Best Morning

Easter Sunday Morning

March 30, 1997

Introduction

"Mary!" "Teacher!" (John 20)

EASTER is God's promise of eternal life in the face of all the harsh realities of this world. Easter is a time for JOY!

The fire and brimstone preacher looked down sternly at all the worshippers gathered in the pews one Easter Sunday morning, and he said, "Every member of this congregation is going to die one day!" He got the response he was looking for: there was now a somber look on everyone's face. But there was just one exception. A man he did not recognize sitting right down in the front got a big smile on his face.

The preacher's face turned just a little redder as he looked squarely into the smirk on this one man's face. He raised up to his full height, put on a his most severe face and said, "I REPEAT! "Like it or not, every member of this congregation is going to die one day!"

The smile grew even larger than before. The preacher couldn't handle this incongruity, so he stopped and actually addressed the man directly: "May I ask you sir, what you find so amusing in my statement?"

To which the man replied, "Oh, I'm not AMUSED.....I'm RELIEVED. You see, I'm not a member of this congregation!"

THE CRUNCH TIMES COME AND CHALLENGE OUR FAITH

The story of Easter is the powerhouse of the Gospel. The fact that Jesus is Lord over sin and death made all the difference to the men and women who were there when the story first unfolded. But the best thing about the story of Easter is that it isn't over yet.

Easter's great story began in a graveyard. It began with people whose faith was in the past tense. Easter's story began small. Just a few disillusioned people who loved the teachings of Jesus, and believed them, but also people who had watched Jesus die, and had helped to bury him. The harsh realities of life as they knew it did not match up to what they had expected from their Master.

The challenges to our faith 2,000 years later may seem very different from those in that graveyard on the first Easter morning. But I am not so sure that people have changed all that much. We have our expectations of just what God ought and ought not to do. We think we know how he should make himself known. Then we are challenged:

The answer lies in the reality of whether or not Jesus is truly alive, and able to make himself known to his disciples. The answer is in the reality of "Jesus is Lord!" The difference in vital Christian faith and all other religions, is that a grave marks the place where religious leaders finally end up, but an empty tomb is where the Easter story began. And that story is not finished.

[[ ASIDE - CULTS AND TRUE FAITH Perhaps it would be an interruption in the story to pursue "differences" in true and false faith on Easter Sunday. But there are some valid differences in living faith in Jesus Christ and so-called sect mentality and alternative religions. First, WHO IS JESUS? (Creed!) Then,

  1. Faith in Jesus is not esoteric, for the few. If a pastor or evangelist makes a living telling Christians all the other denominations and faiths are false, run the other way as fast as you can— Jesus is the way, the truth, and the life. But Jesus is Lord of all who will own him. This way challenges the deepest minds, but you don't have to be either a monk or a rocket scientist to be a Christian.
  2. Faith in Jesus is not sectarian, as much, perhaps, as some of us would like it to be. We Nazarenes don't have a corner on salvation. The love of God is broader than the measure of man's mind.
  3. Jesus is not owned or operated by human effort, or for human profit.... wayfaring people can follow Jesus. Jesus is Lord! Jesus refuses to perform according to our expectations.

The idea that Jesus now comes to live in each one of us, this good news we call the Gospel, is foolishness to the Greeks, and scandalous religious nonsense to the Jews. If you get your wisdom from the talk shows and newspaper editorials, then you probably will feel foolish to confess Jesus Christ as your best friend, and admit that you talk to Him every day of your life. There is a certain amount of so-called foolishness involved. But whose fool are you? - - BACK TO THE STORY]]

Jesus had risen exactly as he had said he would. And one by one, and in small groups, Jesus found his people. The final chapters of the Gospels, and the history book of Acts, give us story after story of people in various levels of sadness and unbelief, and later of people in rebellion and sin who were brought face to face with the risen Lord, and who believed, and were changed forever.

THE LIVING LORD KNOWS WHO WE ARE, AND WHERE

The Easter story unfolds very simply: People who did not know where to look for Jesus were challenged with the wonderful dawning truth: Jesus was already looking for them!

