(I want to listen to this sermon)

Reading: 1Cor.15:1-28

Text : 2Tim.2:8 "Remember Jesus Christ, risen from the dead… as preached in my gospel,"

What is so special about Easter? Why is it that Christians get so excited about Easter? Folk outside the church might like to focus upon Christmas but for the Christian Easter is at the very heart and centre of the Christian faith. So much so in fact that we sometimes hear the Christian faith referred to as the Easter Faith! This Easter faith focuses upon the sufferings, death and burial of our Lord Jesus Christ climaxing on the third day with His triumphant resurrection from the grave!

And the truth about the resurrection matters. We're in the realm of space-time history here and if Jesus wasn't raised bodily from the dead then Christianity is a sham, a pious fraud, and a failure.

But, you might ask, is the resurrection really that important? Isn't the Christian faith all about living a moral life and doing our best and loving our neighbour? Well while it is true that there is a Christian life to be lead Christianity itself centres not on what we do for God but upon what He in His wonderful love and kindness has done for us!

Let's take a look at just how important and relevant this whole question of the resurrection of Jesus Christ is.

• Jesus directly taught that He would be raised from the dead – He had taught His disciples but His enemies also knew what He had said:

Mt.16:21 "From that time Jesus began to show his disciples that he must go to Jerusalem and suffer many things from the elders and chief priests and scribes, and be killed, and on the third day be raised."

Mt.27:64 "Therefore order the tomb to be made secure until the third day, lest his disciples go and steal him away and tell the people, ‘He has risen from the dead,’ and the last fraud will be worse than the first."

• During His earthly life and ministry Jesus assumed that His resurrection would take place and mentioned it even when resurrection was not the subject matter being dealt with – eg. after His transfiguration experience as He went down the mountain with His disciples He told them to keep silent about what they had just witnessed  "until the Son of Man had risen from the dead." Mk.9:9 His disciples at this time didn't understand what He meant by "rising from the dead".

• Jesus spoke of what He would do after His resurrection:

Mt.26:32 "But after I am raised up, I will go before you to Galilee."

• All four of the gospel narratives contain details not only of the fact that Jesus died but also that He was raised from the dead! There are angelic declarations that He was risen, there are records of resurrection appearances, there are records of resurrection conversations. There is the corroborating testimony of an empty tomb – the place where He had been laid was empty – His enemies and detractors produced no body.

• John summarised why he had written down all that he did, and his explanation would equally well apply to Matthew, Mark and Luke as well. He wrote:

Jn.20:31 "so that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that by believing you may have life in his name."

• The first Christian sermon preached on the Day of Pentecost focussed upon the resurrection. In doing so Peter set the tone for all true Christian preaching down through the centuries. (Not that every Christian sermon must explicitly mention the resurrection but it must colour and flavour all that is truly Christian.) The resurrection that preached was not some airy fairy message about some vague 'Jesus ideal' – it was a substantial, realistic resurrection that meant the literal physical return to life having overcome death!

Acts 2:23-24 "this Jesus, delivered up according to the definite plan and foreknowledge of God, you crucified and killed by the hands of lawless men. God raised him up, loosing the pangs of death, because it was not possible for him to be held by it."

•  Throughout the early development of the church as recorded in the Acts of the Apostles repeated statements are made concerning God raising Jesus up from the dead.

Eg. When Peter and the other apostles were being accused before the Jewish Council they responded as follows: Acts 5:30 "The God of our fathers raised Jesus, whom you killed by hanging him on a tree."

Similarly Peter preached to the Gentiles gathered together in Cornelius' house in Caesarea: Acts 10:40 "but God raised him on the third day and made him to appear,"

• The same is true as we turn more pages of the NT: Paul's letters are all written in the light of the resurrected Lord Jesus and the question of His being raised from the dead figures prominently in his letters to the church in Rome and to the church in Corinth. In Paul's first letter to the Corinthians we find a whole chapter on the matter of resurrection including the following verse:

1Cor.15:20 "But in fact Christ has been raised from the dead, the firstfruits of those who have fallen asleep."

• At the end of Paul's life he had not lost his emphasis upon this oh so important truth and as an old man he could write to Timothy with these words:

2Tim.2:8 "Remember Jesus Christ, risen from the dead… as preached in my gospel,"

It is perhaps one thing to recognise just how central the resurrection of our Lord Jesus Christ is to Christianity but that does not necessarily mean that we understand why this is so.

