"They killed him by hanging him on a tree, but God raised him from the dead on the third day and caused him to be seen."

"All the prophets testify about him that everyone who believes in him receives forgiveness through his name."

         I asked our son Timm where he was gong to be spending Easter Sunday. Many of you know that he works for Alaska Christian College and travels around the state presenting the school and recruiting students. He said he was going to Barrow for Easter. When you think of Easter, Barrow does come to mind, doesn't it?

         So I looked at a map and saw just how close to the edge of the earth that is. And I began to think of how Easter worship got to such a distant place. And then I thought about Christi Harrison having Easter in Suriname, and Brian and Karin Swanson having Easter in Honduras, and how Tom Alford was in China a few weeks ago, and he must be thinking about the people he met there gathering for worship today. I thought about Less Boyd going tomorrow to Kenya, and also of our long relationship with the Congo and the Christians there. It is really remarkable, how faith in Jesus Christ has spread throughout the world.

         This spread of the Gospel to all peoples and tribes and languages and nations began with Peter and Cornelius. It was Peter, the disciple of Jesus, who on the day Jesus rose from the dead, heard the good news, "and it seemed to him like nonsense." But, really just a short time later, Peter is able to speak clearly and confidently about the resurrection of Jesus, and how this message can go to all people, and everyone who believes receives forgiveness of sin.

         Peter was able to speak clearly and proclaim this good news. Cornelius was able to listen to the news. So the more I looked at this text, I became intrigued with Cornelius, and I strayed far from the title of the sermon and where I thought it would be going. It is Cornelius and his listening and his believing that took my attention.

         There is a quality about his life that makes him seem to fit our world very well. He seems to me to be very post-modern, able to comfortably carry in himself a variety of contradictions and paradoxes. He is a Roman who has embraced Judaism. He is a Roman soldier, part of an occupation army who also prays and gives to the poor. He is a good person who also stands in need of forgiveness of sins. He is a very practical person, since centurions were selected for their noble character and emotional stability, who also has visions and talks to angels. It seems to me that he would fit right in on any college campus today.

         What strikes me about Cornelius is that he is what we might call "a very spiritual person." That is a high compliment these days, although it is often used without clear meaning. Cornelius was a spiritual person. It says in chapter 10 verse 1 and 2 that he and all his family were devout and God-fearing, and he gave generously to those in need and he prayed regularly, meaning not once a month, but at appointed hours each day. He was a Gentile, a Roman. He had a very popular Latin name, taken from a leader 100 years earlier who liberated 10,000 slaves, all of whom took his name. But this Roman soldier somehow came to find in Judaism a faith that led him to know God. From Peter's speech, it seems that he also knew about Jesus. There is nothing said here to indicate that his life and faith was lacking or inferior. All of this is reported in a very positive way.

         What Cornelius is able to do is to listen; first to the angel, and then to Peter. He hears the message about Jesus the Savior, crucified and risen from the dead, and he believes the message and responds to it. It does not seem like nonsense to him, at all. So, what did Cornelius hear in Peter's proclamation? And how do we interpret his life? Do you think he carried with him a kind of pain, a longing for something that was missing in his life, and he found it in the message about Jesus? Or do you think that his prior relationship with God actually prepared him to believe the message and receive the Risen Lord?

         You know, sometimes Christians think that all non-believers go around with an awareness that something is missing in their lives and if we can just get the gospel message in there, the person will come to faith. I have noticed that theme in the various invitations to Easter worship that have come in the mail this week. And it is true for some people. Some people have a deep sense of despair, a pain they carry, a longing that can only be met by Christ. But a lot of people do not feel that way, do not consciously carry with them a sense of incompleteness. And they need Christ too!

         I remember a former youth pastor in a church we served talking about how he came to faith because God seemed real to him, because what he was learning in Scripture fit in his life and so one day he simply prayed and asked Christ into his life. A few years later he had a girlfriend that he wanted to impress, and one day she asked him why he believed in Christ. So he made up a story about a crisis in his life and how at a time of trouble and despair he reached out to God for help. And she said that she thought that was why people came to faith. That it was always a time of weakness and need, and she never knew anyone who came to faith just because they came to believe that God is real and that they wanted to follow Christ just because he is who he says he is.

         Certainly the Lord cares for people who are troubled and reach out to him in need. There are many examples of that in Scripture. But there are also those like Cornelius, one who came to faith in Christ because he had a prepared heart and the truth of the message spoke to the truth of what he already knew. For him, it was not a crisis in his life that needed a message of hope. For him, it was the reality of who Christ is, the Risen Lord, that spoke to his love for God and his prepared heart. The focus is on who Jesus is, and not just on our need.

         The Risen Lord meets us in our brokenness, in our pain, in our weariness. For that we give thanks. The Risen Lord also meets us in our best moments. He does not meet us in our pride, but he does meet us in the preparation of our hearts, he meets people who sincerely seek after him. Cornelius was loving God and others, praying often and giving to the poor in his community, and the message of the Risen Savior was one he was ready to welcome. He received Christ by faith, and the Holy Spirit came upon him and he was baptized.

         Jesus talked about good soil, and how the word of God is planted in the good soil and it grows and bears fruit. In our former church we had the custom of making a flowered cross on Easter. A bulb farmer would give us some buckets of cut daffodils and we would place them on a large wooden cross covered with chicken wire. When it was finished, it was very beautiful for Easter worship. Then we would take it down the block to a nursing home so the people there could enjoy it for the afternoon. But cut flowers do not last long without water. The next morning I would go to pick up the cross, by now set out back by the dumpster, the flowers long wilted and hanging limp. How often the joy of our Easter worship is a memory by the next morning. Instead of transforming our lives into productive discipleship, it becomes like the memory of cut flowers.

         Perhaps today you are a believer for whom Easter and its message fades quickly. You do not feel its transforming power because you have neglected the preparation of your heart. The message does not seem to take root and grow. Yours is a cut-flower faith, beautiful for short periods of time, and then it gets lost in the demands and distractions of life. Perhaps today you feel convicted by the Holy Spirit to take care of your soul: love God, care for the poor, and pray regularly. Then the Gospel message will begin to speak to you with power again. Then the Spirit will fill you. Then the "Alleluia" will always be in your heart.

         Perhaps you identify with Cornelius today. You believe in God. You pray. You seek to love your neighbor. The spiritual life is important to you. But you have not yet committed your life to Christ. The message of Easter is for you. Christ is risen! Through belief in the Risen Christ you may receive the forgiveness of your sins in his name. Perhaps, like Cornelius, you simply have not been given an invitation to believe. But today the invitation is given. This Risen Savior is for you. Open your heart to his presence. Believe in him today.

         Amen.