“Let Easter Change You”
Matthew 28:1-6
Good morning, Happy Easter!
I am excited to be here today with you on this special day. On this day, all around the world, the global Church is gathering to remember and celebrate the resurrection of Jesus Christ.
His sacrificial death on the cross and the miracle of the empty tomb offer Us divine power that can change our lives from the inside out.
Today we celebrate…He is risen.
(response: He is risen indeed.)
The passage of scripture that we read this morning is a portion of the Bible that many of us have read ourselves or heard preached on for years. It can be easy to become so familiar with the resurrection story, that we miss out on the amazing miracle that took place nearly 2,000 years ago. So, I invite you to listen and consider or re-consider how the life changing truth of Easter can change you, f you let it.
I once heard a story about a conversation that took place in a small Sunday school classroom on Easter morning. Little McKenzie wasn’t trying to start a theological debate as she raised her hand, she just wanted to make a point about Jesus’ resurrection. Her Sunday school teacher had tried to encourage her class with the assurance that Jesus was indeed everywhere. “There is no place where God’s presence cannot be found.” But for McKenzie, that didn’t sound right.
So, with supreme confidence, she said, “I know one place where Jesus isn’t.” The teacher curiously replied, “Oh, really? Where is that?” The bright little girl declared, “I can say with full confidence that He’s not in the grave!”
What a great reminder for us, God is present with us today because the tomb was, and is, empty. This was the discovery that two women named Mary made as they traveled to the tomb on that first Easter morning. Surely, they came with heavy hearts as they mourned the loss of their dear friend and teacher, Jesus, only 3 days before. He had been arrested and crucified on a Roman cross for claiming to be the Son of God and the true king of the Jews. They, along with countless others had hoped that Jesus was the promised Messiah that they’d heard of their entire lives.
Countless prophetic passages from the Old Testament told of one who would come to save God’s people and make all things right. But all of that prophetic hope seemed impossible now that he was dead.
There was no doubt that Jesus was dead. After he was taken down from the cross, he was placed inside of a tomb and a large heavy stone was rolled over the entrance. Guards were placed to ensure that whatever kind of following Jesus had gained over his three years of earthly ministry, would die along with him. But then something amazing happened. There was a violent earthquake, and the tomb was breached by an angel sent from God. The guards were terrified by the appearance of the heavenly being, and their bodies went into shock. This was the situation as the women arrived. They were greeted by the angel sitting on the stone. He told them not to be afraid…………which was easy for him to say.
Then he told them that they would not find what they had come looking for because Jesus was not in the tomb anymore. He was alive! And the angel showed them the place that Jesus used to lay, but he was nowhere to be found.
HE WASN’T IN THE GRAVE, HE HAD RISEN
Maybe some of you have come to church this morning in a very similar way to how the women arrived at the tomb that day two thousand years ago. Maybe you have come here without hope or you know someone without hope. Maybe you or someone you know lives without joy? In today’s atmosphere it’s not difficult to feel that the future you had longed for is gone. Dreams people have for that relationship, that recovery, that provision, that healing, or that outcome seem impossible.
But remember, the tomb is empty, our Savior has risen.
This one discovery changed everything for the women at the tomb. It turned their world upside down. It flipped their despair to joy, their distress to excitement, and their discouragement to encouragement…
Shouldn’t it do the same for us today?
It is like the late evangelist, Smith Wigglesworth, once said, “There is nothing impossible with God. All the impossibility is with us when we measure God by the limitations of our unbelief.”
I am sure the women could not believe their eyes, but when the angel spoke to them that Jesus was alive, their unbelief must have melted into faith. If Jesus was alive, that meant that the impossible had become a reality and now anything was possible.
Easter is the time of year when the church gathers to remind itself that Jesus has risen, and because of that truth, there is profound hope that anything is possible for us today.
