Now what?

Before we testify to the reality of Jesus’ Resurrection, we have to fully trust the message ourselves.

 — A sermon preached at Louisburg United Methodist Church, Louisburg, KS, on 28 April, 2024, from 1 Corinthians 15:1-8. —

 We are now in the fifth Sunday of the Easter season. We consider Easter a season rather than just one Sunday because the event is so significant.

 There’s a lot to celebrate and a lot to take in, no matter how many Sundays we devote to it. In fact, I think that even today, nearly 2,000 years later, what happened at Easter is so far beyond our expectation and so far above our understanding that we still grasp only a small part of the meaning of it.

 For much of my active career in ministry, I suffered from what I call PED, or Post Easter Depression.

 It’s a common ailment among pastors. On Resurrection Sunday, we proclaim that the resurrection of Jesus makes all the difference in the world, and it changes everything – and the next morning we discover anew that for most of the world, nothing has changed at all. Most of the world simply does not care.

 We proclaim, “Christ is risen!” The world shrugs and says, “So what?” It’s deflating. It’s depressing. And I suspect that pastors aren’t the only ones who suffer this way.

 I’m sure that each of you remembers the day after a special loved one died. That day, you saw life radically differently than you did 24 hours earlier. But it quickly became apparent that most of the world did not know about your loss, or much care about it either.

 Our sadness in death is mirrored by our gladness in the Resurrection. We have a great message for the world – and the world doesn’t much care to hear it. We shout, “We’ve got good news!” And the world yawns. “Heard it all before. Tell me something I haven’t heard.”

 I heard an old, old story, we sing in that old Baptist hymn about “Victory in Jesus.” How do we best convey the truth of that story to others?

 When you tell a story that everybody’s heard before, you’ve got to make it as significant for them as it is for you. And that means, first of all, that it has to be significant for you. If it’s not life changing for you, you can’t expect it to be life changing for anyone else.

 So before you try to answer the world’s “So what?” question, you’ve got to answer that question for yourself. You’ve got to know what difference it makes for you.

 Christ is risen! What does that mean for you, personally, in your daily life as well as for all eternity?

 We tend to focus on the eternity question. If I trust in Jesus, will I spend eternity with him? I consider that question answered. Emphatically, yes, we will spend eternity with Jesus if we trust in him. That’s the promise we have, and as far as I’m concerned, that settles it.

 I know that some preachers like to go on and on about how short this life is versus the vastness of eternity, but I think, as some folks say, that puts the accent on the wrong syl-LA-ble.

 Jesus never said much about eternity. He said a lot about how to live today, in light of eternity, in the eternal present. And I think that’s where we ought to put our emphasis. It’s not pie in the sky when we die but the bread of life and living water right here and right now, not only for us but also for all those we meet.

 If the Resurrection of Jesus doesn’t change how we live now, then it fails the “So what?” test. Actually it’s not the Resurrection that fails the test. It’s us, if our response to the Resurrection is so tepid that it doesn’t radically change our lives.

 Let’s turn to our gospel reading as it comes to us this morning not from the four documents we call gospels – Matthew, Mark, Luke and John – but from the Apostle Paul.

 His summation of the gospel in First Corinthians chapter 15 contains not only the heart of the Christian message but also the earliest way it was preached, by Paul, 20 to 30 years before the other gospels were written down.

 Paul begins, “I remind you of the good news that I proclaimed to you.” You received this proclamation from me as the very truth of God. It’s a truth that still anchors you firmly, and through it you are being saved by the grace of God, if…

 If – oh, look out! “If you hold firmly to the message that I proclaimed to you, unless you have come to believe in vain.”

 Whatever does it mean to believe in vain? We’ll return to that, but for now let me note that the word that is almost always translated in our Bibles as “believe” actually almost always means “trust.”

 There is a huge difference between belief and trust. You can believe in Bigfoot and the Loch Ness Monster and flying saucers and all sorts of other things, and none of those beliefs alters your basic orientation to life.

 Trust is another matter. Trust is a wholehearted whole-life commitment – in this case a wholehearted and whole-life commitment to God through faith in Jesus Christ.

 The good news that I received, Paul says, is what I passed on to you. That is the news that Christ died for our sins in accordance with the scriptures, and he was buried, and he was raised on the third day, all in accordance with the scriptures.

 Paul does not go into detail here about how any of this was in accordance with the scriptures. Parsing that out can be quite a chore. If you read the Hebrew Scriptures straight through from the beginning, you won’t see many clear signs that point directly toward Jesus. It’s only when you look backward, from Jesus to Genesis, that it starts to make sense.

