He is Not Here-Promise fulfilled

 

Sermon Matthew 28:1-10 April 9, 2023 Easter Sunday 1 Corinthians 15:1-5 NMPC & FMPC Monica Gould

He is Not Here-Promise fulfilled

There is no greater joy in our faith and for our church than the celebration of the resurrection of our Lord Jesus Christ!

Today we celebrate the fulfillment of all the promises that we have been taught. Today we rejoice in the truth that Christ is risen indeed! Today is the day many sing the song Because He Lives-The words offer the hope we all experience on this day when we realize the power of God’s love for us. We know that because he lives, we can face tomorrow. Because he lives, all fear is gone. Because he lives, I know he holds the future, and life is worth the living just because he lives.

As I shared with the children, we receive signs all around us of the promise of new life. In the egg is the new life of a chick (and candy), in the seed a flower, and in the cocoon, a butterfly. Today we are reminded to look around us for the signs of new life. 

What signs do we need to believe the miracle of the resurrection of Jesus Christ?

In the gospel of Matthew, the women arrived at the tomb.  It took a great earthquake to stun the guards and witness the appearance of the angels. These angels rolled away the stone and then sat upon it. I find the angel sitting on the stone rolled away as God’s humor. All obstacles were in place to prevent human interference with the body of Jesus. Then the power of God was at work. Look, He is not here. The angel told the Marys. Jesus has been raised. He then invited them inside the tomb to see that Jesus was not there.  It is the miracle of God at work.

All generations are to know there is nothing on earth that can stop what God ordains.

It is the greatest of all miracles. God raised his only Son from the dead so that the world would have life. The angel told them to go ahead to Galilee and Jesus would meet them there. On the way Jesus walked alongside them and said ‘Greetings’ which literally means, “Hi”. The women realized it was really him and they grabbed his feet. They paid homage to the Lord who was physically alive. Touching his feet showed that he was in bodily form, not a ghost or a spirit. We have been taught to believe this.

On Easter every year we come face to face with this truth and have the opportunity to accept it all over again.

We offer ourselves to him in the realization that the promise of his love lives within us. In dying, God was making sure there was a rising. Jesus went down to the dead to make sure we also may rise to new life.

The caterpillar crawls into the tomb like form called the chrysalis. It is transformed to the beauty of new life as a butterfly. So, God grants us this sign to help us understand the transformation we receive when we turn our lives over to him.

Paul spoke to the Corinthian church regarding the power of the resurrection. He said, 15:1-5: Now I want you to understand, brothers and sisters, the good news that I proclaimed to you, which you in turn received, in which also you stand,  through which also you are being saved, if you hold firmly to the message that I proclaimed to you—unless you have come to believe in vain.  For I handed on to you as of first importance what I in turn had received: that Christ died for our sins in accordance with the scriptures and that he was buried and that he was raised on the third day in accordance with the scriptures. The power of the resurrection is alive in us to successfully live our lives to serve him in the world today.

I digress for a moment to talk about the other part of Easter that we all love.

The egg hunt.

The egg has been an important part of the Easter story and proclamation of the resurrection for centuries.

It is time we, as the church, take the egg hunt back from the secular world.

There is no greater sign than the miracle of the egg bringing new life.

There is no greater miracle than when the egg opened is full of surprises.

We hunt eggs because as followers of Jesus we know that finding them reminds us of the promise of God of new life through the resurrection.

This story of signs of promises is so important for the church to continue to provide for generations to come.

Let’s make sure our kids, no matter how old, will always have the opportunity to experience an egg hunt.

Matthew’s account of the resurrection is full of miracle signs. It is on purpose to make sure that we continue to look for the signs of God among us.

Perhaps this Easter, that is all we need.

We may struggle with the practical possibility of the resurrection, but today, this Easter, this year, we can take strength in the signs that lead us to the power of the miracle.

May faith find its way in you today.

A final note important to Matthew’s account is that Jesus went ahead to Galilee to let us know that faith does not stop at the discovery of the resurrection.

There is more to our faith in Jesus Christ than this. God came to earth in the person of Jesus Christ to reconcile us to Himself. Through Jesus we are able to be one with the Father. God who went before the Israelite people leading them out of the land of Egypt and into the Promised Land, continues to go before us in the person of Jesus Christ.

Our life is filled with the daily sanctification of his presence through the Holy Spirit.

There are times when we are distracted from our focus on Christ. I know that we have all been faced with emergencies that call us to deal quickly and make decisions. We have probably also all felt the pressure of too many things to do in too short a time. It is at these times that the knowledge of Jesus going ahead of us is so important.

If we can trust that the path before us has been prepared by him then when we are caused to think quickly we can be assured of his guidance. His path is straight and right and as the psalmist says he puts us on the right path.

He is there to give instruction, to give comfort, to alleviate our fears, and to fill us with joy.

Rejoice, the Lord is Risen.

The Lord goes before us.

Believe the signs.

Trust in him.

Enter into his arms of love now and forevermore.

Amen.

 

Resources: Carolyn C. Brown Sharing the Easter Faith with Children; NIB Matthew; Feasting on the Word year A; Working Preacher Greg Carey Professor of NT at Lancaster Theological Seminary.

 

All rights reserved. Copyright Reverend Monica Gould 2023.