What Difference Does It Make That Jesus Is Alive?

John 20.19-20 

INTRODUCTION

What does it mean to you that Jesus is alive?

If you thought that Jesus was still in his grave, what kind of person would you be?
How would you think about yourself? How would you think about other people?

Would you still have the same interests? The same pleasures? The same concerns?

How would you spend your money if you didn’t know Jesus?

How would you face your coming death? Would you just try not to think about it?

This is Easter. Jesus is alive!—and that makes all the difference.

One of the Easter stories is recorded in John 20:19-20:

On the evening of that day, the first day of the week, the doors being shut where the disciples were, for fear of the Jews, Jesus came and stood among them and said to them, “Peace be with you.”

When he had said this, he showed them his hands and his side.

Then the disciples were glad when they saw the Lord.

I. Let’s look in on the little gathering in that locked room.

A. Jesus’s disciples were disappointed, discouraged, and afraid.

The eleven chosen disciples felt terrible about how they had behaved in the garden when they had all run away, leaving Jesus in the hands of his enemies.

Peter, especially, was ashamed and embarrassed because after his act of bravado in the garden when he attacked the slave of the High Priest with his sword, he had not only run away but also denied three times that he even knew Jesus.

The One they had looked to as their Savior was gone.

For three years they had been preparing themselves to rule with Jesus in his Kingdom—and now that wasn’t going to happen because Jesus was dead.

What to do? Should they go back to their fishing and other occupations?

Was there anything they could salvage from the lost cause?

B. They were also confused because some of the women among the disciples had come with stories of having seen Jesus at the tomb. According to Luke, Cleopas and his companion had arrived with a story of meeting Jesus that afternoon on the road to Emmaus. And Peter said he had seen the Lord.

But women tend to be emotional and excitable, and maybe they were seeing things.

The stories seemed impossible. Remember, people believed in ghosts in those days.

It was very confusing. They didn’t know what to think.

II. Then Jesus showed up—he came right through the locked door—or through the wall—or maybe he just appeared in their midst.

A. Luke tells us that when the disciples saw Jesus appear before them “they were terrified and frightened and supposed that they saw a spirit.”

B. So the first thing Jesus said was, “Peace be with you!”

“Peace be with you, ” was the common greeting and farewell in those days. It served both for “Hello” and “Good bye.”

But when Jesus said “Peace be with you!” it had a deeper meaning.

The night of Jesus’s betrayal, Jesus had said, “Peace I leave with you; my peace I give to you; not as the world gives do I give to you Let not your hearts be troubled, neither let them be afraid” (John 14:21) 

One thing Jesus’s friends needed now was peace.

Their hearts were in turmoil; they needed peace, and Jesus was here to give them such a peace as the world can’t give and the world can’t take away.

And when Jesus says, “Peace!” it’s not just a wish; his presence makes peace. We can only imagine with what joy they greeted this announcement.

C. Then Jesus showed them the scars in his hands and side.

If there was any doubt in their minds, the sight of those wounds convinced them.

When the disciples saw those scars, they were convinced. They weren’t just seeing things. Jesus was really with them!

D. “Then the disciples were glad when they saw the Lord.”

At that moment all the doubters were filled with joy. They had gone from despair to gladness.

Have you seen Jesus?

We don’t see Jesus with our eyes as they did, but we see can him with the eyes of faith, and when we see him, we also are filled with joy.

That’s one reason we come to church—to see Jesus. We see Jesus in each other, and we see Jesus with the eyes of faith as we read the gospels.

And I look forward to that day—not so far off when I will see Jesus face to face—and I will be glad—with a gladness unimaginable now on this earth.

Here’s a riddle: What will we see in heaven that was made on earth?

The answer: The scars in Jesus’s hands.

As a hymn has it—

“I shall know him, I shall know him,

And redeemed by his side I shall stand,

I shall know him, I shall know him

by the print of the nails in his hand.”

