Christ is Risen

This is the manuscript of a sermon I preached on Easter Sunday, 2021.

All around the world people of every tribe, nation, and tongue gather to celebrate the pinnacle of history. Almost two thousand years ago to the day everything changed for the human race and indeed the cosmos. The word went out that death had been broken because Christ is Risen.

Blessed by Providence we gather here today to celebrate the triumph of life over the powers of death and darkness. We gather to participate in the Resurrection Body of our Lord. We gather to behold the beauty of God displayed in the trampling of death by death on the cross, a victory of which we can be assured because Christ is Risen.

Glory to the Father, glory to the Son, and glory to the Holy Spirit. May the words of our mouths and the meditations of our hearts overflow with adoration and praise for our Almighty God. We can rest assured in the comfort of his grace because Christ is Risen.

Dear brothers and sisters if Easter Sunday is about anything it is about hope. Christian hope is not the same as definitive knowledge, though it is far more than a middling desire. Biblical hope is the blessed assurance and confidence in the promises and character of God because Christ is Risen.

Every single one of the promises of God find their “Yes” in Christ Jesus. He is the image of the invisible God, the one in whom the fullness of deity is pleased to dwell. So, when one speaks of the promises and very character of God they cannot help but speak of Christ himself, and Christ is Risen.

Zion’s mount might still yet be unseen in our present age, but the hope of seeing God face to face burns brightly. Our hope is founded on the person and work of Jesus, nothing less will suffice. It is not a hope in one dead and buried but one alive and well, because Christ is Risen.

Ages come and go but Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today, and forever. He has promised to be with us even unto the end of the age. We can, therefore, stand united without fear against the changing tides of this present world because Christ is Risen.

This world and all that is in it belongs to the King of Kings and the Lord of Lords. He who has conquered death and now holds the keys to death and hades now sits at the right hand of the Father ruling the cosmos. The dark powers and demonic hordes tremble in terror because Christ is Risen.

It is therefore to our utter shame that we, the people of God who’s hope is Jesus, do not fully believe this promise. Simply look at the way we rally behind false messiahs and seek salvation from the gods of this present age. If anyone has eyes let them see that the church lives in fear having forgotten it’s foundation, that Christ is Risen.

Could the root cause of this confusion be that our hope is far too small? Instead of building our hope on the nature and character of God have we rather flung them onto what our limited imaginations are capable of desiring? We end hoping a paltry hope for ourselves rather than in the extravagant possibilities of God shown in the fact that Christ is Risen.

Let go of your fear because perfect love casts out fear. The steadfast love of the Lord never ceases, and his mercies never come to an end. Trust in these things because God has not given promises without a sign that he will keep them, but rather has demonstrated his unending faithfulness by the fact that Christ is Risen.

May the empty tomb serve as the lens through which we read the scriptures and evaluate the promises and character of God. The Resurrection shows us that God will keep his promises and that what we read about God’s nature is trustworthy. We can read our Bibles with the expectation of encountering the Spirit because Christ is Risen.

Now that we know that our hope is fixed in the promises and character of God, what are those promises and what is his character? When Peter instructs us to be able to give a reason for the hope that we have, what are our reasons? This is not an instruction that should make us nervous but rather instill us with confidence because we know that Christ is Risen.

Excite yourselves once again to hear the promises of God. God has promised to remake you and me into new creations, filling us with the Holy Spirit to sanctify us from the inside out into the image of the Son. We shall be called children of the Most High because Christ is Risen.

On top of total transformation, we can rest assured that death is not the end. God has promised that one day we shall rise again just like Jesus and walk with him eternally in resurrected bodies. We shall be like him because we shall see him as he is, but for now we rest in this promise because Christ is Risen.

Promises are essential, but they are only as good as the character of the one who makes them. Praise be to God that his character is what we see in the life, death, burial, and Resurrection of Jesus Christ. Our hope, again not some middling desire on our part but the confidence we have in who Jesus is, is defined by the God who has enabled us to proclaim that Christ is Risen.

          

Repentance is commanded of all because God offers his infinite mercies to all. God earnestly desires that all shall be saved and that all people shall come to the knowledge of him. This is actually possible because Christ is Risen.

 

Still, I think that many of us do not genuinely believe that God desires the salvation of all because we do not desire the salvation of all. We too often look upon our political rivals, persecutors, those we despise, and even ourselves not with the love of the Crucified Lord but the accusing finger of the Evil One. We would send them to hell not remembering the grace given to us because Christ is Risen.

To say that God seeks the salvation of all is to say something radical; that God earnestly wants to live with you and even me. If God is able to save and redeem even one so sinful as I, then surely it is not my place to pronounce that God cannot do the same for others. My desires should then be shaped in accordance with God’s own will, something made possible because Christ is Risen.

Undeserving as we are, God’s mercy endures forever and ever. God will never turn his back on you, and he will never stop relentlessly pursuing you with love, grace, and compassion. We know this because he pursued us all the way to the cross, and we know that was not in vain because Christ is Risen.

For all the talk we give God’s love and power there is one especially important thing about God that we often forget to bring up; God is good, and he can be nothing else. It is for our flourishing both in this life and the next that we seek out the beauty of God. We can be assured that the search is not in vain because Christ is Risen.

Christians all around the world and all those who have gone before have held to this grand hope. Let us not limit our hope and therefore the power of God by focusing solely on ourselves. We should be spurred on by a wellspring of joy to announce to the whole world that Good News that Christ is Risen.

Psalmists should craft psalms of joy, artists create works of beauty, and wordsmiths fashion tomes of wonder to express our Easter celebration. We have a hope that is not made with human hands but instead has a name, Jesus Christ. It is because of Jesus that we may even dare to hope that God will accomplish what he desires because Christ is Risen.

Oh, death where is your sting and oh grave where is your victory? Glory to Father, glory to the Son, and glory to the Holy Spirit now and forever and ever. Church rise up and live out our blessed hope, having cast off every fear because Christ is Risen.