Paul tells Timothy, and through Timothy he tells us too, "to remember Jesus Christ, risen from the dead."

Jesus taught beforehand that He would be raised from the dead and now after His death that is exactly what happens! If He can teach with total exactitude about such an unusual and phenomenal event surely we have very good reason to trust His teaching on other matters too!

He had taught too of the special relationship He had with His Heavenly Father and it led to His accusers condemning Him as a blasphemer. The fact that God raised Him from the dead refutes the claim and openly and powerfully declares Jesus to be the Son of God!

The resurrection is God the Father's wonderful endorsement of His Son. It is the endorsement of His teaching, it is the endorsement of His life, it is supremely the endorsement of His sacrificial death when He laid down His life on the cross for His people.

The New Testament constantly affirms that the death of Jesus was not merely the death of a martyr in a righteous cause, but a sacrifice initiated by God himself to pay for the sins of the human race. In raising Christ from the dead God was setting his seal of approval on what Christ had done. His sufferings on our behalf make our forgiveness possible - but it is the risen Christ who offers that forgiveness to us and guarantees it for us.

Rm.4:25 "who was delivered up for our trespasses and raised for our justification."

1Cor.15:17 "And if Christ has not been raised, your faith is futile and you are still in your sins."

Without the resurrection believing in Christ would be a pointless, ineffective affair but because He has been raised from the dead we are delivered from our sin, if we place trust in Him. Sin with its guilt, penalty, power and pollution will no longer be the dominating characteristic of our lives!

Not only is our status with God changed as our sins are forgiven and He declares us to be righteous in Christ the resurrection also enables us to live new lives in our newfound relationship with Him.

God has not saved us to leave us leading the same old sad and depressing lives but purposes new life abundant life as we are united to Christ by faith. The same Spirit who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in the believer bringing this new life to bear upon our lives.

And this new life is to be a life which bears fruit for God

Jesus' resurrection is pictured in the New Testament not only as a triumph over death, but also as a triumph over sin and evil which are ultimately the cause of death. He is heralded as the victor over Satan and all that lies behind the brokenness so evident in our world today.

By his perfect life, his death for our sins and his resurrection, it is Christ who has won the right to be the final judge of the human race.

Acts 17:31"he has fixed a day on which he will judge the world in righteousness by a man whom he has appointed; and of this he has given assurance to all by raising him from the dead."

Because of the resurrection of Jesus Christ the believer need no longer face the prospect of the great day of reckoning, the day of judgment, with fear and trembling. Why so?

1Thess.1:10 (Because we) "wait for his Son from heaven, whom he raised from the dead, Jesus who delivers us from the wrath to come."

The resurrection is not just something for Jesus, but an experience which all of his followers will share:

1Cor.6:14 "And God raised the Lord and will also raise us up by his power."

1Cor.15:23 "But each in his own order: Christ the firstfruits, then at his coming those who belong to Christ."

2Cor.6:14 "knowing that he who raised the Lord Jesus will raise us also with Jesus and bring us with you into his presence."

Of course if your idea of Christianity is all about morality and what you must do then I guess it doesn't much matter to you whether Jesus is raised from the dead or not because to you Christianity is primarily if not exclusively about you!

If on the other hand you've come to understand that your best, however hard you try, will never be good enough to meet God's standards, if you've tried the self-help form of religion and found it to be wanting, then perhaps you will be ready to listen to what Bible Christianity is all about.

And in the Bible the resurrection is absolutely crucial! "If the dead are not raised, (says Paul,)  “Let us eat and drink, for tomorrow we die.” 1Cor.15:32. But Christ's resurrection did occur and is real and so our lives are not going to be merely snuffed out and we be dissolved into nothingness. Life is significant and the choices we make now are significant and will have an effect throughout eternity.

And the message of the Easter story is that God the Father has raised His Son to life – the problem of our sin has been resolved not by our own personal endeavour but by the wonderful free grace of God and brought to us in His wonderful love. Have you begun to rejoice in this? Don't go on plodding miserably along as though everything depended upon you and the weight was too heavy for you to bear up. Rather realise what God has done for you in Jesus Christ call upon the Name of the Lord and rejoice in His goodness!

To God be the Glory.