When we see Jesus in glory, we may be overcome by his splendor—but we will still see those marks in his hands.

Those scars that will tell us of the depths of love.

Jesus will wear them for all eternity.

ALTERNATE CONCLUSION

Heidi Newmark was pastor of a Lutheran church in the South Bronx, perhaps the poorest of all the poor neighborhoods in America.

The leaders and officers of her congregation included former addicts and undocumented aliens, the unemployed and the homeless.

During Holy Week several years ago, this congregation decided to reenact the highlights of the story of Holy Week, from Palm Sunday to Easter.

They rented a donkey and one of them played the part of Jesus, riding on the donkey.

They formed a parade—a long procession around the block of shabby storefronts and rundown apartments—shouting “Hosanna! Hosanna!”

They had got almost around the block when they ran into a street demonstration protesting police brutality. The cries of “Hosanna!” and the cries of the demonstrators mingled in a cacophony of voices.

A passer-by saw the confusion, got alarmed, and called the police.

The arrival of the police added to the color and drama.

Finally they managed to make it inside the church where they enacted the events of the trial, condemnation, and execution of Jesus.

Then they reenacted the Easter story.

The women returned from the tomb with the news: “He is risen!”

The actors playing the disciples remained true to the Bible record, pooh-poohing the women’s tale.

Then the script called for three members of the congregation to stand up and give testimony—like bearing witness in court to the truth of the resurrection. Each was to begin with “I know that he is alive…”

Angie was the first. “I know that he is alive,” she said, “because he is alive in me.” She then told how she was abused by her father, how she fell into despair and alcoholism, became HIV positive. But then she responded to the welcome of the church, started attending worship, then a Bible study, and bit-by-bit she rose from the grave of her life. Now she is a seminary student, studying to be a pastor.

“I am now alive because Jesus Christ lives in me and through me,” Angie said—her face aglow. “I am a temple of the Holy Spirit.”

The two other witnesses stood in turn, each reciting the assigned part of the script: “I know that he is alive because…” and they told their stories.

Then that portion of the play was done, and it was time to move on. But the testimony would not stop.

Others in the sanctuary began to rise spontaneously. “I know that he is alive,” they would say, “because he is alive in me.”

Homeless people, addicts now clean, stood one by one. Nothing could stop them.

“I know that he is alive,” they shouted, all giving corroborating testimony to the witness of Jesus, adding their own word to the great witness of Easter, telling the truth about what they had seen and heard.

(Adapted from Robert G. Long, Testimony: Talking Ourselves into Being Christian, pp30-31)

ALTERNATE CONCLUSION

Several weeks ago our senior-in-high-school granddaughter Hannah asked me if I had ever had an unusual proof of God.

I told her that several years ago, in the middle of the night, I felt myself suddenly to be in the presence of God. Glory seemed to be rushing toward me. I was incredibly excited. I was overwhelmed and shouted for joy. I said, “Wow! I’ll never doubt again!” The next morning I asked Charlotte whether she had heard me shout in the night. She said she hadn’t. It had been a dream.

But I told Hannah that the most convincing proof of God to me is that I had seen Jesus in the lives of several people I had known. These people may have seemed ordinary to other people, but I have seen Jesus in their lives.

I can’t explain their holiness, their love, their goodness any way except that Jesus was in their lives.

And then in December of 1948 during my freshman year at the University of Kansas, Jesus came into my life too. I had heard about Jesus all my life. I knew all the stories. But now I felt that I had met him personally. It was as if he just got up off the pages of the Gospels and began to walk through life with me.

In Korea, one night as the Chinese overran our position, I thought it might be my last night on earth—but I felt peace. I knew God was with me.

During a catastrophic illness in our family, I began to doubt God, but the faith and kindness of fellow church members got me through that experience and Jesus seemed more real than ever.

I was unemployed and worried that I wouldn’t find work to support our family, but God was with me.

