Job 19:23-27; 1 Corinthians 15:51-57; St Mark 16:1-8
Alleluia! Christ is risen! (He is risen indeed! Alleluia!)
What hope does the world offer you? After the recent death of theoretical physicist, Stephen Hawking, many news agencies reported his own statements regarding death, the afterlife, and belief in God. He said, “I regard the brain as a computer which will stop working when its components fail. There is no heaven or afterlife for broken down computers; that is a fair story for people afraid of the dark.” He believed there was no need for life after death to make people behave well while they were alive. “We should seek the greatest value of our action,” he said when asked how we should live. Be nice and then you die. That’s the hope the world offers.
What do you hope for? What is your hope in? C.S. Lewis recounts a conversation with a young lady. “Aren’t you afraid of death?” “Oh no,” she replies. “By the time I’m old enough for that, science will have it sorted” (God in the Dock). In Science we trust.
What do you hope for? What is your hope in? We live in a materialist age. Many believe there is nothing beyond matter. When matter dies, there is no hope. Thus writes the renowned scientist Richard Dawkins: “Being dead will be no different from being unborn - I shall be just as I was in the time of William the Conquerer or the dinosaurs” (The God Delusion). This is, of course, not science at all, but philosophy. For science can tell us about what is made, but cannot tell us about the Maker. And Dawkins’ philosophy is a hopeless one, where nothing awaits us after death. This life is merely a thin veneer covering eternal annihilation.
That is the hope the world offers you. Be nice, trust science. Meanwhile the scientists have turned philosophical and tell us there is nothing at all ahead of you. if life has no meaning, then individuals persons have no worthy. Why be nice at all anyway? Is it any surprise that love has grown cold and we will look to anything that might give us a moment of pleasure or dull the despair?
I’m not here this morning to give you a different idea, a different philosophy. I’m not here to give you only a different ethic by which to live. Christianity gives you a story. A true story that many have forgotten. And everything depends on this story. It’s summarizes in the Sequence Hymn for Easter: “Speak, Mary, declaring, What you saw when wayfaring.”
The Apostles were not the first eyewitnesses. The women from Galilee were first, beginning with Mary Magdalene. She testified to the disciples, who did not believe her. Can you blame them? Dead men don’t rise. Still, she confess what she saw: “The tomb of Christ, who is living. The glory of Jesus’ resurrection; Bright angels attesting. The shroud and napkin resting. My Lord, my hope, is arisen: To Galilee He goes before you.”
“My Lord, my hope.” The resurrection of Jesus is not just wonderful news, it is wonderful news for us. When our life is hopeless, His life is our hope.
So Mary declares. But they don’t believe her. They must see for themselves. Peter and John run to the tomb; they see the stone rolled back, they see the grace cloths neatly folded, but Jesus they do not see.
They see an empty tomb. But that proves nothing. Those who saw it supposed the body had been moved. The Gospel is not an empty tomb. The Gospel is a risen body. That risen body appears to Mary Magdalene in the garden. That risen body appears to the disciples that evening. They see Jesus, hear Jesus, touch Jesus, eat with Jesus.
The Greek philosopher Socrates called the body a “prison house,” and his doctrine prevails among many today. Transgender. Assisted Suicide. Amputee Identity Disorder. These all flow from his heresy. But God’s Word declares the opposite: The body is not a prison house, something to be escaped. True, our bodies are corrupt, filled with cancer and decay. Hearts, lungs, eyes and ears failing more and more year by year. But the Lord is not going to free us from our bodies. He will remake, repair, restore, regenerate, resurrect them. He will transform our lowly bodies to be like His glorious body, by the power that enables Him to subdue all things to Himself as both Job and St Paul confess.
Yet even this is not fully our hope. For the resurrection would be no good if the world were still filled with malice and manipulation, abuse and discrimination. This world is filled with promise-breakers in government, church, and marriage. This world is filled with those who seek pleasure above all, where sacrifice and service are rare, or just for show.
And that describes our own lives, also, far too much. We break our word, lust for power or pleasure, share little. All that must die. The world must be transformed and that includes not only our bodies, but our hearts.
This is the new life that will come in the resurrection, when the Lord makes all things new. This is the new life that we all are invited to begin now, in the Church. A new life where we confess our pride and selfishness, and begin to speak well of others and share our possessions.
All this hope rests on the truthfulness that Jesus is risen.
My friends, the evidence for His resurrection is overwhelming. We have well documents evidence for Jesus’ resurrection. But chiefly we have the eyewitness testimony of the women from Galilee, the Twelve disciples, James and Peter, then over 500 disciples, and finally Saul of Tarsus, who persecute the Church and presided over the martyrdom of Stephen. His encounter with the risen Jesus didn’t just change his mind - it transformed his life!
That’s what Jesus invites us to, as well: a new life in this new hope. A life no longer occupied with power and selfish pleasure. But a life filled with the hope of the resurrection, of the confidence of sins forgiven, and the sharing of good created gifts with others.
Christ is risen, and you do not have to hope for technological progress to give humanity a better future.
Christ is risen, and you do not have to hope that science will solve the problem of death.
Christ is risen, and you do not have to despair that after death comes nothing, just a great emptiness.
Christ is risen, and you do not have to fear God’s just wrath.
For Christ is risen, and pardons all your sins.
Christ is risen, and death is undone.
Christ is risen, and Adam and Eve are lifted up from hell.
Christ is risen, and you shall rise too.
Christ is risen, and the demons are put to flight.
Christ is risen, and the angels rejoice.
Alleluia! Christ is risen! He is risen indeed, Alleluia!
Alleluia! Christ is risen! He is risen indeed, Alleluia!
Alleluia! Christ is risen! He is risen indeed, Alleluia!
