Easter Sunrise April 1, 2018
Resurrection of our Lord (Easter Sunrise)
John 20:1-18
April 1, 2018
“1 Problem: 1 Answer”
In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
Happy and Blessed Easter to you all! Praise God that you’re here. You’re here! The most important Sunday of the whole year. St. Paul says, “For I delivered to you as of first importance what I also received: that Christ died for our sins…that he was buried, that he was raised…” (1 Corinthians 15:11). This is first importance! Nothing is more important. You’re here. The Father’s here. Jesus is here. The Holy Spirit’s here. The heavenly angels and archangels are here. And all of us are here together early this morning for one reason and one reason only—Jesus is alive! Nothing’s more important than that!
You know, it’s generally my job at home to help with the math worksheets. I like math and Valerie’s pretty content to let me handle it. So at the end of the math worksheets, you always get to what? The word problems. Ugh, the dreaded word problems. They’re so confusing. In fact, they purposefully make them confusing. How rude. So here comes one of the kids, “Dad, I need help. Can’t figure out this word problem.” Well, here’s what we’ve got to do. We’ve got to get rid of all that extra word problem “stuff” and just simply figure out, “What is the problem?” Sort out all the stuff that’s not important and figure out what exactly is the problem.
So friends, what exactly is the problem? What is THEE problem of the world and of your life? It’s like a big word problem. There’s all kinds of things going on and it’s sometimes hard to figure out what’s the first importance. There are a whole lot of things going on in the world. Whole lot of things going on in your world. Hard to sort through it all. You’ve got work, school, managing your money, paying the bills, saving for retirement, for college, insurance, managing your health, your medicine, exercising, caring for your family, your friends, some of them sick, some of them living far away, sports that we’re following, that our kids are in, our grandkids are in, you’ve gotta keep up with your house, your car, we’ve got our country, mass shootings, gun control, politics, electing a new Governor, the national debt, radical Islam, Communism, North Korea—this is quite a big word problem! It’s hard to sort through it all. But what is of the 1st importance? What is THEE problem that needs answering?
On March 14th, just a couple weeks ago, a very famous man died. Stephen Hawking. He’s the brilliant scientist, physicist, that we could all recognize because he was in a wheelchair for most of his life. He had a very rare, slow form of ALS. He became something of a science celebrity. He appeared on talk shows, did segments in sitcoms, and wrote a popular book titled A Brief History of Time. He was one of those rare people who could be extremely intelligent and yet at the same time could simply and succinctly explain things to people like us who are not all that intelligent.
Stephen Hawking was also an atheist. He didn’t believe there was a god. And so, like all atheists, he believed that when he died, that was it. Nothing else. He explained that the brain was like a computer and would simply just shut off when he died. He wasn’t an angry atheist. He didn’t attack religion. In fact, his first wife, brilliant in her own right, and with whom he remained close, is a Christian. And yet, he simply didn’t believe it himself. Believing in God wasn’t scientific, in his mind, and so he had no place for it.
So here was a brilliant man, who answered some of the toughest problems of the universe, who explained black holes, who discovered complicated formulas, who battled the disability of ALS for years—yet he didn’t mind not having an answer to death. He even believed in some rather unorthodox things—that aliens might come and attack our planet, that artificial intelligence, i.e. robots, might take over the world, he threw a party but didn’t invite anyone because it was only for future people travelling back in time, and he said that the world may not survive past another hundred years because we’re going to use up all the energy. He believed all of that possible—but not that there is life after death.
Here, then, is an example of someone who missed thee one problem, the one thing, that is most important. Life is most important. He could answer tough problems of physics—but wouldn’t answer the toughest problem—death. And so he died without the answer.
You, however, are here on this Easter morning because you have sorted through the problems of this life and have found thee first, most important, fundamental problem—we are dying. More important than work or school or insurance or exercise or vacation or sports or anything else—LIFE. I’m dying and what will happen to me when I die?
