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Message for April 4, 2010
Updated on 20-04-10 |
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MCC: 04. 04.10
Text: Luke 23.26-49
Series: Freedom
Resources: Adam Hamilton, 24 Hours That Changed the World (Nashville: Abingdon Press, 2009); Max Lucado, Fearless, Nashville: Thomas Nelson, 2009).
Focus: Jesus’ resurrection teaches us about Jesus and about Us.
Freedom from the Ultimate Fear
Intro) A) We’re going to begin this morning by talking about a person who has influenced millions of people. If our technology holds up, we should have a picture of him here (Woody Allen). We want to begin this morning by talking about Woody Allen. Some of you thought I was talking about Jesus. We’ll get to him in a minute. But we’ll begin with Woody Allen because Woody Allen could be a poster child for the type of fear that pervades our culture and invades the lives of many of us and of many of the people that we know. In a 2008 interview in Newsweek magazine, Woody Allen says that he views life as a “meaningless little flicker.” There is no God, no purpose, no life after this life. Allen admits, “I can’t really come up with a good argument to choose life over death, except that I’m too scared…The trains all go to the same place. They all go to the dump.” For decades, Allen has churned out films at the pace of one a year. “I need,” he says, “to be focused on something so I don’t see the big picture” (Jennie Yabroff, “Take the Bananas and Run,” Newsweek, August 18-25, 2008, 57, quoted in Lucado, 137).
B) This is the first in a series of messages that I’ve entitled “Freedom.” We want to take the next several weeks and talk about how we can be free from a variety of human experiences that threaten to enslave us. A book by Max Lucado entitled Fearless served as the inspiration for the series. We’ll get some ideas and stories from the book but we’ll be going a different direction than the book most weeks.
C) Woody Allen points us to what I think is “life’s ultimate fear.” None of us are checking out of “The World Hotel” alive. We’re all going to die. None of us can argue with the realism of Woody Allen’s statement: “The trains all go to the same place.” We’re all going to die. But the question is: “Do they all go to the dump”? Is life a trip to nowhere with death being the final station?
D) You may have heard this rumor but today is Easter. Easter is the day that we celebrate the resurrection from the dead of Jesus Christ. In one of the biographies of Jesus known as the gospels, Luke describes the resurrection of Jesus in chapter 24, verses 1-7 this way: 1 But on the first day of the week, at early dawn, they came to the tomb, taking the spices that they had prepared. 2 They found the stone rolled away from the tomb, 24:3 but when they went in, they did not find the body. 4 While they were perplexed about this, suddenly two men in dazzling clothes stood beside them. 5 The women were terrified and bowed their faces to the ground, but the men said to them, "Why do you look for the living among the dead? He is not here, but has risen. 6 Remember how he told you, while he was still in Galilee, 7 that the Son of Man must be handed over to sinners, and be crucified, and on the third day rise again."
Trans) As we address how we can have freedom from “life’s ultimate fear,” I want to look at it in a very simple way. It won’t be short but it will be simple. We want to answer two questions. The first is this:
I) What Does the Resurrection Tell Us about Jesus?
Many of you know that my family and I are in the process of selling our current house and buying another—which, by the way, I do not recommend that you do at the same time if you can anyway avoid it. As part of the process of buying the home, we received a form from the bank which was called a VOE—a Verification of Employment. The bank wants to know if I really do work here at Midlands Christian Church—which is something that some of you would like to know as well. The bank wants me to verify who I am and what I do. That’s what the resurrection does for Jesus. If Jesus, this human being from a little out of the way town called Nazareth, really was raised physically from the dead, then that tells us a lot about Jesus. It tells us about who he is and what he does. In the book that we’ve looked at over the past several weeks, 24 Hours That Changed the World (128ff), Adam Hamilton points out three areas in which the resurrection of Jesus verifies him.
A) The resurrection verifies Jesus’ message.
1) Think about this for a minute. Jesus taught a lot of upside down things. He told us that we’re to love our not just our friends but our enemies, and we’re to pray for those who persecute us. He taught that the poor, the hungry, the meek, the lowly, and the peacemakers, those whom people often walk on, are blessed. He told the people of his day that when a hated Roman soldier beats you, you’re to let him hit the other cheek and if he makes you carry his pack for a mile, which the soldiers were legally allowed to do, you should volunteer to carry his pack for a second mile. He actually said that if you are a person in authority, you shouldn’t use that power and influence to your advantage. Instead, you should serve others.
2) When I watch the world, this does not seem to be particularly good advice. After all, oftentimes it’s the wheelers and dealers who get ahead. The person at the office who talks behind others’ backs and plays one person off of another is often the person who gets the promotion. If you have power or influence or authority, then it seems best to use it to your full advantage because you probably won’t have it for long. But if Jesus really was raised from the dead, then I need to take his message and his teachings very seriously for he may know much more about life than I do.
