Easter Message

I'd like you to turn with me to John 20. John chapter 20, story of Jesus appearing to the disciples and one particular disciple, Thomas, at his resurrection. So John chapter 20, and we are going to read till verse 29. John chapter 20, verses 24 to 29. Now Thomas, called Didymus, one of the 12, was not with the disciples when Jesus came.

So the other disciples told him, we have seen the Lord. But he said to them, unless I see the nail marks in his hands, and put my finger where the nails were and put my hand into his side, I will not believe. A week later, his disciples were in the house again and Thomas was with them this time. Though the doors were locked, Jesus came and stood among them and said, peace be with you. Then he said to Thomas, put your finger here.

See my hands. Reach out your hand and put it into my side. Stop doubting and believe. Thomas said to him, my Lord and my God. Then Jesus told him, because you have seen me, you have believed.

Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed. So far, our reading this morning. After the Good Friday service here on Friday, I went home and started getting ready. My brother, who's here this morning, was coming for a visit. And so I went home and started cleaning the house and getting ready.

And as I was doing this, I turned on the TV. I turned it on to the ABC and sort of knew that there was going to be sort of Christian Easter messages on ABC. So as I was cleaning, I was listening to the TV. And during the course of the news in particular, ABC News, the presenter introduced a few different church leaders, significant church leaders to share an Easter message, a Good Friday message. And though these talks weren't longer than about five minutes, as I was listening to these church leaders, and I won't tell you who they were or what churches they represented, I couldn't help but feel that in these talks, they missed the hard hitting significance of the Easter event.

They missed the scandalousness of Easter. They spoke about the compassion of Jesus. They urged Christians to view this compassion in an evil situation and to live compassionate good lives in the wake of evil in our world and there's lots of it. You know, this terror event that happened this week in Belgium. So in light of this, they urge Christians to love instead of hate, to have joy instead of bitterness.

But their Easter messages ended not in a call to accept Christ as the crucified and risen saviour, the saviour who died for their sin, but as a leader who showed compassion to others in the face of terrible evil and so called us to do the same. Now I appreciate that they were trying to be relevant. This is, of course, a moment where we have to stand against great evil in our world, but I couldn't help but wonder this question. Is having compassion in the face of evil really the main aim of the story of Easter? It reminded me of an interview that I heard last year from liberal Anglican Bishop John Shelby Spong that said that Christianity was simply this: it's simply to celebrate love, joy, and forgiveness.

Christianity should be removed of all the supernatural, should be removed of talk of sin and death. It should be about great morality, living these philosophies of morality more and more. Now, of course, as a Christian, I say amen to joy and love and forgiveness. They are central to Christian morality, but I want us to hear the Easter message this morning.

I want us to answer the question and be able to answer the question, why Easter? Why Good Friday? Why Easter Sunday? And the one thing I realised I deeply missed in these talks was the essence of Easter, and that is hope, friends. Hope.

I sensed a lingering sadness that morality was all that Christianity amounted to. You see, we are, as human beings, unavoidably hope based creatures. We are hope based creatures. It is what makes us tick, and every human culture has this need. If you were to go and research it, and sociologists and anthropologists have done this, every human culture provides a sense of hope.

That's why every culture has an idea of an afterlife of some sort, has a philosophy that gives meaning to life because we need hope to live this life. But it's because of Easter Sunday that Christianity claims that this hope can be fulfilled adequately and it is fulfilled by this single reality, the resurrection. The resurrection. An eternal life established through a physical bodily raising from the dead. Why to this day is it that Christianity still so powerfully affects the masses of the world, the other two thirds of the world population?

Why is it? Like, that places like Africa, places like Southeast Asia, places like South America, Latin America are coming to Christianity in massive droves. Is it because, as some have suggested, there's a lack of education there? A lack of understanding of science? A superstitious culture not aware of a higher education.

Is it that? I don't believe it's the case. It's because of this hope. Why is it growing exponentially in these places? Because it's precisely in their suffering.

