| Redeemer Lutheran Church 1084 W. Bullard Ave. Fresno, CA 93711 Phone: (559) 439-8500 Fax: (559) 439-8585 office@redeemerfresno.com The Reverend Clarence Eisberg Phone: (209) 725-9082 Cell: (209) 631-3108 pastor@redeemerfresno.com Worship ~ 8:30 a.m. & 10:00 a.m. Family Ministries ~ 10:00 a.m. Holy Communion ~ 2nd & 4th Sundays |
| Connecting People to Jesus and to One Another! www.lcms.org |
The Reverend Clarence Eisberg |
April 24, 2011 |
“All Boxed !! - Really"” |
| question he had asked Jesus just before he sent Jesus to Herod. The question: “What is truth?” Pilate’s wife then looks at her husband and said: “If you cannot see truth when it is in front of you then no one can tell you what it is.” To Pilate’s credit he could recognize truth when he saw it. He knew Jesus was not guilty. Jesus was totally innocent. To Pilate’s shame, he chose to ignore the truth. History has judged the judge of Jesus and found him wanting. When it came time for Pilate to stand up for truth, he faltered and failed. Truth was thrown out the window and Pilate worshiped the god of expediency. What is truth? Did Jesus rise really from the grave? Did he come back alive after the Roman soldiers made sure he was dead on Friday? The Pharisees had worried about that possibility…. That’s why they asked Pilate to post a guard at the tomb. On Friday evening, after the crucifixion the body of Jesus was placed in a stone tomb. That was the plan keep him boxed in. It was sealed. Keep him there. So a guard of soldiers was placed by the entrance to the tomb to discourage body snatchers. No one was going to steal the body of Jesus. That should have been the end of the story. It was not! That’s why we are here… the stone box in which the body of Jesus had been place…was empty. Death could not hold the Living God. The resurrection of Jesus is not a questionable addition to the Christian faith; the resurrection is the foundation of the Christian faith. The resurrection of Jesus from death after his crucifixion is the lynchpin of history. The apostle Paul wrote: “If Christ had not been raised from the dead, your faith would be futile and you would be dead in your sins.” Look at the events of that first Resurrection Sunday. The women who had been closest to Jesus didn’t wend their way through the narrow streets in the pre dawn darkness so they might put together the ingredients for the first Easter Sonrise breakfast. They were going to the grave to complete the burial details. In their hands they carried spices. It was their last measure of devotion for the one they thought was going to change the world. And the disciples? In the hours since Jesus had died, they were not putting together a mass choir to sing the Hallelujah Chorus at the entrance to the tomb. Neither the men nor the women spent Saturday night dyeing Easter eggs and buying chocolate Easter bunnies and multi colored Peeps. The disciples did none of these things. They were hiding. They were afraid. They thought they would be next; arrested, tried, whipped, beaten, crowned with thorns and crucified. They had forgotten the promise of Jesus. Not once, not twice, but three times Jesus had told them that he would be arrested and crucified. And then each time Jesus added… “I will rise from the dead on the third day.” They should have remembered. We live in a culture that acts like Pilate, increasingly rejecting the very notion of truth. Today there are many contemporary pseudo-scholars who maintain the event of the resurrection was made up and manufactured by disciples. Individuals who hold a “modern world view” attempt to attack Christianity as untrue, but those with a “post modern world view” say Christianity is simply one truth among many other truths. Both are an attempt to stamp out the words of the angel… He is risen He is not here. Come and see the place where he was laid.” When the women arrived at the tomb on that first Easter, all was quiet. The guards were gone. The air was crisp, with the freshness of spring. The stone was rolled away. As they entered the door of the tomb, their fears were confirmed… the body of Jesus was gone! They say that the great Civil War photographer, Matthew Brady, occasionally moved a body to give his battlefield pictures a better composition. But other than that I never heard of anyone trying to move a battlefield corpse for the purpose of fulfilling some personal agenda. That is until now. The U.S. intelligence agencies re saying Libyan commander Muammar Gaddafi has been taking bodies, which his soldiers have killed, placing them in locations where coalition air strikes have done some damage. Moving bodies. Almost 20 centuries ago, when Mary, Mary Magdalene and the other women arrived at the tomb of a man named Jesus They found that the scourged and crucified body of Jesus had been moved. That someone would do such a thing caused them extreme worry and fear. It is true, Jesus’ body had been moved, but it wasn’t by the gardener nor the soldiers, nor the disciples. Jesus’ body was moved because three days after He had been crucified, God’s son rose from death. It was a unique, eternity changing moment in human history. That‘s why the angel said: “I know you are looking for Jesus of Nazareth. He is not here. He has risen from the dead.” Inside that stone box, early in the morning, before the women reached the tomb. An explosion of light broke the darkness and filled the tomb with light. The body of Jesus was quickened by the Spirit of God. Energized by God the Father, God the son cast off the restrictions of death. He was alive! Instantaneously, he possessed a resurrected body. The words of Jesus challenge our culture: “I am the resurrection and the life” Jesus said. “I am the way, the truth and the life, no one comes” into the eternity of my “Father’s presence except through me.” God gives eternal choices to you and to me. The choices have eternal consequences. Isn’t that the story of Calvary? Have you ever