B) The resurrection verifies Jesus’ identity.
1) Jesus taught some pretty incredible things and Jesus also made some pretty incredible claims about himself and his own identity. He said, “I am the bread of life. Whoever comes to me will never be hungry, and whoever believes in me will never be thirsty.” “I am the resurrection and the life. Those who believe in me, even though they die, will live…” “I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.” He repeatedly reinterpreted the traditions and teachings of the Jewish people, saying, “You have heard it said…But I say to you.” In Hamilton’s words, “he claimed to be the Messiah, the Son of the living God. It was an idea that religious authorities and those awaiting a military messiah clearly rejected, but he claimed it yet again when questioned at his trial” (129).
2) People often say, “I don’t believe that Jesus was the Son of God. I do believe that he was a wonderful teacher and person.” But, when one looks closely at Jesus’ message, and at what Jesus said about himself, it’s hard to take that approach. The English literary scholar and author of the classic book Mere Christianity, C. S. Lewis, once famously wrote that Jesus could be one of only three things. He could have been a pathological liar, a manipulator and deceiver of people who know knew what he was saying was rubbish but he said it anyway. He could have been a lunatic, a person totally out of touch with reality who made outrageous claims about himself.
3) But, if Jesus was really raised from the dead after having been in the tomb parts of three days, then he is not a liar, he is not a lunatic, he is who he says he is, he is the Lord, the ruler of the Universe. Jesus’ resurrection verifies his message, his identity, and
C) The resurrection verifies Jesus’ death on the cross.
1) Over the past several weeks, we’ve looked closely at the series of trials that Jesus experienced before both religious and political leaders. We’ve said that he was innocent of the charges of sedition and treason brought against him. And he died an innocent man.
2) But if Jesus was really raised from the dead, that vindicates and verifies that his death was not an accident but had meaning and purpose. The meaning and purpose was for us.
3) Jesus summarizes the meaning of his death near the end of Luke. He tells his followers: it is written, that the Messiah is to suffer and to rise from the dead on the third day, and that repentance and forgiveness of sins is to be proclaimed in his name to all nations.
Trans) We’ve answered the question, “What does the resurrection tell us about Jesus?” The resurrection verifies his message, his identity, and his death on the cross. Now, let’s answer:
II) What Does the Resurrection Tell Us about Us?
A)We Can Be Confident in the Present.
1) If Jesus is alive, and he is who he says that he is, we can be confident that our faith in Christ is well-grounded. That seems to be an obvious conclusion but we don’t often live that way. Or maybe it’s just me.
2) Think about it for a minute. If Jesus really was raised from the dead, if God verified Jesus’ message and identity and his death on the cross by raising Jesus from the dead, think about what this means. The God who created and sustains the universe, loves you and me so much that he sent his Son to die for us so that we could be forgiven of our wrong-doings and have an eternal relationship with him. That’s how much God loves you. No wonder John writes in 1 John 3.1: See what love the Father has given us, that we should be called children of God;
3) If Jesus is alive, we can be confident that God loves us and this whole, unbelievable story is true. We can say with the apostle Paul who writes in Romans 8: What then are we to say about these things? If God is for us, who is against us? 8:32 He who did not withhold his own Son, but gave him up for all of us, will he not with him also give us everything else?...8:38 For I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor rulers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, 8:39 nor height, nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.
3) Of course, some of you are thinking, “This is all great Tim, but you’re assuming that this story is true. I don’t know if it is true or not. What if Jesus wasn’t raised from the dead?” That’s a great question. Got to move on though. Really, the answer to that question would take another complete message. But let me say something that I’ve said previously.
4) I have had plenty of days when I’ve wondered whether what I say I believe is really true. I have questioned the existence of God many times. I’ve questioned whether the stories in the Bible are true. I’ve questioned whether Jesus was really born of a virgin and lived a perfect life. Do you remember our friend Woody Allen? “The trains all go to the same place. They all go to the dump.” Max Lucado writes (137f.), “I suppose someone exists who can’t fathom Woody Allen’s fears. There must be in God’s great world a soul who has never doubted God’s existence or questioned his goodness. But that soul is not writing this book” (and I would add, that soul is not preaching this message).
5) I’ve doubted almost everything about my faith and probably will again. But I always come back to this one place: “Something happened on the first Easter.” How else do you explain how a rag tag, scared group of Jewish men were able to turn the world upside down? Did they convince themselves of a lie? Were they willing to die for a lie?
6) All four of the gospels admit that there were doubters among the disciples. It’s not like these guys all thought that Jesus would be raised from the dead. We think of doubting Thomas in John but Matthew notes that even after the disciples saw Jesus after he was raised from the dead, “some doubted.” In our passage for the morning, Luke adds that when the women told the disciples about the resurrection, the disciples’ response was: But these words seemed to them an idle tale, and they did not believe them.
