Easter Sunrise Service--2014
This Sunrise service isn’t about coming out here to be in nature and watch the sunrise. This Sunrise service isn’t about celebrating the Springtime. This Sunrise service isn’t about tulips and daffodils and lilies and new blossoms and leaves on the tress. And this Sunrise service especially isn’t about bunnies and eggs and candy.
This Sunrise service is about Jesus rising from death. This service is an attempt to picture what it would be like to be the women who came to Jesus tomb, where they expected to see a dead corpse of a man, but instead found an empty tomb with burial cloth left as if Jesus evaporated right up through it. This service is about a dead man—Jesus—who came back to life and talked with at least one of the women who came to take care of the dead body.
That’s what we’re about this morning. A dead man who came back to life.
There’s at least two steps to our response to this story. First, is answering the question, “Do I believe it?” Do you believe it? Do you believe that a man, Jesus, who was fully dead, came fully alive? Not just awakened from a coma. Not just being dead for a few moments or minutes and resuscitated after seeing the bright light at the end of the tunnel. But dead, after three days of being dead, came to life. Do you believe that’s what happened to Jesus?
It's not a question of, Can anyone, after being dead come back to life? As far as we know, that hasn't happened. The question is about this one man, Jesus. Did Jesus come back to life after being thoroughly dead? Do you believe that?
The apostles, who had followed Jesus, believed it. In the book of Acts, every one of the apostles sermons recorded there have the Resurrection of Jesus as its main center point. There is no sermon recorded in Acts that does not build up to the high point of their preaching--Jesus' return to life after being dead.
But the further evidence is what clinches their belief in the Resurrection, in my mind. They were changed men and women after the Resurrection. They were transformed. They were bold. They were empowered. They were unafraid. Totally different from how they were prior to the Resurrection.
So what made the difference? The difference, in my mind, had to be the Resurrection. Jesus coming back to life and showing himself to the disciples. The apostles were thoroughly convinced.
They got to see Jesus after he had died and came back to life. But we've got to take their word for it. Of all the stories we're told, which raises the hairs of our skepticism, we have to absolutely decide if we can believe them--believe the apostles. That's all we have to go on, really. So we must absolutely make up our minds about Jesus coming back to life, the story the apostles told about Jesus coming back to life.
Jesus' coming back to life seems to make a difference. The Resurrection of Jesus changes things. The Resurrection of Jesus changes people. But Jesus' Resurrection doesn't change things, it doesn't change you, if you don't believe it happened. You could go on with your life as usual, disbelieving in the Resurrection.
The next step, after deciding you really believe Jesus came back to life, is pondering what that means. What that means for us, for the church, for the world, for you in particular. What difference does it make that Jesus came back to life?
If Jesus' coming back to life is only for securing our eternal life, I'm sorry, but that's not enough for me. I have no idea what eternal life will be like, or even what that means. Eternity is just too big of a concept for me. I'll worry about that, I guess, (if worry is even a part of eternity) when I get there.
I want to know about now. Does Jesus' coming back to life mean anything, or change anything for me now, will I'm finitely alive? The best answer to my question, I think, has been given by the writer of the book of Hebrews. He wrote:
Since the children are made of flesh and blood, it's logical that the Savior took on flesh and blood in order to rescue them by his death. By embracing death, taking it into himself, he destroyed the devil's hold on death and freed all who cower through life, scared to death of death. (Hebrews 2:14-16)
That got me. That reached me. That hit me where I lived. Jesus' death and Resurrection saves me from cowering through life. Jesus' Resurrection offers me, offers us, the chance to not be "scared to death of death." I don't know about you, but I don't want to live in a cowering kind of way. To cower has just as much to do with your attitude as it does your body. When someone is cowering, they are usually bent up, crouching, holding their arms and hands over themselves, in a position of dire self-protection. It's a position of living small.
I don't want to live that way. I don't want to live all bent over and huddled, muscles tight, because I'm always in fear of death.
Think of the opposite: living large, upright, unafraid, arms ready and open to embrace what comes, not protecting but welcoming. That's how I want to live. That's the Resurrection life.
I don't want to live deeply afraid. Especially deeply afraid of death. Think how our fear of death determines almost everything we do. Bucket lists. Mid-life crisis'. Retirement. Youthful, anti-aging products. And on and on.
We may not admit it, or acknowledge it, but that fear is constantly in the back of our minds, creating a shadow in our hearts. And the writer of Hebrews says that people who live according to the fear of death can do so "all their lives." That's a lot of life to waste.
I want to live deeply embracing life, enjoying life, being thankful and grateful about life. And I hope I've done that for all my life, especially lately. I haven't done so because I read the right self-help book. Or that I found some formula of happiness. Or because I'm taking some certain prescription.
The only way I can live outside of the power and fear of death, is by and because of Jesus Christ and his Resurrection. Jesus' Resurrection is about eternal life. But maybe more importantly, Jesus coming back to life, has more to do with embracing all the life that God has to offer right now, while we're alive. To not live cowering, but standing upright and ready. To not live afraid, but enjoying the life God has given me, grateful to him for life.
That's why believing the Resurrection really happened, and that the Resurrection is about giving us the chance to live unafraid is so important.
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