WHEN WE LET IT, GOD’S MERCY CHANGES US
The truth of Jesus’ resurrection becomes a focal point for the New Testament authors as they write about the impact of the Risen Savior on people’s lives. Peter opens his letter in First Peter with this idea, 1 Peter 1:3-4,
Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! In his great mercy he has given us new birth into a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, and into an inheritance that can never perish, spoil or fade. This inheritance is kept in heaven for you,
Peter says that we have reason to celebrate! That reason is that God saw us in our broken and sinful state and graciously offered us mercy by sending Jesus to die for us, defeating sin and death by conquering the grave. I love the wording Peter uses here to describe what is offered to us; he says we are given a new birth. This is a common phrase used in the Gospels to explain the way God changes us by the power of the resurrection. By having faith that the impossible can become possible, we are given a brand-new start, free from sin, pure and unblemished, like a newborn baby.
When Peter wanted to help his readers understand what the living hope was as a result of the resurrection, he said it is like a new birth. We become pure, not on our own merit, but by the mercy of God. We become innocent, not in and of ourselves, but by the mercy of God. Our sins are washed clean because of the mercy of God.
Not only are we made new, but we are also given an inheritance in heaven with God.
God changes our past, our present, and our future by the life, death, and resurrection of Christ.
Do you realize today that the empty tomb is for you?
Do you realize that the mercy of God is offered to you?
Do you realize that you can experience a new birth today? You can be changed by placing your faith in the risen Christ.
THE CHANGE NEEDS TO BEGIN IN THE HEART
The real reason there are pastors who are preaching about the empty tomb and the mercy of God today is because ultimately, they want to create the opportunity for people to experience a change of heart. The Bible talks about this change using the word repentance.
The proper response for you and for me when we hear about the sacrificial death and the victorious resurrection of Jesus is to repent. In the original Greek language, this word literally means to have a change of heart, to turn around, or to go a different direction.
Many might say, how do you do that? The Apostle Paul makes it clear for us in the book of Romans, Romans 10:9,
If you declare with your mouth, “Jesus is Lord,” and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved.
This is the core of our preaching. Say the welcoming word to God—“Jesus is my Master”—embracing, body and soul, God’s work of doing in us what he did in raising Jesus from the dead. That’s it.
You’re not “doing” anything; you’re simply calling out to God, trusting him to do it for you. That’s salvation.
With your whole being you embrace God setting things right, and then you say it, right out loud: “God has set everything right between him and me!”
According to Paul, there is a two-step process to being changed, or as he says it, saved.
First, you declare with your mouth that Jesus is Lord of your life. This is a very important step. To say that Jesus is Lord is to say that He is in charge, and He gets to call the shots. When we voice this out loud, it is letting others know that we recognize Jesus as our authority.
Secondly, you believe in your heart that the impossible became possible; you believe that God raised Jesus from the dead. The same power that raised Jesus from the grave can bring new life to you as well.
This passage from Paul ends with a promise. If you do these two things in faith, you will be saved.
Saved from what?
You are saved from the power of death.
You are saved from eternity without God.
You are saved from the awful effects of sin.
That is something that no one can take away from you. As Peter reminded us earlier, Easter is something to celebrate and “praise the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ”.
In the mid-1950s the British minister, W. E. Sangster began to lose his voice and mobility. He had a disease that caused progressive muscular atrophy. He recognized the end was near, and so he threw himself into writing and praying. In the midst of his suffering he pleaded, “Let me stay in the struggle, Lord. I don’t mind if I can no longer be a general but give me just a regiment to lead.” Sangster’s voice eventually failed completely, and his legs became useless. On Easter morning just a few weeks before his death, he took a pen and shakily wrote his daughter a letter. In it he said, “It is terrible to wake up on Easter morning and have no voice with which to shout, ‘He is risen!’—but it would be still more terrible to have a voice and not want to shout.” (Ministry127.com)
I hope you will join me in proclaiming, “He is risen” today.
For those who never have, I invite you to confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead. By doing so, our journey of life contains the power of the Holy Spirit.
It’s that power,
the power that creates universes,
conquers death and
plans to return to set up a new heaven and a new earth, that can also change things in our lives for the better.
Today we celebrate, the tomb is empty, He is risen!
(He is risen, indeed!)
Let’s pray.
