First Baptist Church: Sermon

Message for March 31 , 2002
by Pastor Glenn Layne

Easter Sunrise
I Dare You!

I really enjoy magic. Slight of hand. Disappearing tricks. If I'm home and David Copperfield is on TV, I'll watch it. I am clueless as to how it works. And even when you explain it to me, I still think it's pretty neat.

In the 1940s and 50s, the greatest name in magic was Howard Thurston-Thurston the Great.

He was the best since Harry Houdini, and like Houdini, he specialized as an escape artist.

Also, like Houdini, Thurston became fascinated with spiritualism and contacting the dead.

In 1955, Thurston became ill suddenly and it was clear that he was going to die.

So he gave this challenge to his friends: try to contact me, and I'll try to contact you one year to the day after I've died.

And so on a gray, rainy afternoon in November, a small group of family and friends gathered at Greenlawn Cemetery in Columbus, Ohio. They enter the mausoleum and gather around the tomb of the dead magician. A relative produced a framed photo of an old friend of Thurston, an explorer named Carveth Wells. In hushed tones, he called upon the ghost of Thurston: "Manifest your presence to us by knocking this picture from my hands."

Silence. They waited. And waited. Nothing happened. The great escape artist was still bound, still imprisoned, still trapped. His bones lay undisturbed and his spirit still held fast by death's grip.

An interesting situation developed several years ago in Aspen, Colorado. A local developer submitted plans for a cemetery for Aspen; the nearest was 20 miles away. The planning board was swamped with people determined to block the cemetery. Why? They didn't think a cemetery would be good for the town's upscale, athletic image. After a long fight, the developer gave up. There's no cemetery in Aspen. People will still die there, but they'll be no cemeteries.

But death still comes, like the snapping of a finger.
Snap-a freeway accident! Snap-a heart attack! Snap-a deadly cancer, a drug OD, a plane crash.

Another cemetery…

This one is on the edge of Jerusalem. It's April, 33 AD. Early in the morning. First lights of dawn have started to streak the sky. And the world is about to change forever.

After the Sabbath, at dawn on the first day of the week, Mary Magdalene and the other Mary went to look at the tomb.
There was a violent earthquake, for an angel of the Lord came down from heaven and, going to the tomb, rolled back the stone and sat on it.
His appearance was like lightning, and his clothes were white as snow.
The guards were so afraid of him that they shook and became like dead men.
The angel said to the women, "Do not be afraid, for I know that you are looking for Jesus, who was crucified.
He is not here; he has risen, just as he said. Come and see the place where he lay.
Then go quickly and tell his disciples: `He has risen from the dead and is going ahead of you into Galilee. There you will see him.' Now I have told you."
So the women hurried away from the tomb, afraid yet filled with joy, and ran to tell his disciples.

The whole account is so emotionally real. "Afraid yet filled with joy." That's real.

Much more happened that day, but let's stop here at verse 8. Exit, stage right! There they go-the women who came for a funeral and left for a celebration. Instead, I want to go back to verse 2 for a few minutes.

Rewind: the Angel on the Stone (vs. 2)

2There was a violent earthquake, for an angel of the Lord came down from heaven and, going to the tomb, rolled back the stone and sat on it.

I am fascinated by one simple detail here: that when the angel rolled away the stone, he sat on it.

Why sit on the stone?

To understand that, you have to ask yourself why the guards were there in the first place. The Romans had placed a guard on the tomb at the urging of the religious authorities because people remembered that Jesus had spoken about rising from the dead.

They placed a seal on the tomb-the Roman equivalent of that police tape: CRIME SCENE: DO NOT CROSS. It was actually a cord stretched across the round, flattened stone that covered the entrance to the tomb. On each end and in the middle, it was attached with hot wax. Pressed in the wax was a Roman seal. Everybody in those days knew what these things meant: "Break this seal and you're in big trouble."

In my imagination, I see the angels bent over in laughter at this pathetic little seal. You see, it was the guards' job to keep that tomb sealed. If anybody tried, it was their job to stop 'em. And if anybody actually got the stone off, it was their job to get the stone back and put it back on.