7) And that leads us to another truth. All four gospels tell us that women were the first witnesses to the resurrection of Jesus. In that culture, women were often not considered to be reliable witnesses. You don’t make women the first witnesses if you’re making this stuff up.
8) Finally, the apostle Paul writes in 1 Corinthians 15 that Jesus died, he was buried, he was raised on the third day and that he appeared to Peter, then to the other disciples. And, in verse 6, Paul writes: Then he appeared to more than five hundred brothers at one time, most of whom are still alive, though some have died. Listen, Paul is writing no more than 30 years after Christ’s death and probably less. You don’t just make up the fact that Jesus appeared to 500 believers at one time, especially when most of them are still alive.
Trans) With all my doubts, I believe that the evidence is clear that something happened on the first Easter. Jesus was raised from the dead and we can be confident in the present.
B) We Can (also) Be Hopeful for the Future
1) Well, as we’ve already said, we’re all going to face death. Unless the Lord returns first, we will all die. Even the Bible says in Hebrews 9.27 that it is appointed unto men (and women) once to die.
2) Little question that for most of us, death is the ultimate fear. Max Lucado (117) quotes the following. “Aristotle called death the thing to be feared most because ‘it appears to be the end of everything.’ Jean-Paul Sartre asserted that death ‘removes all meaning from life.’ Robert Green Ingersoll, one of America’s most outspoken agnostics, could offer no words of hope at his brother’s funeral. He said, ‘Life is a narrow vale between the cold and barren peaks of two eternities. We strive in vain to look beyond the heights.’ The pessimism of French philosopher Francois Rabelais was equally arctic. He made this sentence his final one: ‘I am going to the great Perhaps.’ Shakespeare described the afterlife in this way in Hamlet: ‘The dread of something after the death, the undiscovered country from whose bourn no traveler returns.’”
3) How do you face death? You know, this ultimate fear explains a lot about how we behave as human beings. Not everything, but so often much of what is otherwise unexplainable is explained when we shine the action under the lens of the ultimate fear. The actor who leaves his wife of twenty-seven years for a younger woman? He looked in the mirror one day and realized that he was terminal. Those who have hair color it. Those of us who don’t have hair, buy it. Another person trades in the mini-van for a corvette. We’re just trying to convince ourselves that we’re still young. We’re just facing death.
4) Do you view death as “a train going to a dump” like Woody Allen? Do you view death as “the end of everything” like Aristotle? Are you going, like Rabelais, “to the great Perhaps?”
5) As I’ve been surfing the channels lately, I’ve ran across several installments of a series of horror flicks. I don’t know but I think that there are twenty or thirty of them. I honestly haven’t watched any of them but the basic premise is that death is out to get this group of teenagers. The first movie was called (do you know?): “The Final Destination.” I think that the last one in the series will be called: “The Final Final Destination.” We all do have a Destination but it doesn’t have to be the final destination.
6) My girls like watching the television show “Family Feud” on one of the cable networks. On the same cable network is the show “Ghost Whisperer.” In a commercial for that show that I’ve seen about a hundred times or so in the last month, there is a clip of the star of the show, Jennifer Love Hewitt, saying, “Death is not the end. It’s the beginning.”
7) Normally, I would be quick to say that the “Ghost Whisperer” is not the best source for Christian theology. And I’m sure that the Ghost Whisperer is not thinking of an eternity in the same way that we think of eternity. But, nevertheless, she’s right. “Death is not the end. It’s the beginning.” If Jesus is alive, we can live forever. We can be free from the ultimate fear. Our train is going somewhere and it’s not to the dump. We can be hopeful for the future.
Conc)A) I ran across a news item online last Thursday that began this way: “The small gang of Somali pirates fired on an approaching ship, hoping their midnight attack would bring them millions in ransom.” This was a small group of confident pirates who were hopeful for a rich future.
B) The only problem was this. The ship that they fired upon was (photo): The USS Nicholas, a guided missile frigate, (which) was tracking the pirates when they opened fire early Thursday in Indian Ocean waters. The article continued: "The ragtag bandits had taken on far more than they could handle."
C) When you’re facing an enemy, it’s good to be confident and positive. But you better be confident and positive for the right reasons. My friends, we face an enemy far greater than a Warship. We take on the ultimate fear, the enemy of death. In 1 Corinthians 15, Paul calls death the last enemy to be destroyed. But he also writes, the saying that is written will be fulfilled: "Death has been swallowed up in victory….thanks be to God, who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.
D) If you want to be free from the ultimate fear, you can place your trust in Jesus Christ as your Lord and Savior. You can ask him into your life, and have your sins washed away in the waters of baptism. For those of us who have already taken the steps, Jesus Christ had defeated our great enemy of death. We can be confident in the present and hopeful for the future because Jesus Christ is risen, "he his risen indeed." Happy Easter.
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