In the two thirds world, in the developing world, that they realise that fairness and goodness will probably never be theirs in this life, no matter how hard they try. No matter how hard they try, they cannot break out of this. But they know, they know somehow that there is justice and fairness waiting. There is a time when things will be set right, and they look to find answers for this. And then they hear it when the resurrection is preached.

They hear it when the gospel of Jesus Christ is shared. That's why I believe in countries like Australia, our beautiful country, where hope has been realised, at least the illusion of hope has been placed in the here and now, the comforts of our life, the esteem of peer groups, the fairness of a justice system. Christianity isn't needed. And so a nice morality that keeps us nice is accepted.

Turn the other cheek. Do unto others. But here's the point, friends. Believe it or not, the resurrection was not preached in the beginning of the first churches as some sort of symbolic representation of a good saviour that has overcome very terrible evil so that we may overcome terrible evil in our life. You know, in some sort of symbolic thing that we must keep hope.

We must keep trying to be good. The resurrection was preached as a hard, bare, terribly irritating, paradigm shattering, horribly inconvenient truth that people had to accept. You know what facts are like, don't you? There is the fact. It's there for everyone to see.

Now what do you do about it? The passage we read this morning in John 20 talks about eyewitnesses seeing Jesus coming to them, and in particular, Thomas, the sceptic, the one that we may be able to relate to the most, saying, I need to see him. I need to touch him. He came and he made Thomas reach and touch the spear hole in his side, the marks on his hands. And having done this, having seen the fact, Thomas falls on his knees and says, my Lord and my God.

We don't realise how significant that statement is. Jesus may have been Lord and master, may have been sir to the disciples for three years before, but now it is my Lord and my God. It is massive for a Jew to say that. The gospel of John records three more events where the resurrected Jesus was with the disciples. At one point, he's even eating fish with them for breakfast.

Why? To prove to them that he is no vision. He's no hallucination. He's no ghost that sort of appears and then disappears. Why did Jesus do this?

Because believing in the resurrection was just as hard to believe then as it is now. Why did Jesus have to turn up three more times and eat fish? Because it was hard to believe then. But the people who saw it and experienced it could not remain the same afterwards. The physical resurrection of Jesus back from the dead became the springboard of the Christian church.

It was the single reason why these disciples who locked themselves into a room, fearing for their lives, broke out of that in weeks after the event and went into the world. According to church history, they offered up their lives for this news. Jesus and his resurrection proved everything that Jesus had preached before and said that this is truth. It is bonafide. It stamped everything with the golden standard.

But in addition to this, it showed three significant things about the future of those who would put their trust in Him. Three significant things. Firstly, that this future that Jesus ushers in with His resurrection is personal. The future is personal. Things haven't changed too much in two thousand years.

In the times where Jesus lived, there were philosophies very much like our own. You had the Greek Epicureans, right, who believe very much like some people today might believe that we only have what we have here and now. There is no such thing as an afterlife. They catch cry that actually Jesus quotes in the gospels is, eat, drink and be merry because tomorrow we die. Enjoy what we have now.

Live it out. They were some of the most immoral people because they had what they had now. There was no judgement. There were no consequences. Eat, drink and be merry because tomorrow we die.

There's no afterlife, there's no death. What we have is what we have. Then the stoics were around at the same time. They were something like our eastern philosophies today. They said that when you die, you do continue to exist.

But this future is not personal, it is impersonal. You get absorbed into the universe. You become part of the cycle of life. And these views all existed in Jesus' time. There's nothing new under the sun, friends.

But here comes Christianity. And it points out a very big problem in these views. It says that there is still a need that you haven't talked about. There's still a need that does not get resolved in this and that is humanity's need for love and a love that is eternal. Philosophers and Christian thinkers like C.S. Lewis and Ravi Zacharias and Tim Keller make this point that the deepest desire of the human heart, despite our bare needs for shelter and protection, the deepest desire of the human heart is the desire to be loved.

Do you agree with this? All of us want to be loved and we want others to be loved by us. And the one thing we do not want is to be separated from those we love, at least not for very long. And so when we lose loved ones, it is something just that just screams inside of us that is unfair. If this is just what we have, the here and the now, eat, drink and be merry, tomorrow we die, why do we feel such grief at the death of a loved one?