Amen.
Alleluia! Christ is risen! (He is risen indeed! Alleluia!)
What hope does the world offer you? After the recent death of theoretical physicist, Stephen Hawking, many news agencies reported his own statements regarding death, the afterlife, and belief in God. He said, “I regard the brain as a computer which will stop working when its components fail. There is no heaven or afterlife for broken down computers; that is a fair story for people afraid of the dark.” He believed there was no need for life after death to make people behave well while they were alive. “We should seek the greatest value of our action,” he said when asked how we should live. Be nice and then you die. That’s the hope the world offers.
What do you hope for? What is your hope in? C.S. Lewis recounts a conversation with a young lady. “Aren’t you afraid of death?” “Oh no,” she replies. “By the time I’m old enough for that, science will have it sorted” (God in the Dock). In Science we trust.
What do you hope for? What is your hope in? We live in a materialist age. Many believe there is nothing beyond matter. When matter dies, there is no hope. Thus writes the renowned scientist Richard Dawkins: “Being dead will be no different from being unborn - I shall be just as I was in the time of William the Conquerer or the dinosaurs” (The God Delusion). This is, of course, not science at all, but philosophy. For science can tell us about what is made, but cannot tell us about the Maker. And Dawkins’ philosophy is a hopeless one, where nothing awaits us after death. This life is merely a thin veneer covering eternal annihilation.
That is the hope the world offers you. Be nice, trust science. Meanwhile the scientists have turned philosophical and tell us there is nothing at all ahead of you. if life has no meaning, then individuals persons have no worthy. Why be nice at all anyway? Is it any surprise that love has grown cold and we will look to anything that might give us a moment of pleasure or dull the despair?
I’m not here this morning to give you a different idea, a different philosophy. I’m not here to give you only a different ethic by which to live. Christianity gives you a story. A true story that many have forgotten. And everything depends on this story. It’s summarizes in the Sequence Hymn for Easter: “Speak, Mary, declaring, What you saw when wayfaring.”
The Apostles were not the first eyewitnesses. The women from Galilee were first, beginning with Mary Magdalene. She testified to the disciples, who did not believe her. Can you blame them? Dead men don’t rise. Still, she confess what she saw: “The tomb of Christ, who is living. The glory of Jesus’ resurrection; Bright angels attesting. The shroud and napkin resting. My Lord, my hope, is arisen: To Galilee He goes before you.”
“My Lord, my hope.” The resurrection of Jesus is not just wonderful news, it is wonderful news for us. When our life is hopeless, His life is our hope.
So Mary declares. But they don’t believe her. They must see for themselves. Peter and John run to the tomb; they see the stone rolled back, they see the grace cloths neatly folded, but Jesus they do not see.
They see an empty tomb. But that proves nothing. Those who saw it supposed the body had been moved. The Gospel is not an empty tomb. The Gospel is a risen body. That risen body appears to Mary Magdalene in the garden. That risen body appears to the disciples that evening. They see Jesus, hear Jesus, touch Jesus, eat with Jesus.
The Greek philosopher Socrates called the body a “prison house,” and his doctrine prevails among many today. Transgender. Assisted Suicide. Amputee Identity Disorder. These all flow from his heresy. But God’s Word declares the opposite: The body is not a prison house, something to be escaped. True, our bodies are corrupt, filled with cancer and decay. Hearts, lungs, eyes and ears failing more and more year by year. But the Lord is not going to free us from our bodies. He will remake, repair, restore, regenerate, resurrect them. He will transform our lowly bodies to be like His glorious body, by the power that enables Him to subdue all things to Himself as both Job and St Paul confess.
Yet even this is not fully our hope. For the resurrection would be no good if the world were still filled with malice and manipulation, abuse and discrimination. This world is filled with promise-breakers in government, church, and marriage. This world is filled with those who seek pleasure above all, where sacrifice and service are rare, or just for show.
And that describes our own lives, also, far too much. We break our word, lust for power or pleasure, share little. All that must die. The world must be transformed and that includes not only our bodies, but our hearts.
This is the new life that will come in the resurrection, when the Lord makes all things new. This is the new life that we all are invited to begin now, in the Church. A new life where we confess our pride and selfishness, and begin to speak well of others and share our possessions.
All this hope rests on the truthfulness that Jesus is risen.
My friends, the evidence for His resurrection is overwhelming. We have well documents evidence for Jesus’ resurrection. But chiefly we have the eyewitness testimony of the women from Galilee, the Twelve disciples, James and Peter, then over 500 disciples, and finally Saul of Tarsus, who persecute the Church and presided over the martyrdom of Stephen. His encounter with the risen Jesus didn’t just change his mind - it transformed his life!
That’s what Jesus invites us to, as well: a new life in this new hope. A life no longer occupied with power and selfish pleasure. But a life filled with the hope of the resurrection, of the confidence of sins forgiven, and the sharing of good created gifts with others.
Christ is risen, and you do not have to hope for technological progress to give humanity a better future.
Christ is risen, and you do not have to hope that science will solve the problem of death.
Christ is risen, and you do not have to despair that after death comes nothing, just a great emptiness.
Christ is risen, and you do not have to fear God’s just wrath.
For Christ is risen, and pardons all your sins.
Christ is risen, and death is undone.
Christ is risen, and Adam and Eve are lifted up from hell.
Christ is risen, and you shall rise too.
Christ is risen, and the demons are put to flight.
Christ is risen, and the angels rejoice.
Alleluia! Christ is risen! He is risen indeed, Alleluia!
Alleluia! Christ is risen! He is risen indeed, Alleluia!
Alleluia! Christ is risen! He is risen indeed, Alleluia!
Amen.
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