wondered by Jesus was in the center on Calvary’s hill? Why not on the far left or right? The thief on the right and the thief on the left, both crucified with Jesus had a choice. One chose to believe the other ridiculed Jesus. Could it be that like the empty stone box in which his body had been placed also offers people a choice? The Pharisees who watched Jesus give sight to a man who was blind from birth, had a choice. Those who came to the home of Mary and Martha, knowing that Lazarus had been in the grave for four days had a choice. John tells us “many of the Jews who came from Jerusalem and saw what Jesus did put their faith in him.” But others did not. Satan does not want people to hear the message of the angel: “Jesus is not here. He has risen from the dead.” Satan’s desire is to keep people locked in their box of fear. That box is often in the shape of a casket. In the winter of 1982 Vice President, George Bush represented the United States at the funeral of former Soviet leader Leonid Brezhnev. Bush was deeply moved by a silent protest carried out by Brezhnev’s widow. She stood motionless by the coffin until seconds before it was closed. Then, just as the soldiers touched the lid, Brezhnev’s wife performed an act of great courage and hope, a gesture that must surely rank as one of the most profound acts of civil disobedience ever committed. She reached down and made the sign of the cross on her husband’s chest. There in the citadel of secular, atheistic power, the wife of the man who had run it all hoped that her husband was wrong. She hoped that there was another life, and that life was represented by Jesus who died on the cross, and that same Jesus might yet have mercy on her husband. You see, she knew that death was not the final word. Even though she had been told all her life by her husband and by the Kremlin that death was the end, she knew that there was ONE who was resurrected from the dead. His name was Jesus. Jesus defeated sin on the cross. Jesus came into this world as an infant. Mary placed the infant in a wooden box. His first bed. Even then the angel gave the same message to shepherds. Do not be afraid. A savior has been born. He will save humanity from the consequences of sin. Jesus came into the world so that by his perfect life, his vicarious suffering and death would propitiate God’s holy wrath against sin. His death on the cross destroyed the devil who holds people in the fear of death. Is there hope beyond the varnished wooden box placed in the ground? Yes! Every other religion has values for behavior. They have leaders and religious teachers. There is one difference. The graves of their religious founders are occupied. Christianity has an empty tomb because Jesus lives. Jesus rose from death and Christianity is based on this historical reality. He did not rise up from the stone slab as you and I might rise from bed early in the morning, throwing back the covers. No! John tells us his experience. “I ran to the tomb with Peter. I looked in and saw the strips of linen lying there as well as the burial cloth that had been around Jesus’ head.” He was not there. The resurrected body of Jesus was not bound by the molecules of that linen shroud, nor stone walls. His energized body passed right through the cloth. It fell limp like a glove from which a hand has been removed. His resurrection guarantees that all of his promises are true. Our sins have been forgiven. His resurrection guarantees that we are set free from the fear of death. His resurrection frees us from the unending, overwhelming burden of trying to please God by our own merits and deeds. There is hope for life beyond the grave. The same power that raised Jesus from the dead will also give eternal life to all who confess Jesus as “the way, the truth, and the life.” Without this Easter event…you and I would be without hope. There would be a nagging emptiness in our soul. Why? Why do we believe that there is life after death? Something inside each human being tells us that there is more to life than a few years on earth. ‘Where did you get that feeling? God put it there. When God created each human being He “placed eternity in the human heart”…Just as people know from observing creation that there is a creator, so we sense in our hearts that there is life after death.’ (From Decision Magazine April 2000 Billy Graham) You and I both know that in our culture there is a battle raging for the hearts and minds of people regarding the “truth” of the Easter event. The culture would like us to believe that “truth” is up to each individual and that there are no absolutes. How about you this morning? Are you like some in our culture who believe the event of Jesus’ resurrection is merely alleged? Was His body stolen by his disciples? Who moved His body? The Easter event, the resurrection of Jesus brings every individual face to face with a living Jesus. You have to make a choice. When preaching in Jerusalem Peter said: “There is no other name given under heaven by which we can be saved.” God’s word reminds us that “our citizenship is in heaven. We eagerly await a Savior from there, the Lord Jesus Christ, who by the power that enables him to bring everything under his control will transform our bodies so that they will be fashioned like his glorious body.” (Phil. 3:20-21) “For we believe that Jesus died and rose again...…” That God will keep his promise to us. One last thing. Did the angel tell the women to keep the resurrection a secret? No. “Go tell his disciples that he has risen from the grave.” Last week our children received a multi colored bracelet. Each color told the life story of Jesus. Was the bracelet designed to cause people to ask…. ”What does that bracelet mean?” You bet… Tell the story. The strife is o’er… the battle done. The powers of death have done their worst Let shouts of holy joy outburst. He is risen! Alleluia! He is risen! |
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