You are alive! Good for you!” He said, “My Lord and my God!”

Jesus’ friends, whom he sent out with the message of his resurrection, were quick to draw the conclusion that because he lives, Jesus is Lord. He is the Son of God who will set the world right and someday judge the living and the dead.

Jesus also told his friends, “I am with you always.” He said he was going away, but it would be better for them this way. Because he was going to prepare a place for them. And because when he returned to the Father, he would pour out the Holy Spirit. His Spirit is how Jesus keeps his promise to be with us always. He told those original disciples that others would believe because of their testimony, and he promised to always be with those believers too. You and I are included in that promise.

Because Jesus is alive, we have to be alert to his presence. The risen Jesus meets us in scripture and preaching. He meets us in the sacraments … and in whatever way he chooses. He might, for example, confirm a college student in his faith by an overpowering sense of his presence. When I realized he must be alive, I began to pray, and I suddenly became strangely aware of his presence. We must be alert to that. He is with us whether we feel it or not. We can be sure of that because he has promised. And yet, we might hope, from time to time, to be aware of him. I am no mystic. Far from it. I tend toward an academic spiritual life. Still, I do not want to be oblivious to the presence of our living Lord.

The first meaning of the resurrection is it reveals God. The second is Jesus lives. The third is …

3. Death is not the end. … People have a lot of bizarre beliefs about what happens when you die. Some say death is an absolute end. Your biological machine stops and that’s the end of you. Others believe in reincarnation. Still others that each of us has a soul that is a spark of divinity, and when we die our individuality ends but the soul rejoins God.

The Christian view is based on what happened to Jesus. It is a two-step process. When you die, your soul rests with God. Paul wrote about being “away from the body and at home with the Lord [2 Cor 5.8]. But that is not the end, because resurrection involves the body.

Christian hope is this: Someday God will raise all who belong to Christ from the dead, and on that day he will transform all of creation. Heaven and earth will be joined together. And God’s glory will fill all of creation.

So someday we will be raised in a glorified body. What will it be like? Scripture gives only two clues. First, we will be then as Jesus is now. Our resurrection will be just like his. Our resurrection bodies will be just like his. Second, Paul told the Corinthians that our bodies now are suited to a physical existence. Then they will be suited to a spiritual existence [1 Cor 5.44]. Whatever that means.

The when and the how are not important. All we really need to know is the what, and the what is resurrection. Death is not the end for us because Jesus has made a way out the other side of death into a new life better than the one we have now. This is one thing his resurrection means for us in literal terms. Death has been defeated. It no longer has power over us. God made us for himself, not for death. It was his will and his pleasure to save us from death. This he has done through his Son, who by dying for us and rising again has opened the way to eternal life.

The Christian view of death may be the most bizarre of all. It is certainly the most hopeful. Yet we can be sure it is true because God raised Jesus from the dead. Scripture calls him the first fruits. First fruits were the beginning of the harvest, the part dedicated to God. Jesus is only the beginning. All who belong to him will be raised as he was.

At the sunrise service I preached about living the resurrection. This is not just something we believe. For Christians it is a way of life. I said, “Because of Jesus’ resurrection, we do not have to fear death. And, if we do not have to fear death, we do not have to fear life, either.

Because you know the glory that awaits you, you are wonderfully free to live for God. Nothing you give, nothing that is taken from you, is ever truly lost. Where death reigns, tyrants have power. This is why the early Christians frustrated those in power. When the high council threatened Peter and John and told them not to preach about Jesus, Peter replied, “We have to obey God rather than you.” Paul went across the Mediterranean, starting churches and enduring untold suffering. He counted it joy. He and Silas sang hymns in the jail at Philippi. They knew God power and God’s promise. No one could take that away from them.

Of course we do not face that sort of persecution, but we can conquer our fears too. When your health begins to fail, … well, that’s a difficult emotional adjustment. But it does not have to destroy you. Even when a person faces the onset of Alzheimer’s, they need not fear oblivion. The mind may go and the body with it, but God will restore both.

I could go on, but you see how this works. Karl Marx said religion was bad for society because it promised people happiness after death if they would endure oppression in the present. He was wrong. He failed to see how revolutionary resurrection faith is. If you do not have to fear death, then you do not have to fear anything in life. What is your greatest fear? What if all your worst fears came true? God would still be able to redeem you. God is so much more powerful than sin, death, and evil that even the worst they can do cannot prevent his loving purposes from becoming a reality. I find strength in knowing God’s resurrection power can redeem anything, no matter how tragic and devastating. How would we all not go crazy otherwise?

4. God revealed himself. Jesus lives. Death is not the end. And finally, new creation has begun. This is a truth both important and neglected. Most Christians tend to think of the resurrection in personal terms. “Jesus’ resurrection means the hope of eternal life.” Death is, after all, a personal thing. So we naturally focus our attention on what Jesus’ resurrection means for me, as an individual. But we ought not fail to see that the resurrection has a much wider scope than just the individual. God plans to transform all of creation. Jesus’ resurrection was the beginning. The project will not be finished until there is a new heaven and a new earth.

The classic passages for this are Romans 8 and Revelation 22, although both draw from the Old Testament prophets. The idea is: This world is not the way God wants it. His will is not yet done on earth as it is in heaven. Jesus’ resurrection is the victory of God that assures it will be. Imagine (if you can) a world without death, war, or sorrow; a world in which God is not hidden from us. Instead, his glory is everywhere. A world in which people get along and love their neighbor as themselves. You probably cannot imagine such a thing, but to the extent that you can, tell me this: Is such a world the impossible fantasy of the feeble minded? Or is it the future God has prepared for us from all eternity? If God raised Jesus from the dead, it is the latter. This is how we will spend eternity: in community with God and his people, finally knowing the joy he created us for.

The new creation began with Jesus’ resurrection. It will be finished when he comes again to make all things new. But in between, new creation happens all the time as God’s future invades the present. New creation happens in worship and the sacraments. It happens whenever a person comes to faith in Christ and God changes his or her life. It happens in our fellowship. It happens when the arts glorify God. It happens when children grow in faith. I know that our worship is often more about us than about God, that our fellowship can be less than enjoyable, that the arts can be done shoddily or blasphemously, and that children throw tantrums. Nevertheless, in all these ways and more, we can and do experience new creation. Whenever and however God is honored in our lives, there is new creation.

I wish I could go on. The hardest part about preaching on Easter is knowing what to leave out and when to shut up. Fortunately I have the opportunity to proclaim the risen Christ every Sunday. So for now, it is enough to say: Christ is risen! Yes, he is risen indeed. And that one event changes everything. Amen.

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