163 Sermon Illustrations on Easter

Henri Nouwen tells the story of a family he knew in Paraguay. The father, a doctor, spoke out against the military there and its human rights abuses. Local police took their revenge by arresting his teenage son and torturing him to death. Townsfolk wanted to turn the funeral into a huge protest march. But the doctor chose another means of protest. The father displayed him in the church as he had found him in the jail. The son was naked, his body marked with scars from the electric shocks and cigarette burns and beatings. It did not lay in a coffin but on the blood-soaked mattress from the jail. It was the strongest protest imaginable, for it put injustice on grotesque display.

This is what happened on Good Friday. The Cross exposed the world for what it is: a breeding ground of violence and injustice. And that dark Friday can only be called Good because of what happened on Easter Sunday. Good Friday demolishes the instinctive belief that this life is supposed to be fair. But Easter gives a clue to the riddle. Someday, God will restore the physical reality of planet Earth to its proper place under his reign. The miracle of Easter will be enlarged to cosmic scale. It is a good thing to remember, when disappointment with God hits, that we live out our days on Easter Saturday.

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[version in Dynamic Preaching, Sept. 5, 1992]:

Some years ago, the gentle Catholic scholar, Henri Nouwen, was living in Paraguay. He knew a man in a certain town. The man was a doctor. And doctors are educated men, honorable men, a little better than the average person on the street. The military leaders in the district didn't like this doctor. They thought he was too uppity. So one night the police arrested his teenaged son. They locked him in a filthy jail cell. They beat him up. They tortured and abused him. They burned cigarettes into his skin. They shocked him with electric prods. And then they killed him. Violently.

The family prepared for the funeral. They wanted to wash the boy's body. They wanted to dress him in his best suit. They wanted to comb his hair, and lay him in a coffin of silk padding. They wanted to put a little smile on his face, and show him peaceful at the end. But the doctor said, NO! He dragged the bloody mattress from the jail and tossed it down at the front of the church. He left the body of his son twisted in torture. He didn't wash away the blood or the puss or the filth. And when the villagers filed by on the day of the funeral, they knew the doctor was one of them. They knew that he understood them. They knew that he was touched by their troubles and pained by their grief. And they knew that he would never stop fighting with them, until all the wickedness and all the corruption and all the rotten sinfulness in their world was put away forever. That day the doctor wore their face. They looked around at the funeral, and he was one of them.

Liberal theologians demythologize the resurrection and say it does not have to be literal and historical to have significance for a believer’s life. The inconsistencies in the gospels and Paul’s supposed omission of the empty tomb are claimed for support. The real reason is their humanistic presuppositions.

Pinnock argues that a literal resurrection is absolutely necessary for genuine Christianity. There are 3 reasons why God raised Jesus from the dead:

1. The resurrection of Jesus represents the verdict of the Father upon the obedience of the Son.

2. The verdict of the Father rested upon Jesus as the Savior of sinners.

3. Resurrection speaks of an enlargement of life, not its diminution.

#715

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At Christmas Mary received unexpected gift of myrrh, which was fit for kings and dying men and corpses. Jesus received myrrh 5 times in his life. (outlined) Mary probably did not understand the full significance. His cross came before the crown. Mary probably was expecting just the crown.

Jesus can be an unexpected gift for us.

The case for the resurrection of Jesus. The two main facts are the empty tomb and the post-resurrection appearances. Alternate theories are discussed: the body was stolen, authorities moved it, women went to wrong tomb, swoon. For resurrection appearances, hallucinations are discussed.

At Easter we often neglect a prominent idea in the thought of the apostle Paul: the Resurrection as a force for moral change. The Christian's identification with Christ simply renders sin incomprehensible. We are not autonomous individuals but obligated as servants to others, especially God.

[1448]

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Margaret Sangster Phippen wrote that in the mid 1950’s her father, British minister W.E. Sangster, began to notice some uneasiness in his throat and a dragging in his leg. When he went to the doctor, he found he had an incurable disease that caused progressive muscular atrophy. His muscles would gradually waste away, his voice would soon become unable to swallow.

Sangster threw himself into his work in British home missions, figuring he could still write and he would have even more time for prayer. “Let me stay in the struggle, Lord,” he pleaded. “I don’t mind if I can no longer be a general, but give me just a regiment to lead.” He wrote articles and books, and helped organize prayer cells throughout England. “I’m only in the kindergarten of suffering,” he told people who pitied him.

Gradually Sangster’s legs became useless. His voice went completely. But he could still hold a pen, shakily. On Easter morning, just a few weeks before he died, he wrote a letter to his daughter. In it, he said, “It is terrible to wake up on Easter morning and have no voice with which to shout, ‘He is risen!’ – but it would be still more terrible to have a voice and not want to shout.”

[see also HolwickID #18937]

Matthew 28:1-10 is not a resurrection story. Matthew speaks of the resurrection as a future event in Jesus' life, and a past one, but not a present one. The post-resurrection events get a lot of attention. "It is the human dimension that lies at the heart of Matthew's concern, the revelation of Jesus' resurrection to human beings and the impact of Jesus' resurrection on human lives. This is what drives Matthew's narrative."

The definition of power is rewritten. The authorities succeed in killing Jesus (this is stressed) but God's power subverts it with an earthquake. Powerless women now stand at the center of action, while the powerful guards faint.

Down through history, many have believed that death could solve problems.

About the middle of the 6th century before Christ, a boy was born to a wealthy nobleman in India in the province of Bihar. His name is Mahavira. His parents, though well-to-do, belonged to a sect that looked upon birth as a curse, and upon suicide as a blessed privilege. When their son, Mahavira, reached his 31st year they ended their lives by voluntary starvation. The young man, moved to the depths of his soul, renounced the world and its cruel ways, divested himself of all clothing, and wandered through western Bengal as an ascetic. From his life a new sect was born, the Jains, which had a considerable effect upon India, including Gandhi, the revered man we know who would starve himself to death on the basis of policy.

Some notable ancient Greeks also believed that death could solve some things. A Greek scholar, D.W. Palmer, complied an impressive list of quotations from Greek lyric poetry, drama, philosophy, and rhetoric to establish the fact that in the Greek world there was a widespread belief that death is preferred for those whose life is a burden. By it one was delivered from the troubles of earthly existence; death brings rest from one’s labors.

Socrates expressed this on one occasion when he said: “And if there is no consciousness but it is like a sleep when the sleeper does not even see a dream, death would be a wonderful gain” (Socrates’ words in Plato, Ap. 40, C-D). Josephus, the historian, wrote about the oppressed of his time: “They had no opportunity to put up a strong fight, but reckoned it a gain if they died, a misfortune to live” (Josephus, Ant. 15. 158).

The Easter faith is counter to such “pro-death” views. It opts for life. When death starts to look inviting, one must be reminded that one “is still here,” and to that fact one must bow.

Christians value Christmas too much and in the wrong way. In large part it has been hijacked by sentimentality and commercialism. Arguing that “Jesus is the reason for the season” misses the real issue. By focusing too much on Christmas we present a positive gospel with none of the pain of the cross, as if “Christmas spirit” alone can transform the world. We should abandon Christmas to the pagans and make Easter the key event of the Christian life, as the New Testament does.

Rabbi Lawrence Hoffman writes in “Cross Currents”:

“There is nothing wrong with sleigh bells, Bing Crosby, and Christmas pudding, but I should hope Christians would want more than just that, and as Christmas becomes more and more secularized, I am not sure they get it. In the end, the problem of Christmas is not mine [as a Jew] any more than Christmas itself is. The real Christmas challenge belongs to Christians: how to take Christmas out of the secularized public domain and move it back into the religious sphere once again.

“Historians tell us that Christmas was not always the cultural fulcrum that balances Christian life. There was a time when Christians knew that the paschal mystery of death and resurrection was the center of Christian faith. It was Easter that really mattered, not Christmas. Only in the consumer-conscious nineteenth century did Christmas overtake Easter, becoming the centerpiece of popular piety. Madison Avenue marketed the change, and then colluded with the entertainment industry to boost Christmas to its current calendrical prominence.”

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Full article:

It is time to recognize that a new tradition has been added to Christmas. As surely as trees and lights and reindeer, December now brings Christian complaints about the secularization of the holiday. T-shirts and posters and preachers declare, “Jesus Is the Reason for the Season,” but their protests are drowned in the commercial deluge.

Christmas is ruled not from Jerusalem or Rome or Wheaton or any other religious center, but from Madison Avenue and Wall Street. In a revealing symbolic act, President George [H.W.] Bush in 1991 inaugurated the season not, mind you, in a church, but in a shopping mall. There he bought some socks and reminded Americans their true Christmas responsibility is not veneration but consumption.

To some, Christmas also seems less Christian because many of the nation’s institutions are less and less willing to prop up the church. So some disgruntled believers — misguidedly, by my estimate — do battle with various courthouses that no longer allow crèches on their lawns.

Sometimes outsiders glimpse our own dilemma more acutely than we can. Last Christmas, Rabbi Lawrence Hoffman wrote an article in CROSS CURRENTS entitled, “Being a Jew at Christmas Time.” In it he observed, “There is nothing wrong with sleigh bells, Bing Crosby, and Christmas pudding, but I should hope Christians would want more than just that, and as Christmas becomes more and more secularized, I am not sure they get it.” He went on: “In the end, the problem of Christmas is not mine any more than Christmas itself is. The real Christmas challenge belongs to Christians: how to take Christmas out of the secularized public domain and move it back into the religious sphere once again.”

