Resurrection: It changes everything

We affectionately called her Aunt Maggie, but she wasn’t a relative at all.  She was an elderly lady in the congregation where I grew up in east Lancashire.  She was beloved by all the families and children in the neighborhood, all of whom called her Aunt Maggie.  She was rather special to me because in a sense I was special to her.  I was the only child of the local minister and she wanted to spend time with me.  My mother arranged for me to spend one day a week with Aunt Maggie.  It was the happiest day of the week for my mother!  The joy when she handed me over was memorable!  But visiting with Aunt Maggie was a treat.  She would take me to a local store and buy me a bottle of a drink called Vimto and give me chocolates.  Then she would walk me around the parks and along the monuments that had been placed in memory of those who had died in previous wars.  We would sit on the bench and feed the birds.  Then she would take me home to her cottage, a mill cottage, a poor cottage, and she would make me lunch – cabbage soup, Lancashire hot pot, and then warm apple pie – and if I was a good boy, a la mode!

This went on for a year or two, until one day Aunt Maggie said to my mother, “You know, I am a little worried about Andrew, because whenever I bring out the cabbage soup he doesn’t drink very much of it, when I bring out the hot pot he doesn’t eat much of it, but when I bring out the apple pie and the ice cream he devours it!  Do you think there is something wrong with this?”

My mother promised to speak to me, and said, “Why is it that you do not eat Aunt Maggie’s cabbage soup or hot pot, but all that you seem to want to eat is the apple pie and the ice cream?”  

I asked my mother a question, a question that philosophers throughout the ages have unfortunately ignored, neither Socrates, nor Schopenhauer, nor Wittgenstein, nor Voltaire, nor Locke, nor Hobbs, nor Rousseau – none of them asked this question: “If desserts taste so good, why don’t we eat it first?“ Now surely, dietitians would give us an answer, but is it not true that so often we wait for the very best things?

The great Richard Baxter, that Congregationalist preacher who grew up as an Anglican in England in Kidderminster, the man who I studied at Oxford last year, once said, “The sweetest of all doctrines is the doctrine of the Resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead.” The thing that should be first – not at the end of a story, but at the beginning of the story; not as an add-on to the life of Jesus, but an explanation of the life of Jesus.  It should the lens through which we look at the whole of the life and the ministry of Jesus of Nazareth.  No one captured that better than the Apostle Peter who, in the Book of Acts, suggests was the core, the centre of the Christian faith.  Peter was standing right after Pentecost before the crowds in Jerusalem, giving the first real Christian sermon.  In it, he outlined how Jesus died, how he had fulfilled Scripture, but on two different occasions in this passage you will notice he refers to the Resurrection and it’s pre-eminence.  Peter said, “But God raised him up, having freed him from death.”  Furthermore, he says in conclusion, “This Jesus God raised up, and of that all of us are witnesses.”  Peter is before a crowd of believers and unbelievers, saying that he has been a witness to the Resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, and that he, like Mary and others, had seen an empty tomb.
 
For Peter, the Resurrection wasn’t a commentary on God; it was rather a demonstration of the very power of God.  For Peter, it was this pre-eminent thing:  the Resurrection of Jesus that made sense of everything that had come before and everything that would follow.  For Peter, it was the sweetest of all things.  When you think about it, it is the very lens through which we look back into the life of Jesus.

Take for example the healings of Jesus.  They are plentiful in The New Testament, but we realize through the eyes of the Resurrection that the very source that raised Jesus Christ from the dead was the very source that healed the people that Jesus of Nazareth touched.  When the bleeding woman pleaded with him to touch his cloak that she may be healed, it was the same power that had raised Jesus from the dead.  When blind Bartimaeus couldn’t see, and he pleaded with Jesus, “All I want to do is to be able to see” it was the same source that gave him sight that raised Jesus Christ from the dead.  When Peter’s mother-in-law was sick and he asks she be healed he knew that it was the power of the Resurrected Jesus that healed her.  When it was the lame person who couldn’t walk, and Jesus says, “Get up!  Take up your bed and walk” it was the same power that raised Jesus from the dead.  The same is true with the miracles.  When the water was turned into wine at the Wedding at Cana, it was the same renewing power that was there in the empty tomb.  When Jesus calmed the disciples who were on a boat and a storm came up and they were terrified, it was the Risen Christ who said, “Peace, be still, there is no need to fear.”  When the five thousand were hungry and there was not enough bread and fish to go around, it was Jesus who provided for them in their moment of need and transformed the situation of sorrow into joy, for that was the same power that had raised Jesus Christ from the dead.

It was the same too with his teachings.  The Resurrection gives authority to his teachings whether it is the Prodigal Son, who had wandered away from the Father and had got lost, and who finally came home and was received by the Father.  This was a symbol of the risen transforming power of Christ.  When Jesus tells the story of the Good Samaritan, he talks about a reject, an immigrant passing through the land, who had no status and Jesus exalts him for his goodness and kindness.  This is the authority here of the same man who was raised from the dead, where Jesus preached the great Sermon on the Mount and said, “Blessed are the meek.  Blessed are the poor in spirit.  Blessed are the peacemakers.  Blessed are those who are persecuted for my sake.  Blessed are you who hunger and thirst for righteousness.”  All the authority of that sermon is seen in the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead.

