He Has Risen

Easter 2019

 

A few years ago a friend of mine told me he nearly drowned on a family holiday.

 

He was fairly new to Australia, and to Australian beaches but had gone on holidays to the coast. He ended up caught swimming in heavy seas and a rip.

 

He said “I tried to stand up, but my feet wouldn’t touch the bottom, so I tried again and they still didn’t touch the bottom”.

 

I said, “that is always a bad sign”.

 

He then said “I tried to swim back but after about 5 minutes I realised I was further out than I began.

I looked over my shoulder to see if New Zealand was any closer, but it wasn’t.

 

 

I didn’t know what to do, I was exhausted and starting to struggle to stay up in the waves”.

 

I asked him what happened, and he said “eventually a young surfer came by and said … do you need a hand?”

 

I said, “Did you put your hand up for help”.

 

“I didn’t even think of it” he said. In fact he said, I didn’t even know how much danger I was in until it was way too late, and then I didn’t know what to do. Looking back, I was in danger from the moment I went in the water, I just didn’t know it”.

 

 

Now it is a simple story, it has never happened to me.

 

I was actually swimming with some friends, snorkelling at Eden many years ago out in the deep water, when I came up and looked around I noticed that everyone else was on the shore. All shouting Shark.

 

It is strange, how flat the surf become when a shark warning is given. Why can you never pick up a wave when someone yells shark?

 

Anyway … back to my friend.

It struck me when he said, I didn’t even know how much danger I was in until it was way too late and then I didn’t know what to do.

 

 

It is a bit like a parable of life I think, because people are in need of being saved and often don’t know it and it is about that, that I want to speak today.

 

I really just want to ask three questions on this Easter morning.

 

What is God like?

What am I like?

What can be done?

 

 

1. What is God like?

Let me ask you the first question.

What is God like?

 

Our view of God is very, very important. Because the way in which we go about living our life swings on what we think God is like.

 

If we think God is like Santa, then you need not worry too much need you? He is fairly easy going. He doesn’t come unless your good and you never are, and he comes anyway. It doesn’t seem to worry him too much after all he is a jolly old soul.

Well is that correct? Is that what God is like?

 

On the other hand, if God is like the dark spirits that they worship in the highlands of PNG then you will live in perpetual fear, you know that they will not do you any good, and your fear is that they will do you bad. If they put their mind to it there is no end to the bad that they can do to you.

And so you spend your life trying to stay away from them. Is God like that?

 

 

Well can I say, you don’t need to guess?

If you want to know what God is like you look at Jesus. Because when you look at Jesus you are looking at God.

 

We have just read the very end of Mark’s biography about Jesus and all the way through Jesus has been saying.

 

“I am the Son of God.

 

Mark is showing us that that is also the conclusion others drew when they saw him live or they saw him die.

 

That is why he includes the words of this Centurion at the cross.

³⁹ And when the centurion, who stood facing him, saw that in this way he breathed his last, he said, “Truly this man was the Son of God!”

 

Here was a man who had seen lots of men die … but he had never seen anyone die like this man.

 

 

Right to the end, everything he did spoke about him being God, but to be honest that is not the big thing.

 

The big thing is that three days after he was crucified Jesus rose from the dead.

 

How can you know that Jesus is not lying when he says he is God?

 

Because he has power over death … only God has that power.

 

 

 

You see, if you want to know what God is like you look at Jesus, because when you look at Jesus you are looking at God.

 

If you take the time to read Mark’s biography about Jesus you find over and over again how incredibly powerful he is and how wonderfully Kind.

 

 

You find him calming mighty storms demonstrating his power and you meet him forgiving sinners as he demonstrates his kindness.

 

You find him healing the sick (full of power)

and you meet him eating with prostitutes and scum tax collectors (full of kindness).

 

You will find him raising the dead (full of power)

And calling little children to come to him (full of kindness)

 

What is God like…

1. Well Jesus is a person of enormous power. Jesus is not tame or pathetic.

 

2. Second thing. Jesus is wonderfully good. With this power, he only does good things with it.

 

You see, we are not used to that are we?

 

Powerful people shove other people around that is how we know they are powerful. They beat up people, and if they have lots of power, they do it on a grand scale.

 

Jesus’ power however, is greater than that, but we forget how powerful he is because he only ever does good things with it.

 

What is God like? Look at Jesus.

 

He is wonderfully powerful and

Wonderfully good.

 

Well that is the first question.

 

Here is the second question I want to ask.

 

 

What are you like?

Well there are many things that could be said here. Some are things everyone might know, some are things that no one will know about.

 

Everyone has a secret.

 

The author Arthur Conan Doyle believed everyone had secrets they were ashamed of. To prove his point he once sent a telegram to the six most prominent people in England that said, “Flee everything has been revealed”. By the end of the day 4 of the 6 had left the country.

 

What are you like?

 

One thing the bible makes clear to us is that we are in great danger. Because we have ignored Jesus.

 

Imagine ignoring the one who made it all and made us. Yet we do it every day, and don’t even realise the danger we are in.

 

It is like my friend in the ocean.

 

We try to touch the bottom and we can’t and we are being dragged out to sea and it doesn’t occur to us that anything is wrong, but you can’t ignore the maker of it all and it not be serious.

 

 

How did we ever get into this situation?

What is the problem with us?

 

Well, we all begin by saying I don’t want Jesus to run my life.

 

I am going to do what I like, when I like and there is nothing Jesus can do about it.