The rabbi is right on both counts. For Christians, Christmas definitely loses something — in fact, loses its core — as it gets more and more secular. But the solution is not to worry over courthouse crèches: The real Christmas challenge belongs to Christians. The church and not city hall is charged with witnessing to the gospel and remembering to the world the birth of Jesus Christ.

SEASONAL HUMBUG

Here I want to suggest that Christians may best reclaim Christmas, indirectly, by first reclaiming Easter. Ours is an ironic faith, one that trains its adherents to see strength in weakness. The irony at hand could be that a secularizing culture has shown us something important by devaluing Christmas. In a way, Christians have valued Christmas too much and in the wrong way. I defer again to Hoffman, who writes,

Historians tell us that Christmas was not always the cultural fulcrum

that balances Christian life. There was a time when Christians knew

that the paschal mystery of death and resurrection was the center of

Christian faith. It was Easter that really mattered, not Christmas.

Only in the consumer-conscious nineteenth century did Christmas overtake

Easter, becoming the centerpiece of popular piety. Madison Avenue

marketed the change, and then colluded with the entertainment industry

to boost Christmas to its current calendrical prominence.

The Bible, of course, knows nothing of the designated holidays we call Easter or Christmas. But each holiday celebrates particular events, and there can be no doubt which set of events receives the most scriptural emphasis.

It is well known that all four Gospels build toward and focus on the events leading up to and including what we commemorate at Easter. One-quarter to one-half the chapters in each of the four Gospels deal with Easter events. Clearly, the gospel traditions see these as the crucial episodes, the events that identify and ratify Jesus as God’s Messiah, In fact, two of the four Gospels (Mark and John) have no birth, or Christmas, narratives. This means certain of the earliest Christian communities knew no Christmas (at least, not from their basic texts). To put it another way, we could be Christians without the stories of Christmas, but not without the stories of Easter.

The rest of the New Testament does not deviate from this pattern. The earliest recorded Christian sermon (in Acts 2) proclaims the Easter message of the world’s Savior crucified and then raised by Israel’s God. And what can we say of Paul, who nowhere speaks of Jesus’ birth, but everywhere heralds “Jesus Christ and him crucified” (1 Cor. 2:2) and warns that “if Christ has not been raised, then our preaching is in vain and your faith is in vain” (15:14)?

To this day, Christian worship is marked by Easter more than by Christmas. Consider the sacraments (or ordinances, if you prefer). Baptism is baptism into Christ’s crucifixion and resurrection. As Paul writes, “We have been buried with him by baptism into death, so that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, so we too might walk in newness of life” (Rom. 6:4, NRSV). Celebrating the Eucharist, or Communion, includes rich themes drawing both from Christ’s passion and his resurrection. And of course, we gather to worship on the day of the Lord’s rising, so that Christians for centuries have thought of each Sunday as a “little Easter.”

The recovery of Easter as our pivotal holy day may best be served by a recovery of the Christian calendar, complete with the cycle of seasons that recall the gospel from Advent to Christmas to Epiphany to Lent to Easter and Pentecost. The calendar, like the gospel narrative, builds toward and pivots around the focal events of Christ’s passion and Easter. Recognizing the liturgical year is a large step toward seeing Easter as the main Christian holiday.

CHRISTMAS RE-ENVISIONED

In calling Christians to return to the Christian calendar and return Easter to its rightful prominence, I am not implying that the events of Christmas are trivial or untrue. The nativity stories help us to remember key and glorious truths, such as the Incarnation. But surely Easter, and not the Christmas on which we modern Western Christians focus most of our attention, is the “fulcrum that balances Christian life.”

Christmas celebrated without the events of Easter overshadowing is too easily sentimentalized and secularized. A baby in a manger, angels hovering overhead, cattle lowing nearby — surely this idyllic world needs no redemption. A dechristianized Christmas is the ultimate Pelagian holiday; for at what other time of the year can we seem so certain that, merely with good feelings and good will, humanity can save itself? Annually, in fact, newspaper editorials and television commentators say exactly that, pleading that all the world needs is to spread Christmas cheer through the year.

But Easter — Easter is on the other side of a cross with nails, of confrontation and beatings and death, and then, only then, resurrection and new life. Christmas we can too easily teach to our kids (and ourselves) without blinking, free of strain or discomfort (provided we gloss, as we usually do, such details as Herod’s slaughter of the innocents). Easter is harder, for it requires facing death, the shortcomings of the disciples, the bloody lengths God must go to in order to rescue a confused, hateful world from itself.

All of this is to say we have worried about Christmas too much. Christians in an indifferent and even hostile society need to learn cultural JUJITSU — to sometimes let the culture push at points where it wants to, and there collapse of its own momentum. This is especially important in our cultural situation, where resistance is so easily itself turned into a marketable commodity. T-shirts and bumper stickers proclaiming “Jesus Is the Reason for the Season” make the message itself into a consumer item.

So let the pagans have Christmas as THEIR MOST SIGNIFICANT HOLIDAY. Easter is the central CHRISTIAN holiday. And when we are known for our Easter, then we will have our Christmas back.

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CT Classics, copyright © 2007 Christianity Today.

Sermon in Why I Believe series. The resurrection of Jesus.

"WHY I BELIEVE IN THE RESURRECTION"

1 Corinthians 15

I. The dilemma of death.

A. Job 14:14 - "If a man die, shall he live again?"

B. Tombs of great philosophers and religious leaders are occupied.

C. Christians claim that Jesus' tomb is empty.

II. Centrality of Resurrection.

A. Apostle Paul rested his whole case on it. 1 Cor 15:14

B. Foes also focus on it.

C. Significance of resurrection:

III. Facts to be considered.

A. Existence of Christian church.

B. Sunday as Christian day of worship.

C. Bible's predictions of resurrection of Messiah.

MAIN TWO FACTS of Resurrection of Jesus.

I. Empty tomb. 1 Cor 15:4

A. Body stolen. Matthew 27:64

B. Authorities moved the body.

C. Women went to wrong tomb. (They imagined it was empty.)

D. Swoon theory.

E. Jesus was really raised from the dead.

II. Appearances of Jesus after his death. 1 Cor 15:5

A. Hallucinations.

B. Evolved from a confused story.

III. Most convincing proof that something happened 2,000 years ago -

A. Millions testify that Jesus is alive to them in a personal way.

B. The fearful disciples were changed into courageous men.

#3324

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DID CHRIST REALLY DIE?

According to the Word of God, yes, He really died!

Those who claim this was not true have several different explanations as to what could have happened that made it appear that Christ died.

You see, there are documented cases on record of people who appeared to have died, but who were revived. For example-

Remember the story of the young man from a small town in South Carolina, Jackie Bain. During the Viet Nam war he was shot. The medics pronounced him dead. He was placed in a truck to be transported to the morgue when something very strange happened. As he was in transit, he revived. He began to make some noise and almost scared the driver to death. The driver stopped the truck, jumped out and opened the door to investigate. Upon checking in the back, the driver could see immediately Jackie was not dead. He slammed the door and instead of heading to the morgue, he went to the nearest hospital. When they arrived the doctors began to give Mr. Bain the medical care he needed. In a few weeks he walked out of the hospital. The doctors explained that when Jackie was pronounced dead, he was probably so close to death that life could not be detected. It could be that his heart even momentarily had stopped beating while he was in the ambulance, but as they traveled on the bumpy road, the bumps jarred his heart and caused it to begin beating again.

Could that be what happened to Jesus? Some surmise that something similar did happen, and that He actually did not die. There are all kinds of theories being put forth by ungodly people as to what happened to Jesus.

A. THE THIEF THEORY. These would have us believe that instead of Jesus having been raised from the dead, His body was stolen from the tomb. After the body was stolen, then the apostles began to preach the lie that Jesus had been raised from the dead.

B. THE SWOON THEORY. Would have you believe that Christ did not actually die on the cross. Instead, He fainted. Then later, He mysteriously became conscience and appeared to the disciples. They began to spread the lie that He had been raised from the dead.

C. THE HALLUCINATION THEORY. Those who believe this say that rather than actually seeing the risen Lord, the disciples simply imagined they saw Him. That is, they wanted so much to believe He was risen from the dead that they allowed their imaginations to control their reasoning.

D. THE WRONG TOMB THEORY. These simply say that the Lord’s body was placed in the wrong tomb. Instead of being put in Joseph’s tomb, He was put into another tomb. Therefore, when they arrived at Joseph’s tomb, they found it empty because Jesus’ body had never been placed there from the beginning. Then they claimed that the disciples went everywhere preaching about the empty tomb.

There are those today who will believe anything rather than believe what this Bible tells us about the resurrection of Christ. Why do men so bitterly detest the resurrection of Christ? Because, they know if He was really resurrected from the dead it validates everything He said about Himself being the Savior of the world. They then will have to repent of their sins, or they will have to stand before Him on Judgment day.

Final sermon in 50 Day Adventure series. Hope and resurrection.

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SURPRISING OUTCOMES

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I. The importance of hope.