Now I am old now. I have had two kinds of cancer. I know that it won’t be long before I go through that door that leads to the next world.

I don’t know how I will deal with death. I hope and pray that my faith will not falter, but that as I exit this world I will still feel the assurance that the Jesus is alive and he is still my companion, and that he is waiting to welcome me into glory.

“It Is Finished”

John 19:28-30

INTRODUCTION

The story is told of a young soldier in Italy who jumped into a foxhole just ahead of the explosion of an artillery round. His hand touched metal, and he brought up a silver crucifix, left. It must have been left behind by the man who dug the foxhole.

A moment later his chaplain landed beside him in the foxhole.

Holding out the crucifix, the first soldier gasped: “Am I glad to see you! How do you work this thing?”

We laugh at that story because we know that this precious symbol of our faith isn’t a good luck charm.

It has no magical powers. But it represents the most important event in the history of the world.

And it is the event that makes all the difference.

Our Christian faith is well-represented by the image of the cross on which Christ died.

I never met my great grandfather Sommerville. He died long before I was born.

But from the stories told in our family, he was a beloved and godly man.

The family he was born into was desperately poor. As a child in Scotland he never got an education.

He was born hard-of-hearing.

When he was seven he was sent to school. But he was sent home two weeks later with a note from his teacher: “Don’t send Willie to school any more. He’s so hard of hearing that he can’t hear anything. I can’t teach him.”

So he went to work at the coal mine nearby.

When Great Grandpa grew up, he married and brought his wife and three children to the United States.

I don’t know much about his working life, but from the stories I’ve heard he was an enthusiastic Christian. He knew his Bible and could preach.

My other great grandfather on my father’s side founded a tent and awning factory. He was a successful businessman.

He hired Great Grandpa Sommerville as janitor in his factory.

He told Great Grandpa that he didn’t want him to spend too much time pushing the broom.

What he really wanted him to do was to go to the women who ran the sewing machines and talk to them about the Lord.

So Great Grandpa Sommerville would push his broom and go from woman to woman. He was friendly and they enjoyed his attention.

He would coax the ladies to learn Bible verses.

But there was one woman who resisted his efforts to get her to learn verses.

She was a Catholic, and in those days many Catholics believed that Protestants surely weren’t on their way to heaven; and it was common among Protestants to believe that Catholics were living in spiritual darkness.

In those days, so my father said, only Catholics wore crosses. It was sort a badge of their faith.

So this woman came to work one day wearing a large cross on a chain around her neck.

She thought her cross would warn Great Grandpa Sommerville to leave her alone.

But, so the story goes, that when Great Grandpa came to her machine and saw the cross, he came up to her and took the cross in his fingers and said, “That is the most beautiful thing in all the world. That is the thing in all the world that I love the most.”

And he told her in very few words just how he felt about the cross and its meaning—and moved on.

From that time on she was his friend and learned her verses every day.

Because the cross of Christ is at the heart of our faith, and because next week is the beginning of passion week—the week during which Jesus gave his life for us on the cross—I think it is fitting to talk about Christ’s death for us.

John 19:26-30: “After this, when Jesus knew that all was finished, he said (in order to fulfill the scripture), ‘I am thirsty.’ A jar full of vinegar was standing there. So they put a sponge full of the vinegar on a branch of hyssop and held it to his mouth. When Jesus had received the vinegar, he said, “It is finished.” Then he bowed his head and gave up his spirit.”

I. Matthew and Mark tell us that Jesus “gave a loud cry and breathed his last.” John tells us that Jesus said, “It is finished,” then “bowed his head and gave up his spirit.”

A. This word “It is finished,” as it came to the ears of spectators must have had different meanings.

To Jesus’s enemies, “It is finished” would have meant that the troublemaker had now silenced and they could breathe a sigh of relief—things would go back to the way they were before this upstart from Galilee had upset their domination of the religious life of the nation.

