INTRODUCTION
Today is Resurrection Day. The churches were full this
morning. Everyone was happy. In our church the pastor shouted, “He is risen!”
And the people shouted back, “He is risen indeed!”
Good Friday is past. The agony of the Cross is over.
We can forget the sorrow. We can move on to the triumph. God won!
Wait a minute!—Is that what the Bible teaches?
Since we didn’t have a service to celebrate Good
Friday, it would be wrong to just move on to Easter. Resurrection is just the
ending of the Big Story. And Resurrection makes no sense without the Cross.
The Resurrection doesn’t cancel out the Cross. The
story of Jesus’s death and his Resurrection are the two parts of the same story—and
the biggest part of the story is the story of Jesus and his Cross.
In the gospels, as printed in my Bible, the 18-or-so
hours between Jesus’s struggle in the Garden and until his death on the Cross
take up 23½ pages.
The story of Resurrection morning—and all the of his
resurrection appearances during the 40 days after, as recorded in the four
gospels and acts take up only 5½ pages.
I. I am impressed with how detailed the story of
Jesus’s suffering is, as recorded in the our Bible and how brief and
fragmentary the Easter story is.
A. The passion story begins in the Garden, Thursday
night, with Jesus praying in an agony of grief as he faced his death. We read
how he threw himself on the ground and begged his Father that the cup of
suffering might be taken from him. The gospel records indicate that his
pleading prayers lasted for hours!
Then a noisy crowd of Jesus’s enemies came into the
garden with swords and clubs—carrying torches and lanterns. Among them was
Judas, who betrayed him with a kiss.
The soldiers roughed him up, and seized him, and bound
him. And as they led him away, his disciples forsook him and fled.
The soldiers led Jesus to the high priest’s house, where
the Council had assembled. Still in the night of Thursday, these 70 men held a
quick trial. False witnesses were brought in and they condemned Jesus and began
to mock him, blindfolding him and striking him, laughing as they shouted:
“Prophesy! Who is it that struck you?”
Very early in the morning, they bound him and led away
to the governor for another trial. Besides the governor and the priests, a crowd
of Jesus’s enemies was there, shouting and calling for his death.
Roman soldiers led him into the courtyard of the
palace. There they mocked him, putting a crown of thorns on his head. They
clothed him with a purple cloak, put a pretended scepter in his hand, spit upon
him, and kneeling, pretended worship him.
B. After they had had their fun, the soldiers led Jesus
away, carrying his cross—it would be the cross piece. At the place of
execution, they stripped him of his clothes, nailed his hands to the cross,
fixed it to the upright post that was already in the ground, then nailed his
feet to the post and sat down to watch him there.
According to Mark’s gospel, the crucifixion took place
at 9 o’clock in the morning.
There was a great crowd in Jerusalem because that was
Passover weekend.
All morning long, the spectators mocked and jeered: “If you are the Christ, come down from the
cross and save yourself!” The chief priests and the scribes were also
there, laughing and shouting: “He saved
others; he can’t save himself!”
It was a spectacle. It was entertainment. What strikes
us is how public it was. It wasn’t on a lonely hill—the legend of Golgotha
being a hill is not in the Bible—it was on a busy roadway with lots of
spectators.
Then at noon, darkness came over the whole land, and
lasted until 3 o’clock in the afternoon. And near the last—after 6 hours on the
cross—Jesus cried out in pain and despair, “My God! My God! Why have you
forsaken me?” We have two more sayings, “It
is finished” in John, and Luke’s, “Father
into your hands I commit my spirit.” And then he breathed his last.
C. What strikes us is how public Christ’s death was.
It was meant to be. Jesus’s enemies had intended that this horrible death would
discredit Jesus in the eyes of everyone. How could anyone take seriously a
crucified Messiah?
But, as it happened, the cross—which was intended to
humiliate and discredit Christ—became the magnet to draw people to him.
Jesus had said, “I,
when I am lifted up, will draw all people to myself” (John 12.32). And that
is what has happened. That shameful Cross became the symbol of our faith--the
symbol of Christ’s victory over sin and death and hell, and the symbol of God’s
love for sinners.
A few years later St. Paul would write (Galatians
6;14): “Far be it from me to glory,
except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, by which the world has been
crucified to me, and I to the world.”
II. Compared to the crucifixion story, the
Resurrection story is brief and sketchy.