A. What a glorious thing it is to bring hope to people.

B. Many believe hope is unrealistic.

C. Despair seems so much more realistic than hope.

II. The events of the first Easter.

A. The disciples had reason for despair.

B. They find an empty tomb.

C. God doesn't always follow our expectations.

III. God's surprises throughout history.

A. Abraham, Moses, and Joseph.

B. If God did these things, what can he do for you??

IV. The greatest surprise of all.

A. The greatest surprise in history is the resurrection of Jesus.

B. Nothing can overcome God's power.

V. One thing should not surprise us. John 3:7

The author and preacher Tony Campolo delivers a stirring sermon adapted from an elderly black pastor at his church in Philadelphia. “It’s Friday, but Sunday’s Comin’” is the title of the sermon, and once you know the title you know the whole sermon. In a cadence that increases in tempo and in volume, Campolo contrasts how the world looked on Friday -- when the forces of evil won over the forces of good, when every friend and disciple fled in fear, when the Son of God died on a cross -- with how it looked on Easter Sunday. The disciples who lived through both days, Friday and Sunday, learned that when God seems most absent he may be closest of all; when God looks most powerless he may be most powerful; when God looks most dead he may be coming back to life. They learned never to count God out.

Campolo’s sermon skips one day, though. The other two days, Good Friday and Easter Sunday, are perhaps the most significant days on the entire church calendar, and yet, in a real sense, we live our lives on Saturday, the day in between. Can we trust that God can make something holy and beautiful and good out of a world that includes Bosnia and Rwanda and inner-city ghettoes in the richest nation on earth? Human history grinds on, between the time of promise and fulfillment. It’s Saturday on planet Earth; will Sunday ever come?

Perhaps that is why the authors of the Gospels devoted so much more space to Jesus’ last week than to the several weeks when he was making resurrection appearances. They knew that the history to follow would often resemble Saturday, the in-between day, more than Sunday, the day of rejoicing. It is a good thing to remember that in the cosmic drama, we live out our days on Saturday, the day with no name.

How churches can prepare for Easter and Lent through service and meditation:

One of my favorite pastors is W. T. Handy, Jr. I heard him preach a sermon during Lent many years ago. The phrase which he used, I can never forget. He said, YOU CAN'T WALK IN ON EASTER! How true it is. It takes preparation to fully experience any celebration. And it takes hours, days, and weeks to fully prepare oneself to get in touch with the suffering and total giving of himself that Jesus experienced in order to rise out of suffering to new life. I sincerely trust that you are setting aside moments of each day for quiet contemplation, for reading of devotional material, and for prayer.

In my sermon the Sunday before Lent, I made the suggestion that we follow a Lenten pattern of ministry to others:

The first week of Lent we write letters to those whom we appreciate.

The second week, we make phone calls.

The third week, we give love gifts.

The fourth week we pray for one another.

The fifth week we make a personal visit.

The sixth week, which is Holy Week, we make special efforts in our own

personal meditation.

Do you believe in Easter?

Edith Burns was a wonderful Christian who lived in San Antonio, Texas. She was the patient of doctor by the name of Will Phillips. Dr. Phillips was a gentle doctor who saw patients as people.

His favorite patient was Edith Burns. One morning he went to his office with a heavy heart and it was because of Edith Burns. When he walked into that waiting room, there sat Edith with her big black Bible in her lap earnestly talking to a young mother sitting beside her.

Edith Burns had a habit of introducing herself in this way: "Hello, my name is Edith Burns. Do you believe in Easter?" Then she would explain the meaning of Easter, and many times people would be saved.

Dr. Phillips walked into that office and there he saw the head nurse, Beverly. Beverly had first met Edith when she was taking her blood pressure. Edith began by saying, "My name is Edith Burns. Do you believe in Easter?"

Beverly said, "Why yes I do."

Edith said, "Well, what do you believe about Easter?"

Beverly said, "Well, it's all about egg hunts, going to church, and dressing up."

Edith kept pressing her about the real meaning of Easter, and finally led her to a saving knowledge of Jesus Christ.

Dr. Phillips said, "Beverly, don't call Edith into the office quite yet. I believe there is another delivery taking place in the waiting room."

After being called back in the doctor's office, Edith sat down and when she took a look at the doctor she said, "Dr. Will, why are you so sad? Are you reading your Bible? Are you praying?"

Dr. Phillips said gently, "Edith, I'm the doctor and you're the patient."

With a heavy heart he said, "Your lab report came back and it says you have cancer, and Edith, you're not going to live very long."

Edith said, "Why Will Phillips, shame on you. Why are you so sad? Do you think God makes mistakes? You have just told me I'm going to see my precious Lord Jesus, my husband, and my friends. You have just told me that I am going to celebrate Easter forever, and here you are having difficulty giving me my ticket!"

Dr. Phillips thought to himself, "What a magnificent woman this Edith Burns is!"

Edith continued coming to Dr. Phillips. Christmas came and the office was closed through January 3rd. On the day the office opened, Edith did not show up. Later that afternoon, Edith called Dr. Phillips and said she would have to be moving her story to the hospital and said, "Will, I'm very near home, so would you make sure that they put women in here next to me in my room who need to know about Easter."

Well, they did just that and women began to come in and share that room with Edith. Many women were saved. Everybody on that floor from staff to patients were so excited about Edith, that they started calling her Edith Easter; that is everyone except Phyllis Cross, the head nurse.

Phyllis made it plain that she wanted nothing to do with Edith because she was a "religious nut". She had been a nurse in an army hospital. She had seen it all and heard it all. She was the original G.I. Jane. She had been married three times, she was hard, cold, and did everything by the book.

One morning the two nurses who were to attend to Edith were sick. Edith had the flu and Phyllis Cross had to go in and give her a shot. When she walked in, Edith had a big smile on her face and said, "Phyllis, God loves you and I love you, and I have been praying for you."

Phyllis Cross said, "Well, you can quit praying for me, it won't work. I'm not interested."

Edith said, "Well, I will pray and I have asked God not to let me go home until you come into the family."

Phyllis Cross said, "Then you will never die because that will never happen," and curtly walked out of the room.

Every day Phyllis Cross would walk into the room and Edith would say, "God loves you Phyllis and I love you, and I'm praying for you."

One day Phyllis Cross said she was literally drawn to Edith's room like a magnet would draw iron. She sat down on the bed and Edith said, "I'm so glad you have come, because God told me that today is your special day."

Phyllis Cross said, "Edith, you have asked everybody here the question, 'Do you believe in Easter?' but you have never asked me." Edith said, "Phyllis, I wanted to many times, but God told me to wait until you asked, and now that you have asked..."

Edith Burns took her Bible and shared with Phyllis Cross the Easter Story of the death, burial and resurrection of Jesus Christ. Edith said, "Phyllis, do you believe in Easter? Do you believe that Jesus Christ is alive and that He wants to live in your heart?"

Phyllis Cross said, "Oh I want to believe that with all of my heart, and I do want Jesus in my life." Right there, Phyllis Cross prayed and invited Jesus Christ into her heart. For the first time Phyllis Cross did not walk out of a hospital room, she was carried out on the wings of angels.

Two days later, Phyllis Cross came in and Edith said, "Do you know what day it is?"

Phyllis Cross said, "Why Edith, it's Good Friday."

Edith said, "Oh, no, for you every day is Easter. Happy Easter Phyllis!"

Two days later, on Easter Sunday, Phyllis Cross came into work, did some of her duties and then went down to the flower shop and got some Easter lilies because she wanted to go up to see Edith and give her some Easter lilies and wish her a Happy Easter. When she walked into Edith's room, Edith was in bed. That big black Bible was onher lap. Her hands were in that Bible. There was a sweet smile on her face.

When Phyllis Cross went to pick up Edith's hand, she realized Edith was dead.

Her left hand was on John 14: "In my Father's house are many mansions. I go to prepare a place for you, I will come again and receive you to Myself, that where I am, there you may be also."

Her right hand was on Revelation 21:4, " And God will wipe away every tear from their eyes, there shall be no more death, nor sorrow, nor crying; and there shall be no more pain, for the former things have passed away."

Phyllis Cross took one look at that dead body, and then lifted her face toward heaven, and with tears streaming down here cheeks, said, "Happy Easter, Edith - Happy Easter!"

Phyllis Cross left Edith's body, walked out of the room, and over to a tablewhere two student nurses were sitting. She said, "My name is Phyllis Cross. Do you believe in Easter?"

My top ten surprises.

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As a writer, I have the wonderful privilege of researching and meditating on one topic for months at a time. My latest project allowed me to focus on the grandest subject of all: Jesus. Growing up in the church, I learned his name as soon as I learned the names of my family members. But now, as an adult, what did I truly think about him? Which childhood impressions had been confirmed and which ones overturned?

As I reflect on what I learned in the process of writing "The Jesus I Never Knew," I have come up with a "top ten" list. Please forgive me if the form seems irreverent. David Letterman style, it begins with number 10 and works upward.

10. JESUS WAS A JEW

I knew that, of course. But the more I studied Jesus, the more I realized that his humanity had receded far away. Every week in church I would repeat the creed, which, significantly, hustles through Jesus' life. "... Born of the Virgin Mary, suffered under Pontius Pilate," it says. Did anything happen in the interval between birth and death?

Somehow, everything Jesus said and did in 33 years on earth gets swept aside in the rush to interpret his life correctly. For me, as for many others raised in the Christian tradition, the man who walked the dusty roads of Palestine had been all but lost. I knew Christ -- "Light of Light, very God of very God, begotten, not made" -- but not Jesus, or Rabbi Jeshua bar-Joseph, the Jew from Nazareth.