The eternal day began with a tiny trickle of light. [Just like this morning's sunrise. it was exactly at 5:31 that the sun rose above the horizon, and it was daytime. but it was not very spectacular this morning. Still the sunrise is a fact, and no power on earth can either deny or change that fact!] The Eternal Day that is still dawning began very quietly.

First it was a small band of believers— or, at the time— sad un-believers— who saw the dawning light. John says that he was the first one after the resurrection to grasp the truth. He and Peter ran to the tomb when Mary Magdalene told them Jesus was not there. They saw the empty tomb, and John says at that moment it dawned for him. He had not yet seen Jesus, but he believed. The Easter story now had begun for John the beloved.

Mary Magdalene was the first to see and know the risen Savior. Oh, make no mistake, Mary Magdalene certainly knew Jesus. She had been perhaps the least likely member of the inner group— she was a woman with a past. She had been possessed by evil. But Jesus had turned her life around. She loved him with all her heart. But the Easter story had to dawn by faith for Mary Magdalene as well. (A poem from years ago puts these words in Mary Magdalene's mouth:)

BEST MORNING

I could never forget his face;
Sweet face of forgiving,
Stern face of temple cleansing,
Marred face on Skull Hill
I saw them all.
And yet that morning,
That best morning,
I did not know him when first I saw him.
But in my heart a curtain tore
From top to bottom,
Tore when he spoke my name.
And something in me that had been sorrow
Became eternal life!

And so it was with Peter and Andrew and a week later with Thomas and all the rest. Within two months, after Pentecost and the gift of the Holy Spirit, the light had grown until thousands had met Jesus in life-changing power. Before their generation died, many of them martyrs, they had begun to 'turn their world upside down.'

And so it has been with hundreds and thousands and, yes, millions of people since. There have been many human failures in the name of Christian faith. But the living Lord is alive and well in his body the church to this very hour!

Do you remember when the Good News became personal to you? We have been walking our own Emmaus Roads when the living Word has confronted us, and we have had to confess: This is God Himself calling! What will I do with this challenge? And while we are seeking Him, it turns out that He was looking for us all the time!

THE BOTTOM LINE IS LIFE: THE STORY GOES ON

John's Gospel closes with the clear purpose of the entire book plainly stated: (20:21) "These words are written that you might believe that Jesus is the Messiah, and that believing you might have life through his name!" It is clear that the Easter story is still going forward!

As the disciples grasped the fact that Jesus is alive, Jesus breathed on them and said, "Receive the Holy Spirit! And go, tell people that their sins are forgiven!" Get busy spreading the good news! Get into the Easter story! The Lord is Risen! He is risen indeed! The day that began dawning by the open tomb that Best Morning is not over yet. The story unfolds! Jesus asks you, and asks me, to carry the good word where we go!

Thomas Hine, an author who wrote a book titled Facing Tomorrow, tells of his relationship with his grandmother when he was a child. She would take him on her lap and tell tales of her life in Ireland. She spoke of coming to America as a teenager and how she had made her way through hardships and blessings. And then he concludes with these words,

"Though she never said it directly, I knew the story had no ending because I was an important part of it. It was up to me to know the story, make it part of my life, add to it and pass it on."

INVITATION

I challenge you to pray a prayer inviting Him to find you, and to take charge of your life! I challenge you to tell him that if he will be your Lord you will be his man, or his woman! If we want to own him Lord and God he will very much find us where we are and change our world..

PRAYER

O God, who gave your only begotten Son to the death of the cross for our redemption, and who by his glorious resurrection delivered us forever from the power of our enemy: Grant us grace so to die with him to sin and selfishness, and grace by faith to live with him and for him, in the joy of his resurrection, in whose holy name, the name of Jesus we pray;

Grant that we, who celebrate with joy this day our Lord's resurrection, may be raised from the death of sin here and now, and know with you the life eternal, world without end, by your life giving Spirit; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the same Spirit ever, one God, world without end.

Hymn # 264 or # 266