Sermon illustrations for Easter 4 (2022)
Illustration
Acts 9:36-43
God has a way of surprising us. Surprises are good things. It is like famed Russian writer Boris Pasternak put it: “Surprise is the greatest gift that life can grant us.” God operates in surprising ways. As John Wesley notes:
God moves his instruments, not when they please, but just when he sees it is needful. (Commentary On the Bible)
It is like British-American Jewish scholar Ashley Montago put it: “The moments of happiness we enjoy take us by surprise. It is not that we seize them, but they seize us.”
Mark E.
* * *
Revelation 7:9-17
Joni Eareckson Tada wrote, “Why don't we talk much about heaven? Maybe it's because all the biblical imagery sounds a bit off — streets of gold, gates of pearl, rainbow thrones, seas of glass. Unless you're really into jewelry, these descriptions don't sound too inviting. But think of it: Heaven is our life's end, our journey's goal. It is our reason for going on. It is the rich repository of every single spiritual investment we make down here on earth. The fact is, very few of us think of our heart's home, even though ultimately, it's the bottom line for why we're here.
I used to get hung up on those streets of gold and gates of pearls. It was hard to remember that, as symbols, they are pointing to a beautiful reality. We shouldn't mistake the symbols for the reality they only represent. After the diving accident 28 years ago in which I became paralyzed, my perspective changed about heavenly glories above. Heaven was no longer a place where I would kneel on all fours to examine whether the streets were made of 18-carat or 24-carat gold. Heaven became my heart's home, the place where I will finally belong. The place where I will get a brand-new body, with hands that work and feet that walk. No other religion, no other philosophy guarantees that kind of hope.
Heaven became, most of all, a place where there will be no more tears, no more pain, no more sorrow. In the world's finale, something so glorious is going to happen that it will atone for every single tear we've ever cried.
This passage from Revelation reminds us of what Jesus offers us in eternity. What a wonderful home. There is truth in what C.S. Lewis wrote in Mere Christianity, “If I find in myself a desire which no experience in this world can satisfy, the most probable explanation is that I was made for another world.”
Bill T.
* * *
Revelation 7:9-17
Many people think Revelation is about the future – and the last chapters are – but much of the Revelation of John is set in the present, whatever present we happen to be living in. By the time John the revelator looked into the heavens and saw what truly is, some of God’s people were dying for the faith in horrible ways, while John himself was serving in one of the hellish tin mines on the island of Patmos, which was tantamount to a slow death sentence. What John saw were multitudes who looked dead on earth, living right now, doing wonderfully well, and waving palm branches. This is what’s happening right now, today, as our Christian sisters and brothers in places like Nigeria are experiencing the same sort of persecution. And if the heavens were rolled back and we looked beyond into reality, we’d see them waiving palm branches too.
Palms were a way of hailing a conquering hero. Military conquerors rode magnificent horses when they entered the great city, leading a procession of chariots and soldiers. People cheered and hollered! Around two hundred years before the first Palm Sunday (and did you know only the Gospel of John mentions palms in their account of the triumphant entry?) the Maccabees cast out the foreign oppressors from Jerusalem, took back the temple, and the people – how did they react?
“On the twenty-third day of the second month, in the one hundred seventy-first year, the Jews entered it with praise and palm branches, … with hymns and songs, because a great enemy had been crushed and removed from Israel.” (1 Maccabees 13:51)
Now the martyrs whose bodies were awash in blood, now praise the lamb bearing the marks of slaughter on the eternal throne, wearing spotless white robes, waving palm branches to celebrate a different kind of conqueror. Like it says in Psalm 33:16-18 –
“A king is not saved by his great army; a warrior is not delivered by his great strength. The war horse is a vain hope for victory, and by its great might I cannot save. Truly the eye of the Lord is on those who fear him, on those who hope in his steadfast love.”
Frank R.
* * *
John 10:22-30
John Calvin writes that our salvation is certain because it is in the hand of God; for our faith is weak, and we are too pone to waver (Calvin’s Commentaries, Vol. XVII/2, p. 416). The lesson testifies to this certainty, that God actually does what he says, for Jesus and the Father are one (v.30). Early African theologian Calus Marius Victorinus elaborates on this text and in so doing makes clear why we can be sure that the work of Jesus has realized God’s intentions. Victorinus claims that Father and Son are united like the power to act (the Father) is united to the action (the Son) (The Fathers of the Church, Vol. 69, pp. 132,159,173-174,224). The son is the action of the Father’s power.
