Easter Sunday

Luke 24.44-47

What is the message of Easter? "Christ is risen! He is risen indeed!" This was the message shared by his family and friends on that third day following his horrible death on the cross. "Je-sus is alive! Indeed, he is not dead but is alive!"

Is there any way anyone could have possibly misunderstood these statements? Have you experienced the death of someone close to you? What is so tragic is that death is final. What is so sad is that you won’t see the person, speak with the person, go out for dinner with the person, go on a vacation together with the person who died. That person is no longer, in any way a part of your life. He or she lives on only in your memory. You can see that person only in the pictures you might have of him or her. The death of someone close to you is horrible.

But if someone told you that this person was no longer dead but was alive again...that this person had risen from the dead, you would have only one question, "Do you mean to tell me that life actually came back into this person’s body?" That’s the only way you could understand such a claim...he is risen...life came back into his body...he is alive!

You are aware, I suspect, that opponents of Christianity want to debunk the idea that life actually came back into Jesus’ body. There are some who claim that the resurrection of Christ was not the "resuscitation" of the body, that is, he did not become a living, breathing human being after he died. But when the Bible says that Jesus was alive it means to say that Jesus’ memory lived on in the hearts and minds of his disciples and family, and that Jesus’ memory lives on in the minds of Christians today, but not that he actually came alive again.

The angel said to the women who came to prepare Jesus’ body for burial, (Lk 24:7) The Son of Man must be delivered into the hands of sinful men, be crucified and on the third day be raised again. Paul wrote, (Rom 4:25), He was delivered over to death for our sins and was raised to life for our justification. Jesus is alive, which means, THE FATHER HAS FORGIVEN US! The message of Easter is about forgiveness from God.

The message of Easter is older than Easter; its source actually goes back to time David and the prophet Isaiah many centuries before Jesus even came to this earth. Jesus’ crucifixion on the cross is something David spoke about in the 22^nd Psalm (v15 - 18). And the prophet Isaiah spoke about what this death of Jesus would bring to you and me and all people of the world (Is 53. 5,6b). These words were given to David and Isaiah by the Holy Spirit, words that foretold what would happen to the chosen one of God, the Messiah in his role as Savior of the human race.

The essential thing to understand about Jesus and his crucifixi-on is very basic: God made a perfect world with sinless people. There was no death, nor would there have every been death. God had it in mind that all people who would inhabit the earth, including us, would be sinless and would know only a perfect and happy life on this planet that would have lasted forever. Nothing would have caused us to be unhappy or sad, angry or frustrated. There would be no need for Social Security or mortgages or foreclosures, stem cell research or cancer treatment, no bypass surgery or hip replacement or abductions and killing of children or chiropractors or pirates on the high seas or Internet crooks who get into your bank account.

What God wanted for us and had in mind for us Adam and Eve took away from us when they sinned. And now you and I sin a daily continue to reinforce the hard truth that God owes us nothing good but only his justice and his punishment of our sins. That’s all we should expect from God...punishment because of our sins. When you use your credit card you go into debt and the VISA folks or MasterCard people expect you to pay that debt. If you don’t all you can expect from them is some kind of penalty. They don’t owe you anything, you owe them.

That’s how it is between God and us. We owe him the debt of sin. We can’t pay it back so all we can expect from, like the credit card people, is some kind of penalty. Only it’s much more severe that any credit card company would apply. God’s penalty for the debt of sin that we owe him is the punishment of eternal death and damnation in hell.

God made a perfect world with perfect people who turned it into an imperfect world subject to death and damnation. How then could this sad state of affairs be changed back to what God had in mind for us humans? He would have to do something to re-pair the damage caused by sin. And that’s what he did. That’s what David and Isaiah wrote about. God would send his own Son, the Messiah, who would take the punishment for sin on himself. He would pay for sin by dying on a cross because God would lay the sins of the world on him...like someone else pay-ing off a credit card debt on our behalf.

This is what Jesus was explaining to his disciples after he rose from the dead and appeared to them (45). It shouldn’t surprise us that so many people still don’t understand the meaning and message of Easter. After spending three years with his disciples Jesus still had to explain to them why he had to die and what he would accomplish with his death (v 46 - 47). Through his death and resurrection Jesus made it possible for us to confess our sins to him, asking him to forgive our debt of sin, and he does just that. THE FATHER HAS FORGIVEN US, has forgiven our sins because Jesus paid for them through his death and his resurrection from the dead. That’s the message of Easter.

If you are desperate and have to beg someone to loan you some money, you are very thankful when someone does give you that loan. And if they tell you that the loan is no longer a loan but a gift...you don’t have to repay the loan...you would be out of your mind with appreciation and you would show it in many ways; you would make your appreciation very evident by the way you treated this kind person who canceled your debt.

God has canceled your debt of sin; he has forgiven you. That’s the message of Easter and the risen Christ...the physically risen from the dead, Christ. How do you show him your appreciation? He has given you life, eternal life when you believe in Jesus as your Savior. You need never fear death. If you some day lay on your death bed you and your family can talk about the message of Easter...how Jesus rose from the dead and you will, too! How do you thank him for that? Think about it...and to it!