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Here we are on Easter Sunday, the day we celebrate the resurrection of Jesus.
It's become a bit of a second cousin to Good Friday really.
I mean, even in terms of numbers there are a lot less people here today than on Good
Friday.
Why do you think that is?
Maybe there's just a lot of people camping...
Or maybe it's because the resurrection is a little bit harder to come at than the crucifixion.
Think about it, even if you're not a Christian, the idea that Jesus was put up on a cross
is not hard to agree with.
Heaps of people have died for their cause.
And maybe Jesus is for you a heroic figure like lots of others.
Sure, a very significant, perhaps the most significant one.
But just a great example of standing up for what you believe in.
The idea of a dead body being alive again after three days.
It's a little harder to swallow.
Look, even for Christians, the resurrection can be put off to the side a bit.
You might be a bit embarrassed by it.
Or, the main game is forgiveness won at the crucifixion, and so the resurrection is just
the extra thing on the side, not quite sure how it all fits in.
Dead people living again is just so out of normal experience, it's hard to know what
to do with it.
You're not alone if you're a bit suspicious or unsure about it.
In that reading from Mark's gospel, you can see even for them it's totally unexpected.
Three days after Good Friday, the women form a bit of a wake team, organising things to
properly farewell Jesus.
So they're set for sorting out Jesus' body, paying him respects and allowing the grieving.
They get up early, and they're main concern isn't the ramifications of resurrection, their
main concern is getting access to the morgue.
Read it with me from v1 in Mark 16: "When the Sabbath was over, Mary Magdalene, Mary
the mother of James, and Salome bought spices so that they might go to anoint Jesus' body.
2 Very early on the first day of the week, just after sunrise, they were on their way
to the tomb 3 and they asked each other, "Who will roll the stone away from the entrance
of the tomb?""
It's not as though these first Christians had become so convinced of the cult of Jesus
that they would believe anything.
They genuinely think they're going to a body of another martyr.
A special one to them.
But another martyr.
It's not what they find though.
In fact they are totally shocked.
These few verse are the end of Mark's gospel, it ends right where we're about to read.
And the end is so awkward, that much later on someone added another ending to make it
seem more normal.
Which is a shame.
The whole point from Mark is that what happened that Easter Sunday was unexpected and the
first people who saw it had no idea what to do with it.
Let's look at it from v6: "6 "Don't be alarmed," the angel said.
"You are looking for Jesus the Nazarene, who was crucified.
He has risen!
He is not here.
See the place where they laid him.
7But go, tell his disciples and Peter, 'He is going ahead of you into Galilee.
There you will see him, just as he told you.'
" 8Trembling and bewildered, the women went out and fled from the tomb.
They said nothing to anyone, because they were afraid."
They just couldn't come at the resurrection.
They're scared, they're afraid and they don't want to talk about.
No one expected resurrection.
No one expects.
Lots of us aren't quite sure what to do with it.
And if you're the kind of person who thinks that the resurrection isn't true, and that
those first Christians were prepared to believe anything, they were brainwashed, can I say,
that's patronising.
They knew what dead was.
It's the first century.
They saw dead more frequently and more vividly than we ever do.
Dead was dead, dead was the end of alive.
They were absolutely frightened when confronted with resurrection.
They knew, that if it was true, if this happened, it is absolutely revolutionary.
The men climbing the mountain - mountain climbers tie themselves to each other.
One at the bottom and one at the top most important.
One at the bottom falls on the way to his death, and he takes another and another and
another until only the front man is on the mountain.
Seeing all falling to death he plunges his axe into the ground and the rope almost cuts
him in two, but he holds ground and those staying tied to the rope live.
All we've ever know here is being tied to that one falling off the mountain.
You and me, we've got a rope around us.
And whether it takes 5 months, 5 years, 50 years or a hundred, it's dragging us off the
edge and into death.
In the letter of 1 Corinthians from the apostle Paul we looked at before, we're told that
the man who ties us to death is Adam from v21: "21 For since death came through a man
...
and to v22...
22 For as in Adam all die..."
I don't think you need any convincing about people dying.
You might remember Christopher Hitchens, a famed atheist who died in December 2011 sticking
courageously, I think, to his non-belief.
Like everyone before him, he knew he'd die.
For him, it was the inglorious end.
Reflecting on Christopher's last moments, his wife Carol, suggested that her husband's
mortality as an "intimate narrative" and a "contemplation about the sad fact that we're
all born to die."
Reading the story about her, what Carol said next about watching Chris die made me stop.
Carol also says it was a time "infused with extraordinary optimism."
Extraordinary optimism?
What could possibly be the source of such an optimism, in the moments she sat there
at his side as his death approached.
I can understand having a bit of a laugh over moments from life, but optimism?
And what she says is tragic.
Tragic for its lack of logic and tragic for its lack of comfort: "Christopher had to continue
living as if he might not be close to the end, but he also had to prepare to die and
think of what that might mean."