Ultimately it was the Cross, and the only way you can make sense of the Cross is through the eyes of the Resurrection, and the only way you can understand the power of the Resurrection is through the suffering of the Cross.  When many of you came forward here on Good Friday and dropped nails from buckets as you brought yourself to the foot of the Cross, if that had been the end, if that had been the conclusion of the story, how sad we would be!  But the Resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead gives power to the Cross.  The transforming power and the saving grace of God on the Cross become real for us.  No Cross, no Resurrection!  No Resurrection, no meaning to the Cross!  See what I mean?  Baxter was right:  the sweetest of all doctrines makes sense of the healings, the miracles, gives authority to the teaching, and ultimately he makes the Cross not the end, but the beginning.  The Resurrection changes everything.

It also changes the way we look forward.  Peter quotes from the great King David, and from the Psalms, “That you have shown to me real faith, the way of life.”  The very power of God in the Resurrection is God showing us the meaning and the purpose of life.  My friends, look, let’s be honest, being human is difficult and complicated.  It is often fraught with more questions than answers; more challenges than there are satisfactory moments.  It is beyond our imagination that in this world there is such iniquity, that the innocent suffer, that the powerful get away with things, that good people suffer and the bad people prosper, that gay men are beaten up in Chechnya, that children and young people are gassed in Syria, that people desire to make bombs to kill as many as possible, that we starve people and turn a blind eye to it in Africa.  We look at all of these tragedies and we say, “What makes sense of all of this?”  Well, the Resurrection makes sense of all of this, for what pernicious, unjust, ungodly God would allow these things to happen, why would children die and old people suffer, why would there be death at all if there is not something more?  The Resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead – that is the answer!  As C. S. Lewis rightly said, “All of life makes sense in the light of the Resurrection.  God is not just finished with the here and now.  God continues his work.”  But the psalmist also said, “You will not leave me alone in Hades, you will not leave me in a position of suffering.”
 
This last Thursday we celebrated Maundy Thursday, and I want to recognize the incredible ministry of our Minister of Pastoral  Care, Dr. Hunnisett, who cares for what I call our “Third Congregation” a congregation that often cannot get here, but to whom she and the Pastoral Care Committee minister with such passion.  Many of them were brought here to celebrate Maundy Thursday, in a wonderful service with Communion.  At that service I quoted the great Madeleine Albright.  After September 11th, she was addressing the students at Yale Divinity School.  She was a former Secretary of State and Ambassador to the United Nations, and she was talking about the meaning of suffering in the world.  She said this:  “Not long after September 11th, I was on a panel with Eli Wiesel.  He asked us to name the unhappiest character in the Bible.  Some said Job because of the trials he endured, some said Moses because he was denied entry into the Promised Land, and some said Mary because she witnessed the crucifixion of her son.  Wiesel said that he believed the right answer was God, because of the pain he must surely feel in seeing us fight and kill and abuse each other in his name.”  My, oh my! 

God suffers with the world, but God suffers in the world in his Son.  God suffers with the world on the Cross.  But that was not the end of the story!

There was still a sweet thing to come.  The sweet thing that makes sense of it all, the Resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead. Paul says that it is his gift, his life, his empty tomb that transforms the suffering of the world, and even the broken heart of God himself into the great joy of the life that is to come.  So what of you this Easter?  How much does this sweet doctrine mean to you?  How much in your heart of hearts do you really believe that the Son of God is there for you in this life and in the life to come?  How much more is he present now, not in a tomb anymore, but at the right hand of God the Father Almighty?  Where is this Christ in your life?  For, if you have the Son and the empty tomb, you have everything!

There was once an old man, and he and his son loved art.  They tried to buy all the Dutch masters – Rembrandt, Vermeer and others – and as they collected this great group of paintings they got news.  The son had been called up to fight in the war.  So the son left the father and went to fight in the war.  The father received a telegram saying his son was dead and he mourned for ages.  One day there was a knock on the door and a young man who had been a soldier with his son came to see him.  He said, “I am so sorry about your son.  He was a great friend of mine and a wonderful man.  The only thing I can give you is a small portrait that I painted of him on the battlefield.  I would like you to have it.”

The father removed all the other paintings from his wall – the Rembrandts and the Vermeers and the others – and he put the picture of his son first above the mantelpiece.  For years, he looked at him every day.  Then, the old man died, and the paintings were going to be auctioned off.  Everyone knew that this man had this world class collection, and so they came in droves to the auctions hoping to get their hands on the great paintings.  But the auctioneer had been given an instruction that the first painting to be sold was the painting of the son.  They thought, “Great!  Get that out of the way!”  The auctioneer said, “A hundred guilders will start the bidding.”  It went down to 80 and no takers, then 50 and no takers, and finally 45, and one young man put up his hand and said, “I’ll take that painting, for I really liked his son, the son of the father whose paintings we remember today.  I would like that painting!”  With that, the auctioneer hit the gavel and said the auction was over.  Everyone was furious!  Where are the Rembrandts?  Where are the Vermeers?  The auctioneer, when challenged, stood up and said, “Ladies and gentlemen, there was a codicil in the father’s will, and it said ‘He who buys the son gets them all.’”

If you get the sweetest thing, you get everything.  If you get the Resurrection of the Son of God, you have everything.  Everything else is seen to:  life and death of yourself, life and death of the world, life and death of those whom you loved.  The sweetest thing makes sense of it all!  Jesus of Nazareth was raised from the dead and he lives forever more and so can we.  Let’s always have our dessert first! Amen.