To the Enemy of our Souls, “It is finished” it may have meant that he had won. Finally, God’s purposes to redeem the world from sin and darkness had come to nothing.

To Jesus’s friends, “It is finished” meant that all their hopes and dreams were over. The one they had put their faith in as their Lord and Savior was gone. The one they had loved and followed and who had brought forgiveness, new life, and hope into their lives was gone. All that made life worth living was gone.

To Jesus, “It is finished” must have meant that he had completed to work God had sent him into the world to do. He had been faithful unto the end.

B. According to Matthew’s gospel, “at that moment the curtain of the temple was torn in two, from top to bottom…” (Matthew 27:31).

The temple curtain represented the separation of sinful humans from God’s presence. When the Temple curtain was torn in two, that meant that Jesus’s death had opened up the way for sinners to come into the presence of God.

So to God, “It is finished” meant that the work of reconciliation between God and the world was done. St. Paul would express it this way: “Through Christ, God was pleased to reconcile to himself all things, whether on earth or in heaven, by making peace through the blood of his cross.”

II. We remember that according to Matthew and Mark as Jesus hung on the cross, he cried out in his agony: “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?”

A. We see from this how terrible Jesus’s death was to him.

He was quoting the first words of Psalm 22, a psalm written by a godly man who was suffering such torment that he was in despair.

We believe that that Psalm was in Jesus’s mind as he suffered because there are so many expressions in it that Psalm that fit the situation.

B. But the end of Psalm 22 is a hymn of triumph.

So, according to John, some time after that cry of desolation, Jesus uttered a cry of triumph—the words we have just read: “It is finished!”

We can believe that after Jesus cried out in despair: “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” he was strengthened to see his death as the triumph that it was—a triumphant victory over sin and death and hell.

III. A story

My mother’s father came to America from Russia as a young man.

Long ago, my Grandfather Altergott told me the story of how he found assurance of salvation.

Not long after he arrived in the United States Grandpa was working in a tailor shop in Kansas City.

One Monday, before beginning his work, Grandpa fished out of his pocket a Sunday school paper he had received at church the day before.

Do you remember Sunday school papers?

We got them every Sunday. It always had a picture, a verse to memorize, a puzzle, a story from the Bible, and maybe another story about faith.

Grandpa got out his Sunday school paper and spread it out on the table before him before he began cutting his cloth.

Then he read this story he read that changed his life.

Long ago there lived somewhere in Europe a young nobleman.

He was a fine important young man, admired by many, but he lived a careless and wicked life.

As time went by, he began to feel bad about his evil life, and he looked for a way to make amends.

He learned that there was a monastery in a country 700 miles away, which was famous for the rigorous life it imposed on the monks who lived there.

The young nobleman determined to join that monastery and try, by suffering and acts of devotion, to find the forgiveness he craved. He journeyed for many days on horseback and finally reached the monastery.

He knocked at the door, and an old monk came and opened the door

The young man told the old monk of his willingness to endure any penance to clear his conscience and find forgiveness.

The old monk looked at him with his face beaming and said, “You’re too late!”

The nobleman was shocked, but the old monk went on: “You’re too late to atone for your sins because Jesus has already done it for you. When Jesus died he said, “It is finished!” And in a simple way the monk explained the meaning of Christ’s death on the cross.

When Grandpa read that story he finally understood the truth about salvation, and there at the cutting table in the tailor shop he put his faith in Jesus as his Lord and Savior.

When he told me the story, Grandpa chuckled and said, “That young man traveled 700 miles to find Christ, but I had to come 7000!”

CONCLUSION

When Jesus said, “It is finished!” we are to understand that now the work of redemption is complete. The hardest part is done. The price has been paid. The suffering is over. The victory is won. Everything is different. It is only for us to give ourselves to Jesus and accept the gift of salvation.

And that is what we are to remember when we look at a cross.