"Hope Begins at the Empty Tomb"

   

"If only for this life we have hope in Christ, we are to be pitied more than all others. But Christ has indeed been raised from the dead, the firstfruits of those who have fallen asleep. "

 

            During the season of Easter this year, our sermons will be on the theme of the Christian Hope. We will be considering Scriptures which deal with heaven, the New Creation, the Second Coming of Christ, the resurrection of the body and the meaning of salvation. Today we begin by saying that the Christian hope begins at the empty tomb. The women who came to the tomb, and the apostle Peter, were bewildered at what they saw. But they came to understand that Jesus had risen from the dead, and that led them to believe in Jesus. Belief worked its way to full hope, which Paul describes in his letters.

            Sometimes I have heard Christians say, "Maybe we are wrong about the future. Maybe life just ends when you die. But even if there is no life everlasting, the Christian life is still the best way to live. "

            Paul strongly disagrees.

            He says that if there is no resurrection, if Christ has not been raised from the dead, if we as Christians have no hope beyond this life, than we are to be pitied more than all other people. Then our preaching is useless – and Paul suffered a great deal for his preaching. Our faith also is useless – and it is a shame to put so much time and effort into something that turns out to be useless. More than that, we would turn out to be false witnesses about God. If Christ is not risen from the dead, then we are still in our sins. There is no salvation. Those who die in Christ would be eternally lost.

            Paul is saying, it is really important to be right on this one. It really matters whether Christ was raised from the dead or not. We need to be sure. More than Easter Sunday is at stake here. I once heard a woman interviewed on the radio who was on her way to Christmas Eve services, and she was an avowed atheist. The interviewer asked if she were being inconsistent. She said she suspended her atheism at Christmas each year because she loved the music. Paul says you can't do that. This is much too important. It's not about whether you enjoy Easter. The resurrection of Jesus is central to life and faith and hope and who we are as people.

            Paul says, "But Christ has indeed been raised from the dead. " That is an important word, "indeed. " This is real. This is true. Paul met the risen Lord. Paul talked to eyewitnesses of the resurrection. Paul searched the Scriptures. He made sure, and then he gave his life fully to serving the risen Christ. It really does matter that Christ is risen. N.T. Wright says, "The resurrection of Jesus is not an odd event within the world as it is, but is the utterly characteristic, prototypical, and foundational event within the world as it has begun to be. It is the starting point of the new creation. "

            Paul was writing to believers in Corinth who had begun to doubt the resurrection of the dead. They were losing hope in the Christian hope. He does not say why. But he responds to their doubts by reminding them of the Gospel that had once been preached to them and which they had received and believed. He reminded them that Christ died on the cross, that he died for our sins, and that according to the Scriptures. He reminded them that Jesus was buried, put in a tomb like all dead people, to await a time when their remains would be just bones, and then the bones would be placed in a box. The fact that Jesus was buried points both to the fact of what people realistically expected to happen; but it also points to the empty tomb. He was raised on the third day. He was buried and now he is not here. The angels say, "Why do you look for the living among the dead? He is not here; he has risen!"

             Jesus was seen by Peter and the twelve and then 500 others and by his brother James and all the apostles, and then Paul. This is the foundation of Christian hope. The empty tomb led to an experience of Christ, which brought them to faith, and then to hope. Paul believes, and then he hopes. You begin with belief in Christ, you place your trust in him, and then you follow him into hope, you come into the confident expectation of the return of Christ and the resurrection of the dead. From the conviction that Jesus has been raised from the dead comes the understanding that all who belong to him will also be raised. And even more, that death itself will be defeated.

             Gordon Fee says, "As long as people die, God's own sovereign purposes are not yet fully realized. Hence the necessity of the resurrection – so as to destroy death by 'robbing' it of its store of those who do not belong to it because they belong to Christ. " All of this, Craig Blomberg says, is a demonstration of the absolute sovereignty of God. The Christian hope is ultimately about God, whose will is done.  

            So Paul comes to a living hope, and in hope gives himself to the call he receives in Christ, even to be an evangelist among the Gentiles. He suffers for that, but he never wavers. For hope is a powerful force in doing the will of God.

            This winter I have been reading a new biography of Abraham Lincoln by Ronald White. This particular book gives more of Lincoln's faith and theology than other writings about him. Lincoln was self-educated in many ways, and that was true of his faith as well. He did not go to church a great deal in his younger years, and never studied the Scripture in a formal way, although he knew it well. But when he became President, he went to a Presbyterian church in Washington, D.C. , very regularly. The pastor of that church, Phineas Gurley, was a disciple of the theologian Charles Hodge. So each week there would be a sermon, reflecting the thinking of Hodge, but presented in sermon form through a Scripture text. Lincoln listened carefully and over time the theology he learned in church sermons shaped his thinking about the issues that confronted him. He took the sermon with him into the White House.

            It was his growing understanding of the Providence of God that shaped his writing of the Emancipation Proclamation. Although he knew slavery to be evil, for many years his focus had been on stopping its spread, and not on eliminating it. His priority had been on preserving the Union. But as the Gospel began to shape his thinking more and more he came to the realization that the only way to preserve the Union was for all its inhabitants to be free. It was not that his pastor was preaching abolition. It was that the preaching of the Gospel in a clear way formed Lincoln's thinking about this great issue and led him to act in a courageous way.

How does the Gospel shape your thinking and your living? How does the hope you have in Christ lead you to new and courageous actions that express your faith? How does hope form your values, your decisions, your compassion, your witness. Is your response to the important issues of our day filled with the hope you find in the Gospel? Even more importantly, is your hope shaping your behavior, leading you into ministry in our community and in the world, and giving you an energy to do God's will? Hope begins at the empty tomb. Let it grow.  Let it lead you. Let it shape your life.

            Amen.