A remarkable change has taken place in recent years, I learned during my library research: interest in Jesus is resurging among the Jews. In 1925, the Hebrew scholar Joseph Klausner could find only three full-length treatments of Jesus' life by contemporary Jewish scholars. Now there are hundreds, including some of the most illuminating studies available. Modern Israeli schoolchildren learn that Jesus was a great teacher, perhaps the greatest Jewish teacher, who was subsequently "co-opted" by the Gentiles.

Jesus' true-blue Jewishness leaps out from Matthew's very first sentence, which introduces him as "the son of David, the son of Abraham." Roughly, that might parallel an American politician being introduced as "the son of Abraham Lincoln, the son of George Washington." Jesus grew up in an era of Jewish pride, when families were adopting names that harked back to the times of the patriarchs and the Exodus from Egypt (not unlike ethnic Americans who choose African names for their children). Circumcised as a baby, Jesus attended religious festivals in Jerusalem as a young man, and as an adult he worshiped in the synagogue and temple. Even his controversies with other Jews, such as the Pharisees, underscored the fact that they expected him to share their values and act more like them.

Growing up, I did not know a single Jew. I do now. I know something of their culture: the close ties that keep sacred holidays alive even for families who no longer believe in their meaning; the passionate arguments that at first unsettled me but soon attracted me as a style of personal engagement; the respect, even reverence, for legalism amid a society that mainly values autonomy; the ability to link arms and dance and sing and laugh even when the world offers scant reason for celebration.

This was the culture Jesus grew up in, a Jewish culture. Yes, he changed it, but always from his starting point as a Jew. Now when I find myself wondering what Jesus was like as a teenager, I think of Jewish boys I know in Chicago. When the thought jars me, I remember that in his own day Jesus got the opposite reaction. A Jewish teenager, surely -- but the Son of God?

9. YET JESUS DID NOT ACT LIKE A JEW

The very architecture of the temple expressed Jewish belief in a ladder of hierarchy reaching higher and higher toward God. Gentiles and "half-breeds" like the Samaritans could enter the outer Court of the Gentiles; a wall separated them from the next partition, which admitted Jewish women. Jewish men could proceed one stage farther, and then only priests could enter the sacred areas.

The society was, in effect, a religious caste system based on steps toward holiness, and the Pharisees' scrupulosity reinforced the system daily. All their rules on washing hands and avoiding defilement were an attempt to make themselves acceptable to God. Had not God set forth lists of desirable (spotless) and undesirable (flawed, unclean) animals for use in sacrifice? Had not God banned sinners, menstruating women, the physically deformed, and other "undesirables" from the temple?

In the midst of this tight religious caste system, Jesus appeared, with no qualms about socializing with children or sinners or even Samaritans. He touched, or was touched by, the "unclean": those with leprosy, the deformed, a hemorrhaging woman, the lunatic and possessed. Although Levitical laws prescribed a day of purification after touching a sick person, Jesus conducted mass healings in which he touched scores; he never concerned himself with the rules of defilement after contact with the sick or even the dead.

Indeed, Jesus turned upside down the accepted wisdom of the day. Pharisees believed that touching an unclean person polluted the one who touched. Yet when Jesus touched a person with leprosy, Jesus did not become soiled -- the leprous became clean. When an immoral woman washed Jesus' feet, she went away forgiven and transformed. When Jesus defied custom to enter a pagan's house, the pagan's servant was healed. As Walter Wink puts it, "The contagion of holiness overcomes the contagion of uncleanness."

In short, Jesus moved the emphasis from God's holiness (exclusive) to God's mercy (inclusive). Instead of the message "No undesirables allowed," he proclaimed, "In God's kingdom, no one is any longer an undesirable."

Jesus' attitude convicts me today, because I sense a movement in the reverse direction. The church is becoming more and more politicized. As society unravels and immorality increases, I hear many calls that we show less mercy and more morality. Stigmatize homosexuals, shame unwed mothers, harass the homeless, punish law-breakers. I share a deep concern for our society, and obviously Christians need to be a moral voice. In doing so, though, we must follow Jesus' example, "loving the sinner while hating the sin." I am struck by the power of mercy as demonstrated by Jesus, who came for the sick and not the well, for sinners and not for the righteous. I spent half my life rebelling against the legalism of my childhood; when I tasted the first draught of the Living Water offered by Jesus, I knew I was changed forever.

8. JESUS LOST THE "CULTURE WARS" [used 9/29/96]

Not long ago I addressed the topic "Culture Wars" before a large gathering that was tilted toward the liberal Democratic persuasion and included a strong minority of Jews. I had been selected as the token evangelical Christian on a panel that included the presidents of the Disney Channel and Warner Brothers, as well as the president of Wellesley College and Anita Hill's personal attorney.

To prepare for my talk, I went through the Gospels for guidance, only to be reminded how unpolitical Jesus was. Today, each time an election rolls around, Christians debate whether this or that candidate is "God's man" for the White House. Projecting myself back into Jesus' time, I had difficulty imagining him pondering whether Tiberius, Octavius, or Julius Caesar was "God's man" for the empire.

I was also struck by what happens when Christians lose the culture wars. In Communist countries -- Albania, the Soviet Union, China -- the Christians' worst nightmares came true. These governments forced the church to go underground. (A missionary in Afghanistan told me that after bulldozing the only Christian church in the country, the Afghans dug a huge hole underneath its foundation; they had heard rumors about an underground church!) In waves of persecution during the 1960s and 1970s, for instance, Chinese believers were fined, imprisoned, and tortured. Yet, despite this government oppression, a spiritual revival broke out that could well be the largest in the history of the church. As many as 50 million believers gave their allegiance to an invisible kingdom even as the visible kingdom made them suffer for it.

When my turn came to speak, I said that the man I follow, a Palestinian Jew from the first century, had also been involved in a culture war. He went up against a rigid religious establishment and a pagan empire. The two powers, often at odds, conspired together to eliminate him. His response? Not to fight, but to give his life for these his enemies, and to point to that gift as proof of his love. Among the last words he said before death were, "Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do."

After the panel, a television celebrity came up to me whose name every reader would recognize. "I've got to tell you, what you said stabbed me right in the heart," he said. "I was prepared to dislike you because I dislike all right-wing Christians, and I assumed you were one. I don't follow Jesus -- I'm a Jew. But when you told about Jesus forgiving his enemies, I realized how far from that spirit I am. I fight my enemies, especially the right-wingers. I don't forgive them. I have much to learn from the spirit of Jesus."

7. JESUS WAS A POOR SALESMAN

Sometimes I wonder how Jesus would have fared in this day of mass media and high-tech ministry. I can't picture him worrying about the details of running a large organization. I can't see him letting some make-up artist improve his looks before a TV appearance. And I have a hard time imagining the fundraising letters Jesus might write.

Investigative reporters on television like to do exposes of evangelists who claim powers of supernatural healing with little evidence to back them up. In direct contrast, Jesus, who had manifest supernatural powers, tended to downplay them. Seven times in Mark's gospel he told a healed person, "Tell no one!" When crowds pressed around him, he fled to solitude, or rowed across a lake.

We sometimes use the term "savior complex" to describe an unhealthy syndrome of obsession over solving others' problems. Ironically, the true Savior seemed remarkably free of such a complex. He had no compulsion to convert the entire world in his lifetime or to cure people who were not ready to be cured.

I never sensed Jesus twisting a person's arm. Rather, he stated the consequences of a choice, then threw the decision back to the other party. For example, he once answered a wealthy man's question with uncompromising words, then let him walk away. Mark pointedly adds this comment about the man who rejected Jesus' advice, "Jesus looked at him and loved him."

In short, Jesus showed an incredible respect for human freedom. Those of us in ministry need the kind of "Savior complex" that Jesus demonstrated. As Elton Trueblood has observed, the major symbols of invitation that Jesus used had a severe, even offensive quality: the yoke of burden, the cup of suffering, the towel of servanthood. "Take up your cross and follow me," he said, in the least manipulative invitation that has ever been given.

6. NO ONE KNOWS WHAT JESUS LOOKED LIKE

John's gospel records this hyperbolic comment: "Jesus did many other things as well. If every one of them were written down, I suppose that even the whole world would not have room for the books that would be written." After spending time in seminary libraries browsing through the thousands of books on Jesus, I had the eerie sense that John's prophecy was coming true.

And yet, here is a strange thing: with this preponderance of scholarship, we still lack certain basic information about Jesus. The four Gospels skip over nine-tenths of his life, omitting much that would interest modern readers. We have only one scene from his adolescence and know nothing about his schooling. Details of his family life are so scant that scholars still debate how many brothers and sisters he had. The facts of biography considered essential to modern readers simply did not concern the gospel writers.

We also know nothing about Jesus' shape or stature or eye color, and thus, as a writer, I could not begin where I normally begin in reporting on a person -- by describing what he looked like. The first semirealistic portraits of Jesus did not come until the fifth century, and these were pure speculation; until then, the Greeks had portrayed him as a young, beardless figure resembling the god Apollo.

I once showed to a class several dozen art slides portraying Jesus in a variety of forms -- African, Korean, Chinese -- and then asked the class to describe what they thought Jesus looked like. Virtually everyone suggested he was tall (unlikely for a first-century Jew), most said handsome, and no one said overweight. I showed a BBC film on the life of Christ that featured a fat actor in the title role, and some in the class found it offensive. We prefer a tall, handsome, and above all, slender Jesus.