Mark E.
God has a way of surprising us. Surprises are good things. It is like famed Russian writer Boris Pasternak put it: “Surprise is the greatest gift that life can grant us.” God operates in surprising ways. As John Wesley notes:
God moves his instruments, not when they please, but just when he sees it is needful. (Commentary On the Bible)
It is like British-American Jewish scholar Ashley Montago put it: “The moments of happiness we enjoy take us by surprise. It is not that we seize them, but they seize us.”
Mark E.
* * *
Revelation 7:9-17
Joni Eareckson Tada wrote, “Why don't we talk much about heaven? Maybe it's because all the biblical imagery sounds a bit off — streets of gold, gates of pearl, rainbow thrones, seas of glass. Unless you're really into jewelry, these descriptions don't sound too inviting. But think of it: Heaven is our life's end, our journey's goal. It is our reason for going on. It is the rich repository of every single spiritual investment we make down here on earth. The fact is, very few of us think of our heart's home, even though ultimately, it's the bottom line for why we're here.
I used to get hung up on those streets of gold and gates of pearls. It was hard to remember that, as symbols, they are pointing to a beautiful reality. We shouldn't mistake the symbols for the reality they only represent. After the diving accident 28 years ago in which I became paralyzed, my perspective changed about heavenly glories above. Heaven was no longer a place where I would kneel on all fours to examine whether the streets were made of 18-carat or 24-carat gold. Heaven became my heart's home, the place where I will finally belong. The place where I will get a brand-new body, with hands that work and feet that walk. No other religion, no other philosophy guarantees that kind of hope.
Heaven became, most of all, a place where there will be no more tears, no more pain, no more sorrow. In the world's finale, something so glorious is going to happen that it will atone for every single tear we've ever cried.
This passage from Revelation reminds us of what Jesus offers us in eternity. What a wonderful home. There is truth in what C.S. Lewis wrote in Mere Christianity, “If I find in myself a desire which no experience in this world can satisfy, the most probable explanation is that I was made for another world.”
Bill T.
* * *
Revelation 7:9-17
Many people think Revelation is about the future – and the last chapters are – but much of the Revelation of John is set in the present, whatever present we happen to be living in. By the time John the revelator looked into the heavens and saw what truly is, some of God’s people were dying for the faith in horrible ways, while John himself was serving in one of the hellish tin mines on the island of Patmos, which was tantamount to a slow death sentence. What John saw were multitudes who looked dead on earth, living right now, doing wonderfully well, and waving palm branches. This is what’s happening right now, today, as our Christian sisters and brothers in places like Nigeria are experiencing the same sort of persecution. And if the heavens were rolled back and we looked beyond into reality, we’d see them waiving palm branches too.
Palms were a way of hailing a conquering hero. Military conquerors rode magnificent horses when they entered the great city, leading a procession of chariots and soldiers. People cheered and hollered! Around two hundred years before the first Palm Sunday (and did you know only the Gospel of John mentions palms in their account of the triumphant entry?) the Maccabees cast out the foreign oppressors from Jerusalem, took back the temple, and the people – how did they react?
“On the twenty-third day of the second month, in the one hundred seventy-first year, the Jews entered it with praise and palm branches, … with hymns and songs, because a great enemy had been crushed and removed from Israel.” (1 Maccabees 13:51)
Now the martyrs whose bodies were awash in blood, now praise the lamb bearing the marks of slaughter on the eternal throne, wearing spotless white robes, waving palm branches to celebrate a different kind of conqueror. Like it says in Psalm 33:16-18 –
“A king is not saved by his great army; a warrior is not delivered by his great strength. The war horse is a vain hope for victory, and by its great might I cannot save. Truly the eye of the Lord is on those who fear him, on those who hope in his steadfast love.”
Frank R.
* * *
John 10:22-30
John Calvin writes that our salvation is certain because it is in the hand of God; for our faith is weak, and we are too pone to waver (Calvin’s Commentaries, Vol. XVII/2, p. 416). The lesson testifies to this certainty, that God actually does what he says, for Jesus and the Father are one (v.30). Early African theologian Calus Marius Victorinus elaborates on this text and in so doing makes clear why we can be sure that the work of Jesus has realized God’s intentions. Victorinus claims that Father and Son are united like the power to act (the Father) is united to the action (the Son) (The Fathers of the Church, Vol. 69, pp. 132,159,173-174,224). The son is the action of the Father’s power.
Mark E.
