Resurrection Sunday

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Today is Resurrection Sunday. Some two millennia ago, God’s Son killed death when He physically rose from the grave. Resurrection Sunday decisively proved – and proves – that every man, woman, and child who is now also a child of God through their faith in the sacrificial atonement of Jesus – Resurrection Sunday proves the words of Jesus to be true: “I am the resurrection and the life. He who believes in me will live, even if he dies. And everyone who lives and believes in Me will never die.” (John 11:25)

 

We will come back to the impact Christ’s resurrection later in this message, but we cannot do justice to an examination of the resurrection of Jesus unless we first look at what happened on that Good Friday.

 

From a human perspective, Friday was a bad day. For the disciples – not only the twelve, but for all His disciples watching from a distance – this was not simply disappointment. It was nothing less than gut-wrenching tragedy. 

Their hopes that Jesus was going to usher in the Messianic kingdom were shattered like so much precious porcelain china. Their dreams that Jesus would at last deliver them from Roman bondage and finally restore that God-given land to their nation – those expectations now hung limp on a splintered cross. Glancing over their shoulders in fear with each step, they wondered who would be next. For those who loved Him, darkness smothered Friday like a cold, damp woolen blanket. But no one on the ground, not even Satan himself, knew Sunday was coming.

I am not going to rehearse the bloody and grotesque physical torture that preceded Jesus being nailed to that cross. Instead, I want to focus our attention for the next little while on something else Jesus suffered – something to which many Christians might never have given much thought. And that something else is His sudden and overwhelming sense of abandonment by His Father. You remember His cry: “My God, My God, why have You forsaken Me?”

 

Many of us don’t often think about the incomprehensible truth that Jesus the Man was also and at the same time God in human flesh. At best, our understanding of that Biblical truth is superficial. And because of that superficial understanding, we rightly ask, “How could God the Son be rejected by God the Father?

 

The answer is, I think, not that complicated, and it is rooted in the reality of Jesus as 100% man, and at the same time 100% God.

 

That means, as 100% man, Jesus – who is the PERFECT man without sin – Jesus experienced all the things you and I experience. Think of that a moment, God who became human suffered hunger for the first time in eternity. (ex. Matthew 21:18). He experienced thirst (John 19:28). For the first time in eternity, He got tired and needed to sleep (Mark 4:38).

 

And so, when the Perfect Man who never sinned hung on that cross and took upon Himself every drop of your sin and mine, the very human Jesus, for the first time in eternity experienced His Father’s abandonment.

 

Why would the Holy Father abandon His Son?

 

Well, here is 2 Corinthians 5:21: “[God] made [Jesus] who knew no sin to be sin on our behalf, so that we might become the righteousness of God in Him.”

 

Did you catch that? The perfect man BECAME sin when He took upon Himself OUR sin. And because He became sin, He was accursed by God.

 

Accursed?  Such a strong word! But here is what the Holy Spirit tells us through St. Paul’s letter to the Christians at Galatia: “Christ redeemed us from the curse of the Law, having become a curse for us—for it is written, “Cursed in everyone who hangs on a tree.” (Galatians 3:13).

 

Paul is here quoting from Moses in the Old Testament (and just as an aside, those who say we do not need the Old Testament, that we can unhitch ourselves from the Old Testament do so to rob you of the richness of the Old Testament and all that God can teach us through those books).

 

Beware, Christian. God never, ever tells us to unhitch ourselves from the Old Testament.

But now back to Paul’s quote from Moses: “Now if a person has committed a sin carrying a sentence of death and he is put to death, and you hang him on a tree, his body is not to be left overnight on the tree, but you shall certainly bury him on the same day, for he who is hanged is cursed of God.” (Deuteronomy 21:23)

The Hebrew word translated as cross, wood, and tree is the same word. And the same is true in the Greek language. The word in Greek can be translated to the English as cross, or wood, or tree.

That’s why Peter, while preaching to Sanhedrin, could boldly proclaim: “The God of our fathers raised up Jesus whom you murdered by hanging on a tree. Him God has exalted to His right hand to be Prince and Savior, to give repentance to Israel and forgiveness of sins.” (Acts 5:30-31).

Listen, it is ALWAYS that sin separates us from the Holy God. Here is Isaiah: “Your iniquities have made a separation between you and your God and your sins have hid His face from you, so that He does not hear.”  (Isaiah 59:2)

 

From the perspective of a Holy, yet Just and Merciful God – SOMEONE has to die for your sin and mine. It must be either you and me – or it must be Someone else who was without sin. And that is why – and I reiterate the point for emphasis – when Jesus BECAME our sin, God the Father hid His face from His only begotten Son. 

 

And now listen – this is critical!

 

Because the Father hid His face from Jesus, He will NEVER hide His face from you who have confessed your sins and obey Christ as your Lord and Master.