One tradition dating back to the second century suggested Jesus was a hunchback, and in the Middle Ages, Christians widely believed that Jesus had suffered from leprosy. Most Christians today would find such notions repulsive and perhaps heretical. Was he not a perfect specimen of humanity? Yet in all the Bible I can find only one physical description of sorts, a prophecy written hundreds of years before Christ's birth. Here is Isaiah's portrayal, in the midst of a passage that the New Testament applies to the life of Jesus:

Just as there were many who were appalled at him -- his appearance was so disfigured beyond that of any man and his form marred beyond human likeness..... He had no beauty or majesty to attract us to him, nothing in his appearance that we should desire him. He was despised and rejected by men, a man of sorrows, and familiar with suffering. Like one from whom men hide their faces he was despised, and we esteemed him not.

Evidently our glamorized representations of Jesus say more about us than about him.

5. YOU MIGHT NOT HAVE WANTED JESUS AT YOUR BACKYARD BARBECUE

In writing a book about Jesus, one impression struck me more forcefully than any other: we have tamed him. The Jesus I learned about as a child was sweet and inoffensive, the kind of person whose lap you want to climb on, Mister Rogers with a beard. Indeed, Jesus did have qualities of gentleness and compassion that attracted little children. Mister Rogers, however, he assuredly was not.

I realized this fact when I studied the Sermon on the Mount. "Blessed are the poor. Blessed are the persecuted. Blessed are those who mourn." These sayings have a soft, proverbial ring to them -- unless you happen to know someone poor, persecuted, or mourning. The homeless huddling over heating grates in our major cities, the tortured prisoners whose pictures are distributed by Amnesty International, the families of the Oklahoma City bombing victims we see interviewed on television -- who would think of calling them blessed, or "lucky"?

In all the movies about Jesus' life, surely the most provocative -- and perhaps the most accurate -- portrayal of the Sermon on the Mount appears in a low-budget BBC production entitled "Son of Man." The director, Dennis Potter, sets the Sermon on the Mount against a background of violence and chaos. Roman soldiers have just invaded a Galilean village to exact vengeance for some trespass against the empire. They have strung up Jewish men of fighting age, shoved their hysterical wives to the ground, even speared babies in order to "teach these Jews a lesson." Into that tumultuous scene of blood and tears and keening for the dead strides Jesus with eyes ablaze. "I tell you: Love your enemies and pray for those that persecute you," he shouts above the groans.

I say it's easy to love your own brother, to love those who love you. Even tax collectors do that! You want me to congratulate you for loving your own kinsmen? No, Love your enemy. Love the man who would kick you and spit at you. Love the soldier who would drive his sword in your belly. Love the brigand who robs and tortures you.

Listen to me! Love your enemy! If a Roman soldier hits you on the left cheek, offer him the right one. If a man in authority orders you to walk one mile, walk two miles. If a man sues you for your coat, give him the shirt off your back. Listen! I tell you, it is hard to follow me. What I'm saying to you hasn't been said since the world began!

You can imagine the villagers' response to such unwelcome advice. The Sermon on the Mount did not soothe them; it infuriated them.

I came away from my study of Jesus both comforted and terrified. Jesus came to earth "full of grace and truth," said John: his truth comforts my intellectual doubts even as his grace comforts my emotional doubts. And yet, I also encountered a terrifying aspect of Jesus, one that I had never learned about in Sunday school. Did anyone go away from Jesus' presence feeling satisfied about his or her life?

Few people felt comfortable around Jesus; those who did were the type no one else felt comfortable around. The Jesus I met in the Gospels was anything but tame.

4. JESUS IS NOT THE CHURCH

George Buttrick, former chaplain at Harvard, recalls that students would come into his office, plop down on a chair and declare, "I don't believe in God." Buttrick would give this disarming reply: "Sit down and tell me what kind of God you don't believe in. I probably don't believe in that God either."

Many people who reject Jesus are rejecting not Jesus, but a distortion of him as presented by the church. To our everlasting shame, the watching world judges Jesus by a church whose history includes the Crusades, the Inquisition, the Conquistadores in Latin America, and a slave ship called the Good Ship Jesus.

In order to get to know Jesus, I had to strip away layers of dust and grime applied by the church itself. In my case, the image of Jesus was obscured by the racism, intolerance, and petty legalism of fundamentalist churches in the South. A Russian or a European Catholic confronts a very different restoration process. "For not only dust, but also too much gold can cover up the true figure," wrote Hans Kung about his own search. Many abandon the quest entirely; rebuffed by the church, they never make it to Jesus.

I often wish that we could somehow set aside church history, remove the church's many layers of interpretation, and encounter the words of the Gospels for the first time. Not everyone would accept Jesus -- they did not in his own day -- but at least people would not reject him for the wrong reasons.

Once I was able to cut through the fog still clinging from my own upbringing, my opinion of Jesus changed remarkably. Brilliant, untamed, tender, creative, merciful, slippery, loving, irreducible, paradoxically humble -- Jesus stands up to scrutiny. He is who I want my God to be.

3. YET THE CHURCH IS JESUS

What I have just longed for, nonetheless, is not only impossible; it is unscriptural. Jesus planned from the beginning to die so that we his church could take his place. ("Once again," as Robert Farrar Capon reminds us, "God was -- and still is -- throwing sinkers.") He stayed just long enough to gather around him followers who could carry the message to others. Killing Jesus, says Walter Wink, was like trying to destroy a dandelion seed-head by blowing on it.

The church is where God lives. What Jesus brought to a few -- healing, grace, the good-news message of God's love -- the church can now bring to all. "Unless a kernel of wheat falls to the ground and dies," he explained, "it remains only a single seed. But if it dies, it produces many seeds."

As I worked through the Gospels I concluded that the Ascension represents my greatest struggle of faith -- not whether it happened, but why. It challenges me more than belief in the Resurrection and other miracles.

It seems odd to admit such a notion -- I have never read a book or article designed to answer doubts about the Ascension -- yet for me what has happened since Jesus' departure strikes at the core of my faith. Would it not have been better if Jesus had stayed on earth to direct us?

"It is for your good that I am going away," Jesus told his disciples, who had the same question. "Unless I go away, the Counselor will not come to you." I find it much easier to accept the fact of God incarnating in Jesus of Nazareth than in the people who attend my local church -- and in me. Yet that is what we are asked to believe; that is how we are asked to live. Jesus played his part and then left. Now it is up to us, the body of Christ.

2. CATHOLICS ARE BETTER AT CALENDARS THAN PROTESTANTS

The church I grew up in skipped past the events of Holy Week in a rush to hear the cymbal sounds of Easter. We never held a service on Good Friday. We celebrated the Lord's Supper only once a quarter. Roman Catholics did not believe in the Resurrection, I was told, which explained why Catholic girls wore crosses "with the little man on them." They celebrated Mass daily, a symptom of their fixation with death. We Protestants were different. We saved our best clothes, our rousing hymns, and our few sanctuary decorations for Easter.

When I began to study theology and church history, I found that my church was wrong about the Catholics, who believed in Easter as strongly as we did. From the Gospels I also learned that, unlike my church, the biblical record slows down rather than speeds up when it gets to Holy Week. The Gospels, said one early Christian commentator, are chronicles of Jesus' final week with extended introductions.

The author and preacher Tony Campolo delivers a stirring sermon adapted from an elderly black pastor at his church in Philadelphia. "It's Friday, but Sunday's Comin'" is the title of the sermon, and once you know the title you know the whole sermon. In a cadence that increases in tempo and in volume, Campolo contrasts how the world looked on Friday -- when the forces of evil won over the forces of good, when every friend and disciple fled in fear, when the Son of God died on a cross -- with how it looked on Easter Sunday. The disciples who lived through both days, Friday and Sunday, learned that when God seems most absent he may be closest of all; when God looks most powerless he may be most powerful; when God looks most dead he may be coming back to life. They learned never to count God out.

Campolo's sermon skips one day, though. The other two days, Good Friday and Easter Sunday, are perhaps the most significant days on the entire church calendar, and yet, in a real sense, we live our lives on Saturday, the day in between. Can we trust that God can make something holy and beautiful and good out of a world that includes Bosnia and Rwanda and inner-city ghettoes in the richest nation on earth? Human history grinds on, between the time of promise and fulfillment. It's Saturday on planet Earth; will Sunday ever come?

Perhaps that is why the authors of the Gospels devoted so much more space to Jesus' last week than to the several weeks when he was making resurrection appearances. They knew that the history to follow would often resemble Saturday, the in-between day, more than Sunday, the day of rejoicing. It is a good thing to remember that in the cosmic drama, we live out our days on Saturday, the day with no name.

1. JESUS SAVES MY FAITH

"Why am I a Christian?" I sometimes ask myself, and to be perfectly honest, the reasons reduce to two: (1) the lack of good alternatives and (2) Jesus.

Martin Luther encouraged his students to flee the hidden God and run to Christ, and I now know why. If I use a magnifying glass to examine a fine painting, the object in the center of the glass stays crisp and clear, while around the edges the view grows increasingly distorted. For me, Jesus has become the focal point. I learned, in the process of writing this book, to keep the magnifying glass of my faith focused on Jesus.