A. Jesus never showed himself to any but his devoted
followers. He didn’t show himself to Pilate, or to the chief priests, or to the
soldiers, or to the crowd who had mocked him.
We read about a few women who showed up at the tomb
early Sunday morning, but the accounts in each of the gospels vary as to who
they were.
Sunday evening, Jesus came through a closed door to
meet his disciples in Jerusalem, and the next Sunday he appeared to them again.
Luke has the story about how he walked to Emmaus with
two other disciples and sat down to dinner with them, asked the blessing—and then
disappeared from their sight.
John tells about how Jesus met his disciples by the
lake in Galilee where they were fishing, about their marvelous catch of fish, and
how Jesus served them a fish breakfast.
Later, according to Matthew, Jesus met his disciples
again by the Sea of Galilee and Jesus told them to go into all the world to
make disciples and promised to be with them until the end of the world.
In the first chapter of Acts we read that for several
weeks, Jesus appeared to his disciples many times, speaking to them about the
Kingdom of God, and, finally, how, 40 days after his Resurrection, as his
disciples were watching, a cloud came down and took him out of their sight.
So in contrast to the detailed accounts of the events
leading up to his death, we have only these fragmentary accounts of Jesus
appearing to his disciples during those 40 days after his resurrection.
B. I suppose Jesus could have died for our sins and
been seen no more. The importance of the Resurrection story is to put God’s
seal of approval on Jesus’s death as God’s plan for the redemption of his
people.
The Easter story assures us that the cross was not the
end. We have a living Savior. A living Lord Jesus, who is our companion through
life, and who is ready to welcome us into Glory.
So it is right that we should celebrate Easter. Easter
is glorious! Easter shows us that the Cross is God’s victory!
APPLICATION
In St. Paul’s letter to the believers at the Greek
city of Philippi. He writes,
“I want to
know Christ and the power of his resurrection and the sharing of his
sufferings, by becoming like him in his death, if somehow I may attain the
resurrection from the dead”
(3:10-11).
When Paul says he wants to know Christ and power of
his resurrection and the sharing of his sufferings, he is giving us a picture
of the life in Christ that we all share—the life in Christ that is centered in
the Crucified and Resurrected Jesus.
The importance of the Crucifixion story is that we are
a part of it. Jesus’s cross becomes our cross; his death becomes our death—and
Jesus’s resurrection becomes our resurrection.
The Christian life is a participation in Christ’s
sufferings, and we live in the power of his Resurrection—and with the hope of
Glory to come when we see him face-to-face. That is why today is the best day
of the year.
CONCLUSION
This story appeared in the World Vision magazine several years ago.
The author, Rebecca Price
Janney, tells about how in 1983 she met an Ethiopian bishop in the seminary
where she was studying.
The bishop was a refugee who
had spent 6 years in prison after the Communists took over Ethiopia and killed
their king.
Bishop Paolus was pastoring
a congregation of Ethiopian exiles in New York City. She and her fellow
students were impressed by the bishop’s faith. He was also an impressive figure
on campus. He wore a purple robe, wore a Coptic-style hat, and a jeweled cross.
But when Ash Wednesday came,
the drama of his costume intensified. He wore so much black that even his
jeweled cross was hidden in his breast pocket. He explained that it was the
custom in his church for the pastors to dress totally in black during Lent. Ms.
Janney says that his appearance made her feel gloomy. She remembered that the
black represented the battles God’s people wage daily over the powers of sin
and death. But the Bishop’s costume also reminded her that her Savior had
rescued her on the Cross, bringing hope for this life and for eternity.
When Easter morning dawned, as
Ms. Janney was hurrying across campus for a sunrise service, a dazzling-white
figure neared. It as the Ethiopian Bishop. After seeing him in nothing but
black for weeks, she gasped at the change. He wore so much white that even his
spats radiated the message of Jesus’s victory over death.
The bishop’s face glowed as
he lifted his voice above the stillness of the morning and pronounced the
ancient Easter greeting: “He is risen!”
And Ms. Janney answered
joyfully, “He is risen indeed!”
PRAYER
We rise with you, dear Jesus, and you rise with us.
As the oil of gladness pours upon you, it trickles
onto us.
As the fire of love burns within you, it warms our
hearts.
As the breath of eternal life fills your body,
we know that we shall live forever.
As you reach out to bless the world,
we feel your embrace drawing us close.
We rise with you, dear Jesus, and you rise with us.
(Ancient
Celtic Prayer of Resurrection)
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