April 1, 2018 – Easter Text: Romans 6:1-9
Dear Friends in Christ,
“The Gospel in Seven Words.” That has been our theme this Lenten season. If you have been with us on Wednesday evenings, Maundy Thursday and Good Friday you know that each week we try to get the Gospel down to seven words. Brevity is something needed in our attention span starved world. People who don’t know the Gospel, or who have walked away from the church, especially friends and family of yours, need to hear the Good News about what this day is all about.
We have talked these last seven weeks about confessing, captivity and freedom, death and life, isolation and community. In Holy Week we have focused on Jesus feeding our hungry soul and how His death has overcome our death. Today, our goal is once again to witness to the Gospel in seven words.
When this journey began on Ash Wednesday, one of our congregation members came out of church and mentioned to me that I was already proclaiming the gospel in brief. I do it each time I step in this pulpit. I have been doing it for 26 ½ years, the length of my ministry. You heard it again today. Do you know what it is? . . . “Jesus died, so we might live.” I know that’s six words; so to keep with our target of seven words, let’s make it this on Easter morning . . .
“JESUS DIED AND ROSE, SO WE LIVE”
The first part states that Jesus died. He did. I was there. You were there. Not physically mind you, but a part of us was there. Our bad language was there. Our worrying was there. Our questionable choices were there. Our idols of success and money and “look what I have done world” before our relationship with God were there. Our Sunday morning decisions about being in God’s House were there. Our horrible thoughts about others were there. Our lack of trust in our Savior was there. It was all piled on Him. He was crushed for our iniquities. He went through hell to save us from hell. “Surely He was the Son of God.”
The second part of our seven word gospel we celebrate today. Jesus rose. What a glorious declaration. Jesus’ resurrection was the fulfillment of God’s Word throughout the ages. It was the core of God’s meticulously crafted plan of salvation. Jesus had promised he would rise from the dead, and when he did, he proved his divinity. He vindicated everything he had ever said or done. Because Jesus rose we can trust everything he said throughout his life and ministry.
Because Jesus died and because Jesus rose, we can declare with confidence that “we live.” None of us can outwit or outsmart or outlast death. The slow and steady march of life is always leading us another step closer to the grave.
And yet, the resurrection of Jesus shows that death is no longer in charge. Because of Jesus, death is no longer our master. We will still die, unless Jesus returns, but death is no longer the end of our story. Through faith in Christ, and through the promise God makes to us in our baptism, we will live even after death.
Do you get it? Because of Easter, we need not live in shame. Because of Easter we need not work so hard to serve ourselves. Because of Easter we can forgive those who have sinned against us, for Christ has forgiven our sin against him. It’s called new life, and it’s what God gives you and me here again this day.
Her father was an atheist who concluded God did not exist. In college weighed down with her parent’s divorce and an absentee father she tried to cope with one-night stands, binge drinking, and recreational drugs. But at night, when the lights were out, she asked the question that every human being asks at one time, “Is there something more to life?”
During her sophomore year, her father read the Bible to see if Jesus professed positive things and through this he came to faith. His newfound faith threatened her. Outwardly, she mocked him. Inwardly, it launched her on a quest to discover the meaning of life.
She took a class on non-Western religions and then interviewed classmates about their belief systems around a keg smoking joints. One day she passed a bookstore and saw a book by Billy Graham. She tucked it into her beach bag, grabbed a six-pack and went to the dunes of Lake Michigan to party with friends. As she read on the beach and looked around at God’s creation she thought, “maybe God does exist and created me for a purpose.”
She then read the Bible and she couldn’t get enough. It introduced her to God’s love through Christ and His ability to provide each of us an abundant life full of significance. She was transformed from tending bar on the weekends to marrying a Pastor who tells people every Sunday about the living water, the life we have because of Jesus’ death and resurrection.
Who do you know who is lying in bed thinking, “Is there something more to life?” Maybe you found yourself in this true story. Whatever brought you to worship this day, I want you to find the peace and joy that God offers in light of Jesus’ resurrection. I want you to believe, and to confess, this incredibly good news of the gospel. This morning, we again make it simple. Just seven words that change our lives forever.
Jesus died and rose, so we live. Amen.