Why do we inherently feel that it is unfair? Because love and those relationships were meant to continue for eternity. See, apart from the Holy Spirit, what most people know, the thing that gives meaning in life is love, and death is the ultimate enemy of love. It takes away your loved ones and it eventually takes away you from your loved ones. And so people that argue against this, I ask them, are you saying that that's not something to be afraid of?

It's terrifying. And it's rightly so. You may be thinking that when I die, I won't know anything, I won't experience anything, or when I die, I become part of an impersonal universe, but Jesus Christ shows up physically resurrected in John 20 and says, it is me. Recognise me. It's the same person.

It's the same Lord. It's the same one that these disciples loved. The resurrection of Easter Sunday says that your future, that your glorification is deeply personal. Something will remain of you. Something will continue of you for eternity.

And importantly for us, think, something of your believing loved ones will remain as well. So the future is personal. This resurrection truth is personal. The second thing is this future is certain. Here's what I mean by certain.

What good is it to be told that your future is personal, that you have love without parting, love without death, if you can't be certain that it's for you? If you can't be certain that this is a reality for me. Martin Luther was really good at this when he said, suffering is intolerable if you're not sure of your salvation at the end. Suffering is intolerable if you're not sure of salvation. When Jesus comes to His disciples after the resurrection, every time He greets them, He says this phrase, peace be with you.

Every time. Now people say, well, that's just shalom? That's just a Jewish greeting for people? But Jesus would have said, hi, shalom many times. And it's only after the resurrection that John records, peace be with you, because there's been a significant change.

Peace now is truly available. Unless you are sure that in spite of all your flaws and all the troubles in your life, and we know there are many, if you're not sure that God won't make it all work out in the end, your suffering will be unbearable. But the resurrection of Jesus on Easter Sunday says that you can be certain of this future hope. Why? Because the resurrection of Jesus is the first deposit, the down payment for this future.

It is certain, friends. It is certain. After Jesus' resurrection, the disciples were willing to die for the gospel message that was preached of a risen saviour. Why? Because they saw the resurrected Christ.

They knew that that resurrection was for them as well. There's no other way to explain it. The resurrection that changes how we understand the good or the bad in our life. The apostle Paul wrote this, to live is Christ, but to die is gain. That is how sure he was, how certain he was about his future.

To live is Christ, to live is service to Him, but to die is my treasure. It is my goal. It is my hope. The resurrection makes our hope certain and that actually starts changing your life here and now. It's not a pie in the sky sort of thing.

If you understand the implications of the resurrection, it changes your life now. Jesus' resurrection actually has implications. Tim Keller uses this example. He says, there are two identical men. Two identical men that have the same job, the same lifespan, the same health, and they are given a job, a particular job where they have to work ten hours a day, every day for six days with a thirty minute break for lunch.

Six days a week, they are working, creating little widgets, let's call them. There's absolutely nothing interesting about this work. It is absolutely mundane and monotonous. Ten hours a day, six days a week.

There's only one difference. There's only one difference. The one man is offered at the beginning of his work a $10,000 salary for a year's work. The other man is offered $10,000,000 for a year's work.

One man will hate that work. That man will hate his life probably as well. The other man will enjoy his life. He may even enjoy his work. What they hold on to about their future completely transforms the way they experience their present.

The resurrection of Jesus is a giant down payment of that $10,000,000 salary. It's a first time deposit by God that is stamped across the history of all people to see, saying that you may know your future is certain and it is glorious. So trust in Jesus Christ to receive this gift that He wants to give you. And then lastly, our third point is that the resurrection shows that our future is unimaginably wonderful. Our future is unimaginably wonderful.

We know of other religions that do promise some kind of spiritual afterlife. We know of Nirvana in Buddhism. We know of Valhalla in the Nordic religions. We know of Shangri La in the eastern religions. But there is a significant difference when it comes to the Christian faith.

Those other religions only offer consolation for what you've lost. It says you may have experienced great tragedy in your life. But here's 72 virgins. It's a consolation prize. It says, you may have experienced great pain, but experiencing nirvana will mean that that pain and that sadness disappears.