I tend to spend a lot of time pondering unanswerable questions such as the problem of pain or providence versus free will. When I do so, everything becomes fuzzy. But if I look at Jesus, clarity is restored.

Jesus gave no philosophical answer to the problem of pain, but he did give an existential answer. I cannot learn from him why bad things occur, but I can learn how God feels about it. I look at how Jesus responds to the sisters of his good friend Lazarus, or to a leprosy patient banned from the town gates. Jesus gives God a face, and that face is streaked with tears.

Why doesn't God answer my prayers? I do not know, but it helps me to realize that Jesus himself knew something of that feeling. He prayed all night over his choice of disciples, and still that list included one named Judas. In Gethsemane he threw himself on the ground, crying out for some other way, but there was no other way. At its core, Gethsemane depicts, after all, the story of an unanswered prayer. The cup of suffering was not removed.

I can worry myself into a state of spiritual paralysis over questions like "What good does it do to pray if God already knows everything?" Jesus silences such questions: If Jesus saw the need to pray, so should I.

Mostly, Jesus corrects my fuzzy conceptions of God. Left on my own, I would come up with a very different notion of God. My God would be static, unchanging. Because of Jesus, however, I must adjust those instinctive notions. (Perhaps that lay at the heart of his mission?) Jesus reveals a God who comes in search of us, a God who makes room for our freedom even when it costs the Son's life, a God who is vulnerable. Above all, Jesus reveals a God who is love.

On our own, would any of us come up with the notion of a God who loves and yearns to be loved? Those raised in a Christian tradition may miss the shock of Jesus' message, but in truth, love has never been a normal way of describing what happens between human beings and their God. Not once does the Qur'an apply the word love to God. Aristotle stated bluntly, "It would be eccentric for anyone to claim that he loved Zeus" -- or that Zeus loved a human being, for that matter. In dazzling contrast, the Christian Bible affirms, "God is love" and cites love as the main reason Jesus came to earth: "This is how God showed his love among us: He sent his one and only Son into the world that we might live through him."

I remember a long night sitting in uncomfortable Naugahyde chairs in O'Hare Airport, waiting impatiently for a flight that was delayed for five hours. Author Karen Mains happened to be traveling to the same conference. The long delay and the late hour combined to create a melancholy mood. I was writing the book "Disappointment with God" at the time, and I felt burdened by other people's pains and sorrows, doubts and unanswered prayers.

Karen listened to me in silence for a very long time, and then out of nowhere she asked a question that has always stayed with me. "Philip, do you ever just let God love you?" she said. "It's pretty important, I think."

I realized with a start that she had brought to light a gaping hole in my spiritual life. For all my absorption in the Christian faith, I had missed the most important message of all. The story of Jesus is the story of a celebration, a story of love. It involves pain and disappointment, yes, for God as well as for us. But Jesus embodies the promise of a God who will go to any length to get his family back.

____________

Copyright (c) 1996 Christianity Today, Inc./CHRISTIANITY TODAY Magazine June 17, 1996, Vol. 40, No. 7, Page 29

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Stopping into one of the dollar stores this week, I couldn’t help but notice the display of reduced Easter memorabilia prominently arranged on a counter near the front doors. Alongside the plush toy bunnies, brightly colored plastic eggs, assorted dye kits and baskets lined with artificial grass were two items that stopped me in my tracks: candy crosses.

One expressed the hopeful message, “May His light shine upon you! Milk Chocolate Flavored, Net WT 1 Oz (28g),” while the other admonished, “Rejoice in the Wonder of the Day! Milk Chocolate Flavored, Net WT 1 Oz (28g).”

Is this now the summation of the death of Jesus — and of the cruel instrument of torture and execution on which he suffered? Are our marketing motivations in this “Christian nation” so strong that something this sacred is thus diminished and demeaned? Has the Cross of Christ really been reduced to a chocolate treat in a discount store?

When I was younger, I heard misguided criticisms of my Catholic brothers and sisters in the faith. That was years ago when many Baptists wondered if Roman Catholics were Christians at all. “Catholics focus too much on Good Friday, and in their churches, Jesus is still on the Cross,” someone would say, referring to a beautifully carved crucifix. “But Jesus isn’t there. The Cross is empty because Jesus is alive!”

But as I held in my hand what was once a focus of our faith and a symbol of suffering, now reduced to a sweet confection, I longed for a more thoughtful remembrance of Jesus’ final hours. Of course, I am not arguing for candy crucifixes, with milk chocolate figures of Jesus hanging on edible crosses. Instead, I would like for the “wonder of the day” not to be served up in 28-gram portions.

In an Easter special issue in 2015, Newsweek magazine examined the terrifying nature of the Cross and its purpose as a political tool of the Roman Empire: “In the age of Roman domination, only Rome crucified. And they did it often.... It was a popular method of dispatching threats to the empire. ‘Romans practiced both random and intentional violence against populations they had conquered, killing tens of thousands by crucifixion,’ says New Testament scholar Hal Taussig” of New York’s Union Theological Seminary.

Over time, after trying other vicious methods of capital punishment, the Romans realized that crucifying its state enemies was the greatest deterrent to rebellion and insurrection. The agonizing death of victims of crucifixion, as well as the punitive custom of leaving bodies on crosses to be picked apart by scavenger animals and birds, was absolutely shocking. Every aspect of death on a cross was a ghastly reminder of imperial power.

“Every aspect of death on a cross was a ghastly reminder of imperial power.”

But the horror has been hidden in our contemporary gospel choruses. In typical fashion, the lyrics of “Mighty Cross,” by Elevation Worship, move rather quickly to focus on our forgiveness purchased through Jesus’ death, as well as to gloss over the understandable panic that caused him to beg God for a different plan:

On the day that death surrendered to the mighty Cross of Jesus Christ,

The earth would shake, beneath the weight of darkened skies.

On his brow, a crown of sorrow for a King whose weakness was our strength.

No word he spoke, his love was shown for all to see.

Oh, the Cross of Jesus Christ, he’s the reason I’m alive.

For his blood has set me free. It will never lose its power for me!

But if one is not convinced by the theory of substitutionary atonement, then the rush past Jesus’ pain to our personal rescue is inappropriate. Suppose, for example, that other ancient meanings of the Cross which have been offered over the course of church history are considered.

Perhaps one is moved by the martyr motif that acknowledges Jesus as “the faithful witness (martus) ... who loves us and has freed us from our sins by his blood” (Revelation 1:5-6). Or maybe one is emboldened by the exemplar, or moral example, theory of the cross, where Jesus demonstrates, in his own suffering, that “no one has greater love than this, to lay down one’s life for one’s friends” (John 15:13).

In either case, the follower of Christ must contemplate the figure who was on the Cross for six excruciating hours. For he was either the ultimate witness, or martyr, testifying through his suffering to the power in weakness and vulnerability. Or he was the greatest illustration of godly compassion in his willingness to endure an evil execution.

So, could it be that we must not so quickly empty the cross of its victim, nor of alternate reasons that Friday should be called “Good”? Might the crucifix, indeed, be fitting even in our Baptist churches?

The crucifix is not only important in the Latin Rite of the Roman Catholic Church, but it has a prominent place in the Eastern Orthodox, Oriental Orthodox, Lutheran, Moravian and Anglican churches as well. Perhaps these Christian siblings of ours have much to teach us.

Often, Baptist congregations will sing a particular hymn on Easter Sunday: “Lo, in the grave he lay, Jesus, my Savior. Waiting the coming day, Jesus my Lord. Up from the grave he arose, with a mighty triumph o’er his foes. He arose the victor o’er the dark domain, and he lives forever with his saints to reign. He arose! He arose! HALLELUJAH, CHRIST AROSE!”

Excitement fills the air, as it should. There are smiles on faces. The praise team on the platform can’t keep from swaying in rhythm. The piano and organ are played as majestically as possible. Jesus is not on the Cross, he is alive!

It’s a cheerful time — a day for wearing our newest clothing, for taking family pictures in front of the flower-decorated chicken-wire cross, for sharing a wonderful meal around a table laden with food and served with the best china and cutlery.

To be clear, I love Easter Sunday also. I have sung that song with enthusiasm and joy. I have worn my best suit and taken those family photos too. I have enjoyed the pot roast and potatoes, the banana pudding and coffee.

“When I see the chocolate crosses, I think that celebratory elements of Easter may have received too much emphasis.”

But maybe we Baptists need more focus on Good Friday. When I see the chocolate crosses, I think that celebratory elements of Easter may have received too much emphasis. It’s not just that candy companies are selling crosses, possibly designed by imaginative Christians, but that these trivial snacks are intended for Christian shoppers, who are expected to buy them.

For many years, as a professor at Logsdon Seminary, I used several video episodes of a 1977 BBC documentary series, The Long Search. In that interesting presentation of religions around the world, London theater director Ronald Eyre explores the meaning of Theravada and Zen Buddhism, Hinduism, Judaism, Islam, Daoism, New Age spiritualities and African religions, as well as Protestant, Catholic and Orthodox Christianity.

The Orthodox episode was filmed in a Romanian village. I was moved by the Good Friday worship. Everyone in the hamlet, it seemed, gathered along the road for the procession of the priest, who ushered them into the small church. At the front of the room, a casket was resting upon two small tables of the same height, leaving perhaps four feet of empty space under the middle of the decorated wooden coffin. At the conclusion of the solemn service, the townspeople lined up and processed toward the physical symbol of Christ’s death, bowing their heads and stooping low to pass under the casket. It made me think of the words that generally accompany baptism: “buried with Christ and raised with him to walk in the newness of life.”

