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Welcome
Happy Easter
I wonder why you came this morning?
Some of us are here because
- we come to church regularly – twice a year – East and Christmas – that’s fine, you’re welcome – but Easter is more than coming to church
- we like coming to events with lots of happy people – especially children brandishing Easter eggs and bunnies – There’s more to it than that
- because you’re a chocoholic (incidentally did you hear that the cocoa harvest has gone down this year – beware) – There’s more to it than that
- Some of us like Easter because we’ve give up something for lent (chocolate, white bread, coffee, wine, some TV) and you are craving your fix! (if you haven’t already had it
Easter is all about a great exchange
I thought this was a nattily original title until I discovered that Martin Luther had got there before me (by about 300 years!)
3-dimensional message of Easter: 3 exchanges
First dimension:
Exchange death for life
The obvious significance of Easter
There were three simple words that rocked the lives of the young women who arrived at the tomb first. They were expecting to find a rotting corpse and were carrying heavy loads of spiced and salts to embalm the body. They were worrying about how they were going to shift the stone which was not only enormous, but had been sealed by the authorities – probably with some sort of concrete or binding agent and had had guards set on it to prevent any hank-panky
Instead they found it empty, but not abandoned. “He is not here, he is risen!”
He is risen –
- He’s not been resuscitated as if he hadn’t truly died in the first place,
- He’s not been revived as if he’d had a change of heart and thought ‘I haven’t quite finished yet’,
- He’s not been recreated as some kind of a ghostly apparition,
- He’s not been replaced by someone else in an attempt to hoodwink the disciples
he, Jesus Christ, has been raised from the dead. The same person who went into the tomb has come out of the tomb.
And the consistent testimony of the Bible’s writers is that God did it. Jesus didn’t raise himself by his own actions or as a result of his own merit, he was raised by the independent, sovereign proactive will of the Father on day 3 of his death.
He exchanged death for life.
Exchange sin for righteousness
Paul, talking about Jesus
Turn to 2 Corinthians 5:19 to discover why God put Easter in place.
19 God was reconciling the world to himself in Christ, not counting people’s sins against them.
Something unexpected is going on here
- That God reconciles people to himself is what we might expect of a loving, caring God
- He doesn’t want his people, like us, to be left out in the cold, but instead to be at peace with him
What is surprising is the way he does it – by ‘not counting their sin against them’
- Surely God is the sin-counting judge extraordinaire!
- If anyone is going to keep a record of misdemeanours it’s going to be in some book of His!
But no1! A great exchange has taken place!
2 Corinthians 5:21 – God made him who had no sin to be sin for us so that we might become the righteousness of God
We are villains, transformed into the adopted children of God <ppt>
the trouble with us human beings is we have a tendency to want to deserve God’s approval. To earn our righteousness. We think that’s a fair and equitable way to behave before God. I do those things God expects me to do and He gives me what I want or need from him. It’s a trade-off.
Like ordering something on line – I pay my money and I have every right to expect the goods or the services in return. I put the company I have paid under obligation to do this for me.
We have a tendency to think we can do the same with God. I do my bit and he is duty bound to do his. I do the works – he gives the righteousness.
And the worst, perhaps most common and nefarious kind of works-for-righteousness of all is religious works-for-righteousness.
And this can be Christian, Jewish, Muslim, Buddhist, Hindu, whatever version of religion you’re into, Jehovah’s Witnessism, Mormonism, whatever it is.
- It’s the disposition, the tendency, the proclivity to see God as a judge and we as performers seeking to impress God with our religious performance.
- In fact, we can try to put him in a place where he can’t refuse us.
BUT – if we can put God in a position where he is forced to do something by our actions he’s not truly God any more!
- Because my ‘righteousness’ compels him to act!
And this comes in all sorts of guises:
- This can be truth-righteousness, where I’m better than everyone because I read all the right books, I’ve memorized the verses, I can answer the clever questions.
- This can be moral-righteousness. “I’m better than everyone because I don’t do bad things and I do do good things.”
- This could be ministry-righteousness. “Of course I’m better than everyone. Look at all the things I do for the Lord. I’ve done so much.” Maybe it’s even giving or serving.
None of these are bad things, but they do not cause us to be seen by the God of the Bible as acceptably righteous in his sight.
So what’s the solution? The solution is to accept the swap! To receive the exchange – my sin for his righteousness.
And this morning, that’s what Christ offers all of us.
Third dimension
Exchange grief for Joy
Jesus actually predicted this was going to happen.
He’d predicted that he would be taken from them and they would be sad while everyone else thought they’d scored a victory.
John 16:20 Honestly, I tell you, you will weep and mourn while the world rejoices. You will grieve, but your grief will turn to joy
What’s he alluding to? He’s alluding to his death, when the disciples will feel an anguished sense of loss, and his resurrection, when their sadness will be replaced with incredible joy
And Jesus uses an everyday illustration to clarify this
what is about to happen to him and to the disciples is like a woman having a baby.
Intense pain for a period, but intense joy when her new life arrives!
(Although if it was up to the male of the species to have babies, the human race would have died out a million years ago!)
Intense pain as he is lost in a brutal and bloody crucifixion. Then intense Joy when he is risen from the dead.
he says, “Your hearts will rejoice.” That’s just what happened. It says in John 20:20, that on the first day of the week, the day Jesus rose from the dead, he came to them and “showed them his hands and his side.” Then John says, “The disciples were overjoyed when they saw the Lord.” So Jesus’ prediction about seeing them again came true. “I will see you again and your hearts will rejoice.”
No-one can take it away
And then come the amazing words I want to leave you with this morning,
“And no one will take away your joy from you.”
This joy is irrevocable joy. It cannot be destroyed. It cannot be lost. It is sure and firm and solid and certain even if everything around our soul gives way. This joy will not.
Why Will This Joy Not Give Way?
The Resurrection Means Jesus Will Never Die
First, “No one will take your joy from you,” because your joy comes from being in Christ and having Christ in you.
and the resurrection of Jesus means that Jesus will never re-die; he will never be cut off from you.
Joy at being with Jesus. That’s the joy that’s guaranteed forever. No other joy.
- If you don’t have that, the joy you do have is very fragile indeed.
- And so this text is an invitation to people whose joy is mainly in money or success or family or hobbies or sex or being liked or games or sports or church. It’s an invitation to see Jesus as the only joy that lasts forever.
- “I will see you again and your heart will rejoice.” Whatever life throws at you.
So when he says, “No one will take your joy from you,” he means, I will be your joy, and I can never die again, and therefore your joy will never die. As long as I exist in my resurrection life, that’s how long your joy in me will be. No one can take it from you, because it is joy in me
There’s more
The Resurrection Means You Will Never Die
You see, two things have to be true if your joy is never to be taken from you. Firstly, the origin of your joy lasts forever and the second, that you last forever. If either you or the source of your joy is mortal, your joy will be taken from you.
And, O, how many people have settled for just that!
- Eat, drink, and be merry they say, for tomorrow we die, and that’s that. Food doesn’t last forever, and I don’t last forever. So let’s make the most of it while we can. What a tragedy!
If you are tempted to think that way this morning, please consider as seriously as you possibly can that if your joy were in being with Jesus, “No one would take your joy from you”—not in this life, nor in the life to come.
This is the word of the risen Jesus to us this morning—to all of us who will take him as our joy! “You will see me . . . and your hearts will rejoice, and no one will take your joy from you.”