 In his letters to the Ephesians and the Colossians, Paul calls this the mystery that was hidden for the ages but only lately has been disclosed in Jesus. The signs were there, but we didn’t know how to read them clearly until Jesus came along.

 Paul also says little here about how Jesus died, though he makes much of that elsewhere, and he makes no mention at all of the empty tomb – only that Jesus was raised on the third day.

 Not only was Jesus raised from the dead, but he also appeared to Cephas – that is, Simon Peter – and to his other closest followers, to his brother James, and to more than 500 brothers and sisters at one time, most of whom are still alive when Paul is writing.

 “Last of all,” Paul says, “as to one untimely born, he appeared also to me.”

 By untimely born, he means that he came to faith in Christ later than all the others he’s mentioned. Most of these appearances are not recorded in the four written gospels. We know of them only through Paul’s mention of them here.

 There is possibly one difference. While the others saw the Risen Jesus in the flesh soon after his Resurrection, Paul’s encounter with Jesus came long after Jesus ascended to heaven. Paul’s encounter on the road to Damascus may have been more of a vision than a physical Resurrection appearance. Or maybe Paul is claiming a special revelation of Jesus that’s no different in kind from the others.

 Whatever exactly he means, by including himself on that list of Resurrection witnesses, Paul leaves room for us, too.

 Remember the story of Thomas? It has long been fashionable to slander him by calling him Doubting Thomas. I consider him Faithful Thomas because he is always a stalwart defender of Jesus.

 On the evening of the Resurrection, Jesus appears to his followers who are huddling in fear in the Upper Room. Thomas is absent for some reason; we don’t know why. When the others tell him what happened, he says, no, I won’t trust you on this until I see him myself.

 He wants the same experience they had. He wants to see the Risen Jesus in person.

 A week later, he gets his chance. Again everyone is assembled in the Upper Room, and again Jesus appears to them. Thomas doesn’t just say, “Master, it’s so nice to see you.” No, he exclaims, “My Lord and my God!”

 Jesus says: “Blessed are those who have not seen and yet still place their trust in me.”

 That is the essential Easter experience that is proclaimed as gospel, as good news, by Paul in First Corinthians and in the four gospels. Only about 500 people were able to experience the Risen Jesus in physical form. Blessed are those who missed that bodily experience and yet believe. Blessed are those who have not had that direct experience and yet place their trust in Jesus.

 That includes us, doesn’t it? At least I hope it does. Maybe the real question is this: Have you had a life-changing experience of the Risen Jesus?

 I suspect you probably have, though you may not think of it that way.

 Haven’t you, so many times, seen the Risen Jesus in the eyes and actions of others?

 Haven’t you, so many times, seen situations that simply could not be resolved, and yet, amazingly, were resolved in healthy and beneficial ways?

 Haven’t you seen two people reconcile who once were snared in a net of misunderstanding and distrust, and your only response could be, “Thank you, Jesus”? Haven’t you seen the Risen Jesus at work all around you, every day, in so many thrilling ways?

 And if witnessing those things does not change your life, I can’t imagine what might.

 I think that’s what Paul means by believing in vain. Believing has to change your life. Mere belief isn’t enough. Even strongly held opinions don’t count. You have to trust. You must have skin in the game. You have to put something of yourself on the line.

 When I say that Jesus Christ is risen form the dead, I am not stating a mere belief. I am stating a firm conviction. I trust that Jesus Christ is risen from the dead. I stake my life on it. I stake my present life on it, and I stake my future life on it. That’s what trust is all about. Trust risks everything. It’s a wholehearted and whole-life commitment.

 It’s not until we make such a commitment that we begin to feel the deep truth of the Resurrection. There’s a line in the sand that we have to cross, and until we step across that line, we really can’t know, in the deepest sense of knowing, that Christ is alive.

 Until you step across that line, you really can’t see all that has changed because Christ is risen. It’s like putting on a new set of glasses. Now you have Easter Vision. What was fuzzy is now crystal clear.

 We are all witnesses to a life-changing encounter with the Risen Jesus. We can testify to the truth of those encounters. We know that our testimony is true.

 The question is no longer “So what?” The true question is “Now what?” Whatever are you going to do with this new life you’ve been given? How are you going to live in light of this momentous event?

 That’s the deepest question of all. We know that Christ is risen from the dead. What difference does knowing that make in our lives? What difference does knowing that make in the lives of those we encounter on the street and those we live with most intimately?

 Christ is risen! Hallelujah! Praise God! Now, what do we do about it?