Why does my church celebrate Maundy Thursday and Easter Sunday but not Good Friday? How can so many Christians wear ornamental crosses around their necks or as bracelet charms or dangly earrings, when the original shape instilled fear and loathing?

What exactly is the wonder of the day? And will we sugarcoat his sacrifice by replacing the crucifix with chocolate candy?

________

Rob Sellers is professor of theology and missions emeritus at Hardin-Simmons University’s Logsdon Seminary in Abilene, Texas.

In his Easter sermon, "Victory for Us," Earl Palmer shows by an analogy from the Winter Olympics that Christ won a victory not only for himself, but also for us: "The high point of the Olympics from a sentimental standpoint is those award ceremonies. When the victors stand on those three pedestals, that's where everybody is crying. The three flags are raised, and the national anthem of the gold medalist is played.

"Something else is signified there: not only did [the various skaters] win, but their countries won, too. Not only their countries but their parents. Notice how the cameras try to find parents in the audience and the skaters' trainers and sometimes a whole town in Wisconsin--they all share in that victory. That's what makes it great. They won not only for themselves, they won for us, too. "In the Easter narratives of the New Testament, two great affirmations are made. One affirmation is that Christ has won the victory, and it's his alone. But the second theme, perhaps more subtly portrayed but also present in all the Gospel narratives, is that we too win a victory on Easter day. Our Lord's victory is his vindication, but it's also our vindication."

The positive approach fits the theme of resurrection and life.

"Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed," Jesus said to doubting Thomas after silencing his doubts with tangible proof of the Easter miracle. Except for the five hundred or so people to whom the resurrected Jesus appeared, every Christian who has ever lived falls into the category of "blessed." I ask myself, Why do I believe? -- I, who resemble Thomas perhaps more than any other disciple in my reluctance to accept what cannot be proved beyond doubt.

I have weighed the arguments in favor of the Resurrection, and they are indeed impressive. The English journalist Frank Morison dealt with most of the objections in the classic Who Moved the Stone? Although Morison had set out to discount the Resurrection as a myth, the evidence convinced him otherwise. Yet I also know that many intelligent people have looked at the same evidence and found it impossible to believe in the Resurrection. Although much about the Resurrection invites belief, nothing compels it. Faith requires the possibility of rejection, or it is not faith. What, then, gives me Easter faith?

One reason I am open to belief, I admit, is that at a very deep level I want the Easter story to be true. Faith grows out of a subsoil of yearning, and something instinctive in human beings cries out against the reign of Death. Whether hope takes the form of Egyptian pharaohs stashing their jewels and chariots in pyramids, or the modern American obsession with keeping bodies alive until the last possible nanosecond and then preserving them with embalming fluids in double-sealed caskets, we humans resist the idea of death having a final say. We want to believe otherwise.

I remember the year I lost three close friends in separate accidents. Above all else, I want Easter to be true because of its promise that someday I will get my friends back.

I suppose you could say I want to believe in fairy tales. I am not alone. Has any age not produced fairy tales? We first hear them in our cribs from parents and grandparents, and repeat them to our children, who will relay them to their children, and on it goes.

Even in this scientific age, the highest-grossing movies are variations on fairy tales: Star Wars, Aladdin, The Lion King. Astonishingly, in light of human history, most fairy tales have a happy ending. That old instinct, hope, billows up. Like life, fairy tales include much struggle and pain, yet even so they manage to resolve in a way that replaces tears with smiles. Easter does that, too, and for this as well as many other reasons, it rings true.

DEATH, BE NOT PROUD

The crowd at Jesus' crucifixion challenged him to prove himself by climbing down from the cross, little guessing what actually would happen: that he would die and then come back. Once the scenario played out, though, to those who knew Jesus best it made perfect sense. God has always chosen the slow and difficult way, respecting human freedom regardless of cost. "God did not abolish the fact of evil: He transformed it," wrote Dorothy Sayers. "He did not stop the crucifixion: He rose from the dead." The hero bore all consequences, yet somehow triumphed.

I believe in the Resurrection primarily because I have gotten to know God. I know that God is love, and I also know that we human beings want to keep alive those whom we love. I do not let my friends die; they live on in my memory and my heart long after I have stopped seeing them. For whatever reason -- again, I imagine, human freedom lies at the core -- God allows a planet where a man in the prime of life dies scuba diving and a woman is killed in a fiery crash on the way to a missions conference. But I believe that God is not satisfied with such a blighted planet. If I did not believe this, I would not believe in a loving God. Divine love will find a way to overcome. "Death, be not proud," wrote John Donne: God will not let death win.

THE STARTING POINT

There are two ways in which to look at human history, I have concluded. One way is to focus on the wars and violence, the squalor, the pain and death. From such a point of view, Easter seems a fairy-tale exception, a stunning contradiction in the name of God. That gives some solace, although I confess that when my three friends died, grief was so overpowering that any hope in an afterlife seemed somehow thin and insubstantial.

But there is another way to look at the world. If I take Easter as the starting point, the one incontrovertible fact about how God treats those God loves, then human history becomes the contradiction and Easter a preview of ultimate reality.

This, perhaps, explains the change in the disciples' perspective as they sat in locked rooms discussing the incomprehensible events of Easter Sunday. In one sense, nothing had changed: Rome still occupied Palestine, the religious authorities still conspired against them, death and evil still reigned outside. Gradually, however, the shock of recognition gave way to a long, slow undertow of joy. If God could do that...

One Guy Didn't

Three guys were tried for crimes against humanity.

Two guys committed crimes.

One guy didn't.

Three guys were given government trials.

Two guys had fair trials.

One guy didn't.

Three guys were whipped and beaten.

Two guys had it coming.

One guy didn't.

Three guys were given crosses to carry.

Two guys earned their crosses.

One guy didn't.

Three guys were mocked and spit at along the way.

Two guys cursed and spit back.

One guy didn't.

Three guys were nailed to crosses.

Two guys deserved it.

One guy didn't.

Three guys agonized over their abandonment.

Two guys had reason to be abandoned.

One guy didn't.

Three guys talked while hanging on their crosses.

Two guys argued.

One guy didn't.

Three guys knew death was coming.

Two guys resisted.

One guy didn't.

One.

Two.

Three guys died on three crosses.

Three days later.

Two guys remained in their graves.

One guy didn't.

Last November, Sports Illustrated magazine was covering the baseball World Series in which the Arizona Diamondbacks recovered from a slump to defeat the New York Yankees in the last inning of the final game. It started the editors thinking about the greatest comebacks in history. So they produced their list of the "Top Ten Comebacks of All Time."

I came across that article not long ago while killing an hour in the waiting room of a local tire store, thumbing through their old magazines.

The Sports Illustrated list was an eclectic one.

Elvis Presley was on it as a result of his TV special in 1968 that revived his sagging career.

Muhammad Ali made the list when he returned from his forced seven-year exile from boxing, to reclaim the world championship.

Harry Truman made the cut, owing to his 1948 victory over Thomas Dewey when all the polls had him losing by a large margin.

When Michael Jordan gave up baseball and returned to his first love of roundball, he found a spot on the top 10 comebacks in history.

Even humanity was on the list -- after recovering from the Black Plague of the 14th century when 25 million Europeans died.

Number two among the all-time comebacks was Japan and Germany, devastated in World War II but becoming world economic powers within a generation.

And number one, as named by the editors of Sports Illustrated magazine in the Nov. 12, 2001, issue for the greatest comeback of all time: Jesus Christ. AD 33. Stuns Romans and defies critics by his resurrection from the grave.

I sat there aghast, not believing my eyes. This was not Christianity Today magazine, but a men's sports publication. Secular stuff. From the type of editors and writers who generally tiptoe around the religious and apologize when a sports figure gives the Almighty credit for anything.

And there they are, acclaiming Jesus' victory over death as the most impressive comeback of the ages.

I knew it, of course. I'll bet you did, too. And it was just so impressive that they knew it -- and would say so in print.

But if they had asked me, I would have added two little words to the whole thing. I would have said these are the top 10 comebacks of all time "so far," because there is yet another comeback in the offing, one that will dwarf everything else on this or anyone else's list.

On trial before the high priest for his life, Jesus was asked, "Tell us whether you are the Messiah, the Son of God." He answered, "You've said it yourself. However, I will tell you this. Hereafter you shall see the Son of Man sitting at the right hand of power, coming on the clouds of Heaven."

Jesus Christ is coming back.

If you think the first time was spectacular -- with angels and a star and magi -- get ready to be shocked. This time, he brings with him all the angels in heaven, radiant in their splendor. This time, Jesus will not slip quietly into some out-of-the-way town, but we are assured every eye will behold him. We are told that every knee will bow before him. That every tongue of every human will confess that Jesus Christ is Lord. Every person will stand before the returning Christ and report in. It staggers the imagination.

He is King of Kings and Lord of Lords. And he's coming back to earth. Believers, get the word out. People need to know. Rejoice in what's coming. Laugh. You don't ever have to be afraid again.

The best news remains ahead.

