[Mcgregorpage] McGregorPage #601, Easter Sunday, 3/23/08

[rmcgregoralbq at aol.com]

Easter Sunday – March 23, 2008

Acts 10:34 43 
Psalm 118:1 2, 14 24
Colossians 3:1 4 
John 20:1 18 or Matthew 28:1 10


He Is Risen! -- He Who?

What I always tell myself in preparing an Easter sermon is, "Don't gild the lily."  "You can't improve on the text; you can only serve it and offer it up."  (Of course, that applies to all sermons, but most especially to this one.)  Some churches don't celebrate Easter.  They consider it an unnecessary accretion to the original Sunday worship which was no less than a weekly celebration of the resurrection and anticipation of Christ's coming in glory.  If Easter is to be more than a creature of tradition, a kind of atonement for under-emphasizing the resurrection the other fifty-one Sundays, then it needs to be the service in which we look at nothing but the resurrection.  Fine, but what do you say after you say, "He is risen!"  You say, "He who?"

When Peter preached, "He is risen", he also addressed the question, "He who?"  "You know the message he [God] sent to the people of Israel, preaching peace by Jesus Christ  he is Lord of all."   (Acts 10:36)  Who is it that has been raised?  It is the person you meet by reading the Gospel backward from the resurrection.  Peter does this in large brush strokes:   "That message spread throughout Judea, beginning in Galilee after the baptism that John announced:  how God anointed Jesus of Nazareth with the Holy Spirit and with power; how he went about doing good and healing all who were oppressed by the devil, for God was with him.  We are witnesses to all that he did both in Judea and in Jerusalem. They put him to death by hanging him on a tree..."  (Acts 10:37-39)  

In fact, it is the person you meet if you read the whole Hebrew Scripture backward.  "All the prophets testify about him that everyone who believes in him receives forgiveness of sins through his name."  (Acts 10:43)  Who is it that is risen?  It is the one the disciples knew.  It is the one the prophets knew.  It is the one God knew from the beginning of creation.  And, if you don't know this one, you don't know the significance of the words "He is risen."  "He is risen" does not refer to the son of the widow of Nain, nor to the daughter of the ruler of the Synagogue, nor to Lazarus, but to the one who is risen never to die again, the one who is risen to reign forever.
"Who he is" is tied to "that he is risen", and "that he is risen" tells us who he is.  This is to read the Gospel forward from the resurrection:  because he is risen we know that "In those days a decree went out from Caesar Augustus..."  (Luke 2:1)  and we know that "In the beginning was the Word and the Word was with God and the Word was God."  (John 1:1)  Peter moves from the resurrection forward in his sermon when he says, "God raised him on the third day and allowed him to appear, not to all the people but to us who were chosen by God as witnesses..."  (Acts 10 40-41)  Yes, witnesses, and to what do they witness?  That he is risen who ...  and then they go back and tell the story of his life knowing who he was but making it clear that they didn't know who he was before the resurrection.  Beginning with Mark and culminating with John, the witnesses tell the story of Jesus ever more as the one who is risen.  Indeed, in the Gospel of John, Jesus starts out risen.  "Risen" is a given throughout the Gospel.  "Risen" is a given when the beloved disciple enters the tomb.  "Believing" is the event, not the resurrection.

So, you can't know Jesus as the Christ apart from his resurrection, and you can't know the significance of the resurrection apart from knowing the identity of Jesus.  Therefore, preach the two in equal measure lest the risen Lord be confused with a butterfly.


May these thoughts strengthen you. 
 
An Open Letter to Fellow Pastors 
>From Roland McGregor, United Methodist Pastor 
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