You don't have any more emotions. You won't have sadness anymore, but you won't have happiness either. An eternity of neutrality. But the resurrection of Christ doesn't simply promise consolation, it promises a restoration. It promises a redemption of what has been lost.

Resurrection is a restoration of something you've always wanted but never had. You will have a body that you somehow knew you wanted but never had. A health that you missed. If you have a disability, if you have a lifelong illness that you've wrestled with, even if you have terminal cancer, mental illness, receiving a body and a nature that is perfect, redeemed, restored, perfect. On the other hand, if you've wrestled with sin, knowing your character is weak, resurrection doesn't simply say you can have another crack at it in another life.

It doesn't simply say that, well, you may have messed up now, but there's a reincarnation so you can try again at this. Resurrection says that you will become virtuous in every sense. Sin is washed away. Colossians 1:22 says the apostle Paul says, but now God has reconciled you by Christ's physical body through death to present you wholly in His sight. God has reconciled you in Jesus Christ's physical body in His death to present you wholly in His sight without blemish, free from accusation.

That is the hope of the resurrection. A character, a personality, a goodness that you never had, but you always missed, that you always longed for. Aware of your own moral weakness, your sexual inclinations, your anger, your insecurity. The resurrection holds out hope for a kind, compassionate, patient you. You don't just get your life back.

You don't get some consolation. You get the life that you always wanted but you never had. The resurrection of Jesus Christ is walking proof that you will miss nothing. You will miss nothing. It's all coming and it's going to be unimaginably wonderful.

There is no religion, friend. There is no philosophy. There is certainly no human being who can offer this great treasure and gift. And as Christians, our hope for the future is based on this fact. It's true.

It's visceral. It's tangible. We remember it today on Easter Sunday. The eyewitness account of the resurrection says that this is true. It is a fact.

What do you do with this now? If you're not a Christian here this morning, if you don't know where you stand with this truth or this statement at least, let me ask you this question. Wouldn't you want this to be true? Wouldn't you want this to be true? Even if you don't agree with or understand every aspect or facet of Christianity, would you not want this hope for restoration?

I think you do. In this life, we will groan and we will suffer because we have the sense of terrible incompleteness of life. In our own life, in the life of people we see. Yet there is a sure hope. This doctrine of glorification promises that something better lies ahead.

We will be everything that God intended us to be. Everything. Paul writes again in Philippians 3:20 and 21, our citizenship, friends, is in heaven. We eagerly await a saviour from there, the Lord Jesus Christ, by the power that enables Him to bring everything under His control, will transform our lowly bodies so that they will be like His glorious body. That is our hope. Friend, there is a saviour.

There is a saviour who has come on Good Friday to offer His life for you as an atoning sacrifice. Sacrifice. Blood for blood, blood for blood. Perfect life for imperfect life. Righteousness for sinfulness.

And He has come and He has died this death and three days later, He rose again to say, it is finished. It has been achieved. My life will be your life. And so we are invited again to come and bow the knee, to say with Thomas, my Lord and my God, I accept this truth. Let me pray for us, and then we will celebrate this in the Lord's Supper.

Father, thank you that in the resurrection, we are not given some sentimentality, we're not given some vague statement, some zen, pithy statement that we now love or should love. Lord, in the resurrection, we see a saviour, a man, flesh and bone, back from the dead. And that, Lord, leaves us with so many options and questions. Father, we can accept this, we can reject it, we can deny it, we can run from it, but the fact remains, what do we do with this? Father, for those of us who receive this as a truth, we thank you for it.

We say, Lord, this is our truth. Our future is personal. We long for that. We look forward to that where we will see our loved ones again. Lord, we know that our future is certain, that Your resurrection, Lord Jesus, was the down payment, the first fruit, the pioneering effort of what we will go through as Christians as well.

It is as certain our future as a reality of Your resurrection. And Father, finally, our future is unimaginably wonderful. The hope, the longing, the imperfection that we've always sensed in our lives, we somehow know will be completed and perfected and redeemed on that day. Thank you for this truth. We accept it in humility and gratitude.

And Father, our lives will not be the same. Amen.