So on Resurrection morning, the angel swoops down, tosses the stone and then sits on it. Just sits there while the guards age a decade in ten seconds.

"Come on, big guy, just try to put the stone back. All you have to do is get past me."

"Are you feeling lucky? Go ahead, make my day."

This is heaven's gauntlet thrown down before earth's meager powers. Heaven 1, Roman Empire 0. (And that's the final score.)

And I DARE YOU, too!

To consider the empty tomb of Jesus.

No one, once dead, has ever come out of a tomb alive. No one alive has stayed alive forever more.

Some speak of the "resurrection faith" as a marshmallowly optimism that all things turn out well in the end. But there's nothing fluffy about this empty tomb. It's a real place at a real time and you can't get around it.

And I dare you to--

To consider the Person of Jesus.

The empty tomb points to a risen Lord.

There are two places in Jerusalem that may be the location of this tomb. In the Christian quarter of the city stands the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, where a tomb is preserved that has the testimony of the centuries. Another is the Garden Tomb, about 1500 feet to the northeast, a location that has fascinated students of Scripture for the last 150 years. There is one outstanding feature of both tombs: they are both empty.

No critic of Christianity has ever made a credible case for locating the bones of Jesus. He's not to be found among the dead.

Writing just 24 years later, the apostle Paul could say this of Jesus (in Romans 1:4):

4…and who through the Spirit of holiness was declared with power to be the Son of God by his resurrection from the dead: Jesus Christ our Lord.

Consider this Jesus: because He was raised from the dead, that is God's seal upon Him, His timeless stamp of approval, saying down the ages, "This is My Son; listen to Him!"

His resurrection says to all times and ages that He is Lord.

That His teaching can be trusted.

That His identity is truly Lord.

That He is the Prophet of all Prophets, Kings of all Kings, Lord of all Lords.

That His death was not without meaning; that He died as the Lamb of God, the Priest who offered up Himself as the last and true sacrifice for the sins of the world.

That He is the hope of Israel and the hope of the nations. That He is your hope, indeed your only hope.

I dare you to top Jesus!

His resurrection says that life has meaning, that there is a God in heaven, a God of love and power and holiness and mercy.

That He is indeed the way, the truth and the life.

That He is the Good Shepherd, the Door, the Great I Am.

That He is the Messiah, the Anointed One, the Christ, the Promised One who has promised all.

I dare you to top Jesus!

His resurrection means that death is not the end of life and the end of hope. It means that death has met its match in Jesus, that death is a defeated foe, that death is in retreat, that death does not have the final say-Jesus does.

His resurrection displays the power of God, justifies the judgment of God, lavishes the love of God and profiles the character of God.

I dare you to top Jesus!

And because He lives, He still is among us, working in power and glory. Taking an immoral philosopher and turning him into Augustine, Bishop of Hippo. Taking a slave trader and turning him into the writer of the hymn "Amazing Grace," John Newton. Taking an agnostic literature professor and making him into the great Christian thinker CS Lewis. Taking Gikita, one of the men of the Auca tribe of Ecuador who killed the missionaries who had come to share this Jesus with them, and turning him into a follower of Jesus. Taking a cold-hearted political operative, convicted Watergate conspirator, Charles Colson and making him one of the premier leaders of the Christian faith in this country today.

Yes, I dare you to top Jesus!

Pilate couldn't do it, Caiaphas was stumped, the Romans were overwhelmed, the Greeks were amazed, and the message of this risen Jesus still goes forth.

Muhammad can't top it, Buddha can't stop it, Marx and Lenin and dead and gone, but the power of Jesus goes on!

Mao couldn't suppress it, Castro can't forget it, Ted Turner curses it while his ex-wife-Jane Fonda-now embraces it.

Sun Myung Moon tries to replace him; in Salt Lake City they try to debase Him, but it won't do any good, because He is alive.

In Hollywood, they try to redefine Him; the New Agers try to redesign Him, but they all fail because He is the First and the Last, the beginning and the end, the Alpha and the Omega, God the Eternal Son.

So, go ahead and try to put the stone back on the tomb. Go ahead and try to confine this living Jesus. You'll fail. But try. Go ahead…

I DARE YOU!