Modern science and technology are answering some of the toughest problems ever. We’ve found cures for diseases and travelled to the moon. We’ve built these little rectangular devices that we can carry in our pockets that do the work of a phone, encyclopedia, dictionary, cookbook, newspaper, TV, watch, calculator, address book, library, calendar, etc., etc., etc. Yet for all of our brilliance and all of our answers, there’s one looming problem that shatters all of our pride—we will die.
Now atheists will say that we Christians are just reaching for something. We’re scared to die so we’ve made up a nice fairy-tale ending to make it easier. But they’re the ones living in a fairy tale. Their fairy tale is that science can answer every problem. Well, it can’t. Ted Williams can freeze his body to try to answer the problem of death, but that’s quite a fairy tale itself.
We don’t believe in a fairy tale solution to death—we believe in a Person who beat death. We believe in the true history of Easter morning. The true history of Jesus’ resurrection from the dead. We believe this is of first importance. Nothing more important. That on Friday Jesus hung on the cross from 9am to 3pm. And that when they came to break his legs to speed up His death, He was already dead. And to make sure, they stabbed Him in his side with a spear to be absolutely sure.
We believe that they buried him in a tomb. In the tomb of Joseph of Arimathea. We believe that Joseph was there, Nicodemus was there, and some of the women were there. We believe they wrapped His body and planned to come back after the Sabbath day to properly anoint His body. We believe they rolled the stone in front of the tomb. A large stone. We believe that they set a guard there at the tomb because the Jews didn’t want those disciples coming to steal the body and say that He had risen from the dead.
We believe all this because the people that were there that day have told us. We have their word in the Gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. Then we believe that after the Sabbath day was over, they went early on this morning to that very tomb with the spices to properly anoint His body. They believed the body was going to be there. That’s why they were going. And we believe that when they got there, there was an earthquake, and an angel came down from heaven and rolled the stone away. We believe that the women went inside the tomb and saw that Jesus’ body was no longer there. We believe that Peter and John also ran to the tomb and went in and saw that Jesus’ body was not there. We believe that Mary was standing outside the tomb crying and Jesus appeared to her. We believe that then he appeared to Peter, and then to the other women, and then to the rest of the twelve, and then he appeared to more than five hundred brothers. We believe it because it’s true history.
Jesus lives! He is living! He died. And then He rose. And He is the one who said, “I am the Resurrection and the Life. Whoever believes in Me, though he die, yet shall he live. And whoever lives and believes in Me will never die.” This is of first important. This is the problem. This is exactly the problem. Sort out all the other stuff of this life and this is it. We are sinners and we are going to die because of our sin. One Problem. One Answer. A person. A person who two thousand years ago, on Easter morning, died and rose again.
And you are here with Him. You’re here with Him this Easter morning. The living Lord Jesus Christ is here to be Your one answer to your one problem. He is here to give you life. He’s alive. And in Him you are alive. He enters into your soul through His Word here this morning. He enters into your soul through this bread and wine here this morning, His true body and blood. And He takes death away from you.
Whoever believes and is baptized will be saved. That’s Jesus’ promise. That’s His answer to your sin and to your impending death. Believe in Him and you’re saved. You don’t have to be super intelligent to figure out this problem—and you certainly don’t have to be super ignorant to solve this problem—you simply believe, by the power of the Holy Spirit, the truth that Jesus died on Good Friday and rose on Easter morning.
How much simpler could it get? One Problem. One Answer. One problem of death and one answer of LIFE, Jesus Christ.
That’s why we’re here today on Easter and why we should be here every Sunday, on the day Jesus rose from the dead. Because this is first importance. All the other details of life fall perfectly into place behind this one most important detail. What will I eat and what will I drink and where will I get the money and what will I do tomorrow and whatever else—all fall into place behind, “What will happen when I die?” And the answer is—I will live. Because Jesus lives!
Alleluia! Christ is risen!
He is risen indeed! Alleluia!
Amen.