*

A lot of people say, “I believe in the resurrection; I just don’t understand it.” Pollster George Gallup said even 84 percent of people who never go to church believe Jesus rose from the dead. It is historical fact; it wasn’t done in secret. The whole city of Jerusalem and the whole Roman Empire knew about it. It was news. If CNN had been there, they would have had it live.

There are at least 15 historical references to Jesus meeting people, touching people, and talking with people AFTER he had been crucified. One time he cooked breakfast for some people. One time he talked to about 500 people after he had risen from the dead. A lot of people saw him.

Jesus did rise, he is who he said he was, he has the power he said he had, and he keeps the promises he makes. So what? Why does the resurrection matter? What difference does it make? It matters for three reasons.

1. My past can be forgiven. That’s good news. Have you ever been halfway through a project and wished you could start over? A lot of times people feel that way about life. They get halfway through and wish they could start over. We have all done things we wish we hadn’t done, said things we wish we hadn’t said, and thought things we wish we hadn’t thought. We all have regrets. We all feel bad about things. We all have guilt.

A fellow pastor received this letter:

“I’m 31 years old and divorced, though I fought the divorce

bitterly. I feel bad. I have no hope for my future. Often I go

home and cry, but there’s no one holding me when I cry. Nobody

cares. Nothing changes, and I continue to fail. I’m stressed

our emotionally, and I feel I’m on the verge of a collapse.

Something is very wrong. But I feel so hurt and embittered that

I can scarcely react or relate to others anymore. I feel as if

I’m going to have to sit out the rest of my life in the penalty

box.”

The tragedy is, I know a lot of people like that. They can’t get on with the present and the future because they’re stuck in the past. Some guilt or regret has tied them down. Sometimes they’re letting a former relationship mess up their current relationship. They say, “I guess I’ll just have to live with this the rest of my life.”

Here’s the good news. Colossians 2:14 says: “He has forgiven all our sins and canceled every debt we owe. Christ has done away with it by nailing it to the cross.”

This is God’s pardon program. Jesus nailed it all to the cross. He paid for my guilt. That means I don’t have to pay for it. He was hung for my hand-ups. Jesus Christ was nailed to the cross, so I can quit nailing myself to the cross. He wants to forgive your past. He wants to cancel every debt you owe — emotional debts, relational debts, sins. All canceled.

2. My present problems can be managed. The number one complaint I hear from people today is this: “My life is out of control.” I hear it a thousand times:

I feel powerless to change the situation...

I feel powerless to break a bad habit...

I feel powerless to save a relationship...

I feel powerless to get out of debt...

I feel powerless to manage my schedule.

What you need is a power greater than yourself. You were never meant to live this life on your own power. God want to have a relationship with you. And here’s the good news. Ephesians 1:19-20 says: “How incredibly great is his power to help those who believe him, the same mighty power that raised Christ from the dead.”

The same power that enabled Jesus to rise from death will help you rise above your problems. The same power God used at the Resurrection 2,000 years ago can be used in your life right now. You don’t know what the future holds. I don’t either. I don’t know what’s going to happen next year, next month, next week. I don’t know what’s going to happen tomorrow, and neither do you. But it doesn’t matter, because even though it’s out of my control, it’s not out of God’s. He will give me the power to face it. Philippians 4:13 says: “I’m ready for anything through the strength of Christ, who lives in me.”

“I want to help out,” God says. Some of you came crawling in here — you’ve had a tough week. God wants to say to you this: “Don’t give up.”

No problem is too big for God. No situation is hopeless if you’ll turn it over to him. “I am ready for anything through the power of positive thinking”? No, it doesn’t say that. “I am ready for anything because I psyched myself up”? No. “I am ready for anything through the strength of Christ, who lives in me.”

3. My future can be secure. One of the universal problems we’ve all got is death. Let’s face it — everybody dies. I’m going to die someday, and so are you. Only a fool would go all through life unprepared for something he knows in inevitable. That doesn’t make sense. But sometimes we get so busy in the here and now, we don’t stop to think about what’s going to come.

People don’t like to talk about death. If you don’t believe me, invite your friends over, sit them down, serve them some coffee and pie, and say, “Let’s talk about death.” See what happens.

U.S. News & World Report ran a cover article called “The Rekindling of Hell.” It says more people believe in heaven and hell than ever before in American history. Why? Because people are wondering, “What’s going to happen?”

There are a lot of misconceptions about heaven. Most of them come from movies with bad theology: Heaven Can Wait; Oh, God; All Dogs Go To Heaven. These are cute little ideas of what somebody thinks heaven is going to be like.

What is it really going to be like? Let’s check it out with the source. When you go to the Bible, what does God say it’s really going to be like in heaven and hell?

Number one, heaven is a perfect place. Total love, total peace, total joy, total perfection. No sin, no mistakes, no evil, no bad, no errors. It’s perfect in every area.

The second thing the Bible says is that in order for you to go there, you have to be perfect, because only perfection can exist in heaven. You say, “Well, thanks a lot. That leaves me out.” Yeah, it leaves me out too. You say, “I’ll never make it if I have to be perfect.” Right! That’s the point. Neither will I. Neither will any of us, because none of us is perfect; we’ve all messed up.

There are two ways the Bible says you can get to heaven. Plan A is to earn it. That’s the performance plan. And to earn it you only have to do this: never sin and always do what’s right for the entire time that you live. Just be perfect.

Since none of us qualify for Plan A, God came up with Plan B, which is this: You trust Jesus Christ when he says, “I am the way, the truth and the life.” He was the only perfect person who ever lived, because he was God. He came so we could know what God is like. And by trusting and establishing a relationship with him, you get in on his goodness.

My friend Ron Dunn took his young son to a carnival one time for his birthday. His son picked six boys to go with him, so Ron bought a roll of tickets. Every line he’d come up to, he’d pull off seven tickets and give them to all the kids. When they got to the Ferris wheel, all of a sudden there was this eighth little kid with his hand out.

Ron said, “Who are you?”

The kid said, “I’m Johnny.”

Ron said, “Who are you, Johnny?”

Johnny said, “I’m your son’s new friend. And he said you would give me a ticket.”

Ron asked me, “Do you think I gave him one? Absolutely.”

When you get to heaven, you’ll say, “God, I can’t get in on my own effort. The only way I can get into heaven is because I’m a friend of Jesus Christ.” John 17:3 says: “This is the way to have eternal life: by knowing the only true God and Jesus Christ, the one he sent to earth.”

That’s what the Bible says. Jesus has already paid for your way to heaven. This is news you can use.

________

Rick Warren is pastor of Saddleback Church in Lake Forest, California. This column is excerpted from “What Difference Does Easter Make?” published by PreachingToday.com, issue 223.

Copyright © 2006 by the author or Christianity Today International/LEADERSHIP Journal.

*

[Original illustration at this number was a duplicate of HolwickID #1209]

Jesus is alive today

You ask me how I know?

Everywhere I see His love

That tells me it is so.

He comes to me at dawning

Rich blessings to bestow,

Then shows His love at evening

In the sunset's rosy glow.

His love is in the stars above

That glisten in the night,

In the sun to warm by day

And in the soft moonlight.

He tells me He is living

In every lovely flower;

In thunder and the lightning

I feel His mighty power.

Then when the storm is over,

I see the rainbow's hue

Glowing in the eastern sky

To pledge His faith anew.

His love is in the mountains

And in the wide, deep sea,

But oh, His love is greatest

When I think of Calvary.

Each day His love grows sweeter

I know it's here to stay.

There is no doubt, for in my heart

He is alive today!

DOES IT MEAN NOTHING TO YOU?

My children, I came to live with you.

I gave up my crown and throne to come be with you.

For 33 years I spoke truth and taught my ways.

Though I spoke the truth with love ...

Still you hear what you wanted.

I spoke of love and grace,

You hear works and striving.

Does it mean nothing to you?

My children, I died for you.

For a long way I carried your sin.

I wore the crown of suffering.

You nailed Me to your cross.

For six hours I hung there praying for you.

I prayed for God to take My life.

To take it as payment for your debts.

I breathed My last in love.

Does it mean nothing?

My children, I stand before you.

My hands outstretched in love.

Look, see My hands and My feet.

The wounds that speak of sacrifice.

These wounds shed blood mixed with tears.

My children I love you!

Does it mean nothing?

My children, you say it means everything.

You stand and sing My praises.

You claim My cross for your cause.

Yet your actions glorify Me not.

Your lips speak My Words.

Yet your heart plays different chords.

Does it mean nothing?

Does it mean nothing to you?

DOES IT MEAN NOTHING?

DOES IT MEAN NOTHING TO YOU?

By Michel J. Willard

"I belong to the King." So read the legend on the collar of a little terrier which followed King Edward's bier. He was a mere dog, and not beautiful at that. But he had been loved by the king, had lain on a king's knee, and had entree to royal apartments where courtiers and princes might not enter. Many were the affectionate glances he received as he trotted soberly in the funeral cortege, bearing this legend: "I am Caesar; I belong to the King." Thus many a lowly disciple has found himself exalted. Even humble service is worth while when one belongs to the King. Christ came to create this sense of relationship in us, to help us know ourselves and our privileges in Him. What temptations would be mastered; what bitterness accepted without complaint, what harsh words checked, what defilement indignantly repudiated, if in moments of stress we could say: "I belong to the King!" -- GEORGE C. PECK

By William Moses Tidwell, "Effective Illustrations."