Like Lightning (Easter Sunday)

Scripture: Matthew 28.1-10; Colossians 3.1-4


My boys were sitting with a friend in our kitchen the other day, lounging in the quiet ecstasy that is a day off from school, and one of them remarked that he couldn’t wait until Easter. Not one to miss an opportunity, I asked the boys, “Why do we celebrate Easter?”

Michael’s answer of something to do with candy was cut off by the neighbor boy who answered, “OH I KNOW! IT’S THE DAY WHEN JESUS WAS REELECTED!”

He got points for trying. I explained to them that Easter is the Day of Resurrection. This day belongs to Jesus who is alive. I also explained that every Sunday is a mini-Easter celebration. Every Sunday is resurrection day. And I suppose, how we respond to resurrection will, in part, determine how we respond to Sundays through the year.

Do we believe in the Resurrection? Or do we just mildly approve of religion and good morals? Or are we here simply to keep peace in the family, to please someone who feels more strongly about this than we do? Are we here because we’ve decided to reelect Jesus for another year as chief religious figure in our lives?

It seems that he wants more than that. It seems, moreover, that Jesus is offering more than that. He is offering us a new life. And boy, do we need it!

I continue to be amazed, confounded, and depressed by the number of times I hear people questioning the sincerity and veracity of change in other people. It seems there are people in this world who make claims that they have changed for the better. God bless them. Don’t they know how angry and cynical that makes some people? Don’t they know that people don’t change? Don’t they know that in their naivete they are bucking up against one of the truisms of conventional wisdom in our time?

It makes me sad and depressed to hear someone say, “Oh, they’ll never change.” I want to say to them it’s bad enough that it might be true without you wishing it to be. The novelist Walker Percy talks about the profession of psychiatry as being one of the few professions that still believe and operate on the principle that people can change. I read that and thought to myself, we believe that too. Pastors believe that people can change. I believe that people can change. And the day I stop believing that is the day that I hang up my robe and stole and . . .I don’t know, find something else to do.

A few weeks ago I talked about resurrection stories and we read the Ezekiel passage on the valley of dry bones. God asked his prophet, “Son of Man, can these dry bones live?”
What say you to that question? Can you change? Can the new life happen in your life? If you have trouble even entertaining the possibility then maybe you are making the same mistake the cynics make – maybe you are forgetting who it is that brings the change. You’re forgetting the Son of Man. You’re forgetting Mr. Resurrection.

When the women looked on the sight of the tomb, they and the cowardly guards saw a sight. They saw an angel. Not a cute cuddly, big-eyes precious moments angel, but a huge, white thunder and lightning angel in all their holy wrath and glory. And this angel said what virtually every angel in the biblical stories first say to human beings at their revealing: Don’t be afraid. Don’t be afraid of me and don’t be afraid that you can’t find the body of Jesus. There’s a good reason why you can’t. He’s not here. He decided to not be here. He left. He has gone on ahead of you to Galilee. There you will see him.

John’s account of the empty tomb has a few more details than the other gospels. In this account, the two Mary’s actually witness the earthquake and the angel descend and roll away the tomb. John also mentions the guards there as other eyewitnesses to the miracle. John presents these details as facts, as if it say, here it is, do you yet refuse to believe? Getting the facts right matters.

The story is told of a novice skydiver who makes his jump and pulls his ripcord but nothing happens. He pulls the backup cord. Still, nothing. As he is hurling toward the ground, he sees a man flying upward toward him from below.

“Do you know anything about parachutes?” he asks, as the man flew by.

“No,” the man answers. “Do you know anything about gas stoves?”

Getting the details right is vital. Arthur Miller wrote, “God is in the details.” Here’s a fact: God knows the details of your life. And here is the good news: Jesus knows your need and can do something about it. If you doubt it’s only because you don’t know the power and the love that he has for you. You and I are better people than we have yet shown ourselves to be. Jesus perhaps, is the only one who really knows what we can be. And perhaps, Jesus is the only one who really believes in us. Doesn’t matter what other people think. Just worry about what God thinks!

Are you ready for Resurrection in your life? I asked you earlier if you believe in the Resurrection of Jesus? Do you? If you say yes, then why can’t you believe in your own resurrection? If Jesus, who died, can walk out of the tomb, then why can’t he give you new life? Is is so hard for God to do this for you? The Apostle Paul believed that he could. Paul said, “The power that raised Jesus Christ from the dead, I want to know that power in my life.” Paul wanted to catch some of that lightning for himself. Maybe you can too.

Jesus has gone ahead of us. He always does. He wades into that most scary of places, the Future, and he prepares the way for us. He says, “Don’t be afraid. I am with you. I will never leave you nor forsake you.” Jesus, alone, sees who we can be, what can happen to us and what can happen through us. It doesn’t mean that we’ll never have anymore problems or nothing else bad will ever happen to us. We will have problems and bad things will happen to us. But the difference will be the difference between a valley of dry bones and a green valley through which runs a river, the river of life.
The difference can be told this way:
A boy goes to work with his father to the office on a Saturday so his dad can catch up on some work. The boy has brought his toys and games but eventually he tires of them and asks his father for something else to do.

The father grabs a magazine and finds a large fold-out map of the world. Dad gets some scissors and cuts the map into pieces and spreads the pieces on a table.

“See if you can put all these pieces together, and when you get finished, it’ll be time to go.”

The boy settled down and started matching pieces and the father, thinking he had at least a half-hour before another interruption, went back into his office.

A few minutes later, the boy was back, “I put all the pieces together,” he announced.

Amazed, the father went to look and sure enough, there was the world, every continent and country in place. “How did you do that so quickly?” he asked his son.

“It was simple,” the boy replied. “On the back of the world was a picture of a man. When I put the man together, the whole world fell into place!”


Get to know the Man. Get to trust Him. Start hoping in Him and living by Him. Let Him become more visible and real in your life, and the world, well, He’ll take care of the rest.