Easter Day
Preaching
Preaching and Reading the Old Testament Lessons
With an Eye to the New
Object:
The resurrection is for everyone. That is the message of our text. It tells the story of the visit of the Apostle Peter to the house of a Roman soldier named Cornelius, who is stationed with the other troops in the town of Caesarea on the northern coast of Samaria. Prompted by the vision of an angel who has urged him to summon Peter, Cornelius sends two of his servants to fetch the apostle. At the same time, Peter has been given the strange vision of a great sheet let down from heaven, filled with unclean animals, and he has been commanded by the Lord to eat what is unclean. In other words, Peter has learned that the good news of the gospel is not only for ritually pure Jews or for the faithful of Israel, but for all people everywhere. That is the realization with which Peter journeys to Cornelius' house and declares to him the content of our reading that we heard from Acts.
The resurrection of Jesus Christ is for everyone. There are some of you in this congregation who, if you will admit it honestly, are rather marginal Christians. Easter does not hold much meaning for you. It's a time when everyone buys new clothes and goes to church and thinks of Easter bunnies and colored eggs. But the resurrection has never had much significance in your daily life.
There are others who have come into this church bearing in the back of their minds the memory of a rather spotted past. What do you have on your conscience? Some compromise of what you knew was right? Some temptation and sin you placed in another's way? Some sexual or monetary misadventure that you've never been able to confess to anyone?
That is not to say, of course, that there are not also some saints among us, persons who have faithfully trusted their Lord through all of the ups and downs of their lives, persons who have worshiped and prayed and studied the Bible and found their foundation in their Christian faith for years upon years.
To make the record complete, we of course must also note that outside of this church there are all of those secular souls who largely ignore whatever it is that we do in this place. Persons who live and let live, who let the church go its own way and who never give a thought to God, who figure that how they live their life is nobody's business but their own, and that whatever happens to them in this world is dependent entirely on their efforts or maybe just on luck.
So there is a whole conglomeration of people inside and outside the church on this Easter Sunday -- faithful and indifferent, believing and doubting, sinners and saints. And the message of our text is that the resurrection is for all of them -- for all of us, no matter what our condition. "Truly I perceive," says Peter in our text, "that God shows no partiality" (v. 34), because, you see, God so loved the world that he gave his only Son.
So what does that mean for all of us on this Easter morn? Most obvious I suppose is the fact that God wants to give us life. It's a foregone conclusion that all of us are going to die, isn't it? Despite all of our modern, miracle medicine, despite all of our efforts to retain our youth -- by cosmetics or exercise or proper diet -- sooner or later each one of us will end up in a grave. But the Lord God of the universe doesn't like death very well. In fact, the scriptures tell us that his Son is fighting a battle against it (cf. 1 Corinthians 15:25-26). God wants to do away with death. And so, as Peter tells us in our text, God sends his Son to descend into the darkness of death, but then to triumph over it. "God raised him on the third day," Peter proclaims, and there were countless witnesses to that fact (vv. 40-41). In Jesus Christ, God who hates the fact that we are going to die, triumphed over our deaths and gave us the resurrected One by whom you and I may have eternal life.
It's also true in the scriptures that God, the Lord of the universe, hates evil. The prophet Habakkuk tells us that God cannot even stand to look at it (Habakkuk 1:13). And heaven knows there's a lot he sees in our time and place, isn't there? The violence and crime on our city streets, the injustices in commerce and court, the lies and deceits, the broken relationships, the children neglected or abused. And that's not to mention the wars and bloodshed, the starvation and suffering of which we read in our headlines every day. The book of Genesis tells us that it all grieves God to his heart (Genesis 6:6). And that's the reaction that all of us often have to evil too, isn't it? We cannot help but wonder if the world will always be this way, if we always will be wearied with the unending corruption of good and decency. Certainly we saw it exhibited that day when they nailed Jesus Christ to that cross, didn't we? We human beings killed the fairest and most innocent life on the hill of Golgotha.
But the Lord God of the universe, who so hates human evil, also triumphed over that attempt to defeat his goodness. He raised his Son from the dead on the third day of the week at dawn, and he thereby showed to us that the wrong and the ruin in our world will not have the last word. No. God's is the last Word, good Christians. God's is the final victory. God's goodness, God's love, incarnated in Jesus Christ -- God's good plan for his universe cannot be defeated. And you and I can live with the certain and joyful knowledge that his rule over all will come.
In fact, we can live now with the knowledge that God also can triumph over the sin and guilt that we know lurk in our own hearts. We try to ignore that guilty burden that we carry around inside of us, don't we? But sometimes, in our isolated moments, or in the dark of a sleepless night, it gnaws at our innards, and we know that something is wrong with our lives. Somewhere along the line, we made a whole series of bad choices. Somehow we're not what we were meant to be. And we wish that we had the power within ourselves to set it all right.
But the message of our text is that the resurrection means forgiveness, too. Did you catch that in the last sentence of our reading from Acts? "Every one who believes in him receives forgiveness of sins through his name" (v. 43). Everyone who trusts in God's act in Jesus Christ has a new beginning. The old is done away; behold, the new has come (2 Corinthians 5:17). And we are given a fresh start, and a new Spirit who is the Spirit of the living Christ working in us to make us into new persons, able to be good and do it.