 

Did you get that? What happened to Jesus on Good Friday ENSURED and ASSURES us that we will never experience God’s abandonment because Jesus became our substitute. His bloody death paid the ransom for our forgiveness and bought for us eternal life.

 

Jesus paid a debt He did not owe, I owed a debt I could not pay, I needed someone to wash my sins away; And now I sing a brand new song,
amazing grace all day long, Christ Jesus paid a debt that I could never pay.

 

Good Friday tore through sin’s impenetrable barrier between us and God. Here is what Scripture tells us: "But He was pierced through for our transgressions, He was crushed for our iniquities; The chastening for our well-being fell upon Him, and by His scourging we are healed.  All of us like sheep have gone astray, each of us has turned to his own way; But the Lord has caused the iniquity of us all to fall on Him.” (Isaiah 53:5-6)

 

That is why Good Friday challenges us to repentance. When the crowds in Jerusalem learned it was their sins that nailed Jesus to the cross, “they were pieced to the heart.” In unison they cried out, ‘Brethren, what shall we do?” St. Peter responded, “Repent, and each of you be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins; and you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit.” (see the context of Acts 2:22-41).

 

St. Paul would later add in his letter to the Christians at Rome: Do you think lightly of the riches of His kindness and tolerance and patience, not knowing that the kindness of God leads you to repentance? (Romans 2:4)

Standing at the foot of Christ’s cross, nothing about Friday looked good. But no one knew Sunday was coming . . . and with it, God’s redemptive plan which He conceived before the foundation of the world.

 

But some might ask how we know the promises of redemption, forgiveness, and of eternal life to followers of Christ are all true?

 

That’s an easy to answer – and it brings us full circle to today’s celebration.

The physical resurrection of Jesus from the grave decisively demonstrates the unchangeable truth of all those promises – including this one in which Jesus warned: I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through Me.” (John 14:6) 

 

And do not ever doubt this: All humanity will be held accountable to what Jesus said. It doesn’t matter what religious affiliation you might have – Jewish, Catholic, Protestant, Muslim, Hindu, Buddhist, atheist or agnostic – unless you give your life to Messiah Jesus – and I will explain how to do that in a few moments – unless you give your live to Jesus you will not be in heaven when you die. 

 

Did you ever wonder why so many people scoff at the historically verifiable resurrection? It’s because if they can delude themselves into believing Jesus is not the only way to eternal life, if they can convince themselves there are other ‘truths’ about God and the final judgement, then they can all live as they choose. 

 

The bodily resurrection of Christ is the­ linchpin – the cornerstone -- of eternal life. No wonder liberal theologians, philosophers and teachers have, for two thousand years, attacked the Resurrection. Destroy it, and Christianity loses its authority to declare Christ alone is the door to eternal life, that no one comes to the Father except through Him. Destroy the Resurrection and we have no assurance of forgiveness of sin.

 

But let me say this as clearly as I can, God’s inerrant, infallible, and eternal word warns us – and the resurrection of Jesus Christ affirms it – There WILL be a judgment of sin. That’s why Scripture says, “Today if you hear His voice, Do not harden your hearts . . . .” (Hebrews 3:7) 

 

I must now return to the question I asked a short while ago: How can you be certain that God will not abandon you when you die? How can you know for sure, for sure, that you can have eternal life with your Creator in heaven?

 

God’s answer is so simple, a child can understand it.

 

1. You must admit (confess) to God that you are a sinner who deserves eternal death, eternal separation from God because of your sins – no matter how trivial they might seem to you – The Holy Spirit tells us: “All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God (Romans 3:23). “The wages of sin – all sin, any sin – is eternal death (see Romans 6:23)

 

2. You must repent of those sins. Repentance means agreeing with God that you are wrong about those sins and He is right, and that you will, with His help and to the best of your ability, not commit those sins again.

 

3. After your confession and repentance, you must simply, by faith, receive His gift of forgiveness. That means you trust God to be faithful to His promise to forgive the penitent of any and every sin he or she has ever committed.

 

4. And in your following Christ in obedience, you will be baptized: Peter said to the crowd at Jerusalem, “Repent, and each of you be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins; and you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. (Acts 2:38)

 

And in Paul’s letter to the Christians in Rome: “Or do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus have been baptized into His death? Therefore we have been buried with Him through baptism into death, so that as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, so we too might walk in newness of life. For if we have become united with Him in the likeness of His death, certainly we shall also be in the likeness of His resurrection.” (Romans 6:3-5)

 

That’s it? Confess, repent, obey, be baptized?

 

Well, yes. That’s it.

 

Of course, that doesn’t mean that’s all there is to the Christian life. It simply gets you started on the road to maturing as a child of God.

 

Today is Resurrection Sunday. Christ the Lord is risen. He is risen, indeed!  And because Christ is risen from the grave, all true Christians can rest in the absolute assurance that, because He lives, we too shall live forever in His glorious presence. Amen and amen.