 

You might be a fine person but deep down in your heart you have said to Jesus, I will do my own thing my way. I do not want you to intrude into my life. You have said to Jesus, “this far and no further”.

 

You may have grown up in a Christian family, you might have Christian friends, but deep down in your heart you have said “this far and no further”. You may have been a regular at church and you have actually enjoyed it, but in your heart you have said, “this far and no further”.

 

You might never have gone to church, and you might have been conned into coming today with a friend, and you might be thinking this has been a bad mistake and you don’t want to come again.

 

In your heart you have said to Jesus, “Stay out. I do not want you to intrude into my life”.

 

I want to run my life, my way. I am going to do what I like, when I like for whatever reason I like.

That is all you have to do to be lost.

And that is all you have to do to be in great danger from the consequences

 

Just stay “I’ll be God over me, you Jesus can be God over the rest but I’ll be God over me”.

 

It is a wilful act of defiance …

In our best moments you know that God is there, but we go on as if we are God, and you know the more you do that, the better you get at it.

 

Every time you say, “I won’t worry about this Jesus you get better at saying, I won’t worry about Jesus”.

 

After you have done it 10 or 20 times you don’t worry about it anymore, you just say I know where this sermon is going, I won’t worry about that.

 

So you may have already started on your well-practised routing, thinking about something else, letting your mind wander.

You didn’t do that the first time you heard about Jesus.

 

Don’t worry whatever he says I’ll ignore it.

That is why you have to take great care.

You don’t know the danger you are in. The day is coming when you will need to give an account for ignoring the one who made you

 

 

Ok

Where are we up to?

 

1. What is God like … look at Jesus and you can see.

He is full l of power and he is so very good.

 

2. What are we like?

We are in great danger because we have ignore the make of the universe and the make of us. And it is a serious crime.

 

 

What can be Done

 

Famous last words are always intriguing I think, they can often say a lot about the person and the person’s life.

 

Ned Kelly for example, as the hangman adjusted the hood over his face, said:

“I suppose it had to come to this, such is life”

 

That was a statement that epitomised the man’s life, a sort of ‘come what may, live fast die young’ attitude.

 

Queen Elizabeth the first on her death bed said:

“All my possessions just for a moment of time”, and that epitomised her as she hung on to life and power.

 

Leonardo Da Vinci the great painter and sculpture, one of the greatest, said on his death bed:

“I have offended God and mankind because my work did not reach the quality it should have”.

Now there is perfectionism for you.

 

Last words are not always deep and profound but they can be, and often say a lot about the person.

 

In Mark’s Gospel, Jesus last words are:

“My God, My God, why have you forsaken me.”

 

Just to make absolutely sure you don’t miss them, Mark writes them in Aramaic “Eloi Eloi Lema sabachthan”i and then translates them:

 

“My God My God why have you forsaken me”.

 

It is Marks way of underlining it, with a red pen.

 

It is a strange statement isn’t it?

It sounds like Jesus doesn’t know, but if you have read Mark’s gospel up to this point, Jesus has already said three times why he has to die.

 

I don’t think he has forgotten.

 

I think Jesus says it this way because he wants to make it clear that, that is the question that needs to be asked by you.

 

Why on earth did God the Father forsake Jesus the Son? He lived a perfect life, he only ever obeyed and loved his father. He is the Son of God.

 

yet he is rejected, forsaken by God, God’s anger poured out on Jesus. That is what the darkness signifies. As Jesus hangs on the cross, he is in hell … that is what hell is … when God rejects and forsakes a person and pours out his wrath … Jesus is in hell.

 

The reason is, Jesus on the cross takes on himself, all the guilt and sin of the people of God.

 

You see what can be done.

Jesus calls you to stop ignoring him, and for all who believe and follow him as king, all these sins are paid for in full by Jesus death in their place.

 

At the cross, it is as if all the anger of God against the sin and guilt of the people of God is concentrated on one point, one point in history, one point in time. All concentrated-on Jesus Christ. He is their substitute, he is condemned in their place.

 

 

During one of the many wars that has occurred between France and Britain throughout history, Napoleon Bonaparte at one point sought to increase the size of his army by conscripting men into the French army by a lottery system.

 

Basically, if your name was pulled out of a hat you had to join up and go and do battle. Well the army came to take one particular man whose name had been drawn out and he refused to go, saying that he had already been shot and had been killed two years earlier. Now at first the officials though that this fellow was a little bit of a lunatic, but he said go and check your records, which they did, and he was right. He was dead.

You see this man’s name had already been drawn out once before, but when it had a very close friend had said to him, look you have a family, you have responsibilities I don’t, I am single, no one is dependent on me. I’ll take your name and address and go in your place as a substitute, and his friend did and he was killed in action. The end of the story is the matter went all the way to the top and Napoleon Bonaparte himself checked out the details found that it was true and let the man stay home free with his family.  All because he had already died, in a sense. In the person of another.

 

That is at the heart of Easter.

 

That when you belong to Jesus, he died in your place so that you would be free.

 

1. What is God like … look at Jesus and you can see.

He is full l of power and he is so very good.

 

2. What are we like?

We are in great danger because we have ignore the make of the universe and the make of us and it is a serious crime.

 

3. What can be done?

Fall on your knees before this king and you discover that he is a king who forgives sinners like us, and deals with our sin forever by standing in our place.

 

 

Friends that is the heart of Easter