That message is for everyone this morning, whether you are good or bad, believing or unbelieving before, sinner or saint, guilty or innocent in the sight of God. Jesus Christ has been raised from the dead, and God has won the victory. You need not die eternally. The evil in our world does not have the last word. All your sins and all your faults can be forgiven by God. And you can become new persons in the power of the Lord who raised his Son. It's a message for every one of us on this Easter morn. We have only to hear and take it into our hearts. And then we can truly rejoice, every one of us, on this Easter day.
The resurrection of Jesus Christ is for everyone. There are some of you in this congregation who, if you will admit it honestly, are rather marginal Christians. Easter does not hold much meaning for you. It's a time when everyone buys new clothes and goes to church and thinks of Easter bunnies and colored eggs. But the resurrection has never had much significance in your daily life.
There are others who have come into this church bearing in the back of their minds the memory of a rather spotted past. What do you have on your conscience? Some compromise of what you knew was right? Some temptation and sin you placed in another's way? Some sexual or monetary misadventure that you've never been able to confess to anyone?
That is not to say, of course, that there are not also some saints among us, persons who have faithfully trusted their Lord through all of the ups and downs of their lives, persons who have worshiped and prayed and studied the Bible and found their foundation in their Christian faith for years upon years.
To make the record complete, we of course must also note that outside of this church there are all of those secular souls who largely ignore whatever it is that we do in this place. Persons who live and let live, who let the church go its own way and who never give a thought to God, who figure that how they live their life is nobody's business but their own, and that whatever happens to them in this world is dependent entirely on their efforts or maybe just on luck.
So there is a whole conglomeration of people inside and outside the church on this Easter Sunday -- faithful and indifferent, believing and doubting, sinners and saints. And the message of our text is that the resurrection is for all of them -- for all of us, no matter what our condition. "Truly I perceive," says Peter in our text, "that God shows no partiality" (v. 34), because, you see, God so loved the world that he gave his only Son.
So what does that mean for all of us on this Easter morn? Most obvious I suppose is the fact that God wants to give us life. It's a foregone conclusion that all of us are going to die, isn't it? Despite all of our modern, miracle medicine, despite all of our efforts to retain our youth -- by cosmetics or exercise or proper diet -- sooner or later each one of us will end up in a grave. But the Lord God of the universe doesn't like death very well. In fact, the scriptures tell us that his Son is fighting a battle against it (cf. 1 Corinthians 15:25-26). God wants to do away with death. And so, as Peter tells us in our text, God sends his Son to descend into the darkness of death, but then to triumph over it. "God raised him on the third day," Peter proclaims, and there were countless witnesses to that fact (vv. 40-41). In Jesus Christ, God who hates the fact that we are going to die, triumphed over our deaths and gave us the resurrected One by whom you and I may have eternal life.
It's also true in the scriptures that God, the Lord of the universe, hates evil. The prophet Habakkuk tells us that God cannot even stand to look at it (Habakkuk 1:13). And heaven knows there's a lot he sees in our time and place, isn't there? The violence and crime on our city streets, the injustices in commerce and court, the lies and deceits, the broken relationships, the children neglected or abused. And that's not to mention the wars and bloodshed, the starvation and suffering of which we read in our headlines every day. The book of Genesis tells us that it all grieves God to his heart (Genesis 6:6). And that's the reaction that all of us often have to evil too, isn't it? We cannot help but wonder if the world will always be this way, if we always will be wearied with the unending corruption of good and decency. Certainly we saw it exhibited that day when they nailed Jesus Christ to that cross, didn't we? We human beings killed the fairest and most innocent life on the hill of Golgotha.
But the Lord God of the universe, who so hates human evil, also triumphed over that attempt to defeat his goodness. He raised his Son from the dead on the third day of the week at dawn, and he thereby showed to us that the wrong and the ruin in our world will not have the last word. No. God's is the last Word, good Christians. God's is the final victory. God's goodness, God's love, incarnated in Jesus Christ -- God's good plan for his universe cannot be defeated. And you and I can live with the certain and joyful knowledge that his rule over all will come.
In fact, we can live now with the knowledge that God also can triumph over the sin and guilt that we know lurk in our own hearts. We try to ignore that guilty burden that we carry around inside of us, don't we? But sometimes, in our isolated moments, or in the dark of a sleepless night, it gnaws at our innards, and we know that something is wrong with our lives. Somewhere along the line, we made a whole series of bad choices. Somehow we're not what we were meant to be. And we wish that we had the power within ourselves to set it all right.
But the message of our text is that the resurrection means forgiveness, too. Did you catch that in the last sentence of our reading from Acts? "Every one who believes in him receives forgiveness of sins through his name" (v. 43). Everyone who trusts in God's act in Jesus Christ has a new beginning. The old is done away; behold, the new has come (2 Corinthians 5:17). And we are given a fresh start, and a new Spirit who is the Spirit of the living Christ working in us to make us into new persons, able to be good and do it.
That message is for everyone this morning, whether you are good or bad, believing or unbelieving before, sinner or saint, guilty or innocent in the sight of God. Jesus Christ has been raised from the dead, and God has won the victory. You need not die eternally. The evil in our world does not have the last word. All your sins and all your faults can be forgiven by God. And you can become new persons in the power of the Lord who raised his Son. It's a message for every one of us on this Easter morn. We have only to hear and take it into our hearts. And then we can truly rejoice, every one of us, on this Easter day.