He had to live as if it might not be the end?
But it was.
Why lie?
He had to prepare to die and think of what that might mean?
It meant nothing for him, what was he to think about?
I wonder if she said to him: You're dying Christopher, but we have to be optimistic?
How hollow, how misplaced, how tragic.
There's nothing nice about dying, or death.
Nothing optimistic.
It's disgusting, it's soul destroying, it's wrong.
And in the midst of that, how dare people offer false hope, unfounded optimism and baseless
words of sentimentality.
This is why the resurrection is revolutionary.
It says that in this world there's no longer just Adam dragging us down to death.
On the other end of the rope is Christ.
Christ who has thrust his axe into the ground of new life.
And he wasn't almost killed by a rope cutting him in two, he was killed on a Cross to forgive
our sin.
And his power of sin and death is shown as his resurrection vindicates who he is.
Now he's risen from the dead and for everyone who is tied to him, they can have certainty
of life after death.
Let's look from v21 again: "21 For since death came through a man, the resurrection of the
dead comes also through a man.
22 For as in Adam all die, so in Christ all will be made alive."
You see what that means.
Carol could have been optimistic.
Genuinely.
She could have be certain, rather than sadly sentimental.
Because if this unexpected resurrection is true, Jesus is just the first one of many
who will make it through death.
"20 But Christ has indeed been raised from the dead, the firstfruits of those who have
fallen asleep."
Isn't it great news?
If Christ is really resurrected I can say to my mate's sick dad: this is not all there
is, you will live after death, pain free.
You can say with confidence at a funeral "I hate death, but I know she is with Christ,
she is in a better place."
And you can say it boldly, confidently, because of the first Easter Sunday.
If the unexpected resurrection is true, it changes everything.
This life of sickness and pain and death is just a brief time before we will go to be
with Christ beyond the grave.
The resurrection can't be something on the side, or an unnecessary addition to the otherwise
good moral teachings of Christianity.
It's got to be the lynch-pin.
It's the lynch-pin for the early Christians.
If it's not true, they know they're peddling nothing more than another alternative view
of life and another religion in a world of thousands of gods.
All the talk about sin being forgiven is stupid.
And if Jesus is a bunch of bones somewhere in Palestine, it doesn't matter how sincere
you are, how strong your faith is, or how much you get out of being at church.
It's all a waste of time, that's what it says in the reading from 1 Corinthians 15 in v17:
17 And if Christ has not been raised, your faith is futile;
you are still in your sins.
If you're a Christian here this morning, I want to challenge you to realise that the
resurrection can't be separated from the crucifixion.
One doesn't mean anything without the other.
Without being joined to a resurrected Christ, the death of Jesus offers no hope to anyone.
Death is still death, pain is still pain, funerals and tragedy are all we'll ever know
according to the next verse: "18 Then those also who have fallen asleep in Christ are
lost."
In fact if there's no resurrection, we should invite every non-Christian we know to feel
sorry for our poor delusion in v19: "19 If only for this life we have hope in Christ,
we are to be pitied more than all men."
This day, what we're reading in these passages, is what Christianity rests on.
If you're not a Christian here this morning, I want you to see how important the resurrection
is.
Without it, you could be utterly deceived by religion.
The mistake would be to look at the life of Jesus, and to see him as a good guy from whom
you can get some good life lessons.
And all you'll do is copy the ideas of his good behaviour.
The mistake would be to see the cross as just a moment of supreme sacrifice, and think it
sets an example of sacrifice that is worthy to follow.
And so you will try and be a sacrificial person.
If that's all it is, you have no new hope, no new certainty.
Only sentimentality in the face of life's real problem, death.
You run the risk of saying things and believing things that in the end are tragic and hollow.
The unexpected resurrection of Jesus is the revolutionary lynch-pin of the Christian faith.
It's what sets it apart.
And today we remember it, we read the words of the apostle Paul writing to new Christians
who themselves were unsure what to do with it, and we rejoice that all we've ever known
about pain and suffering and hopeless sentimentality is no more.
We can comfort those suffering with the suffering of Jesus, give hope to the dying of living
to come.
And we hate death, we hate it...
but we are tied to Christ and we rejoice with Paul: "55 Where, O death, is your victory?
Where, O death, is your sting?"
Some of you this morning will be Christians, this is a great day for us.
I know you'll go out and back to your long-weekend activities, we all will.
But take this moment to re-join the crucifixion and the resurrection as the centre of you
faith.
And say to yourself again and again, Jesus lives, and so shall I.
Some of you this morning won't be Christians.
You might have been brought here for Easter.
This morning, we want to invite you to turn to Jesus, trust in him for forgiveness and
tie yourself to him for life.
And if questions about the resurrection stop you from that, then take a look at our Christianity
Explored course for where to investigate more.
You don't have to wait though, you could join us now as people given new life through the
death and resurrection of Christ.
And together we can sing in praise of our risen king: "57 But thanks be to God!
He gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ."