Dr. John Childers is the Pastor of South County Baptist Church in South St. Louis County, Missouri, USA. Click the Affiliated Church Directory link below to visit their web site.
(Romans 4:25)
It's not the fact that Jesus was dead following the crucifixion that makes Christ unique. He certainly wasn't the first, nor the last to die the horrible death inflicted by the Roman government to those considered to be its worst criminals. No, Jesus' death doesn't set Him apart in any way other than maybe its drama and its gore. But some might say, "So what? "Haven't you seen a Friday the 13th movie?" "Didn't you see The Exorcist?"
No, it's not that Jesus died that is significant. It's the Resurrection that sets Jesus apart. He died ...so will each of us .. but Jesus didn't stay dead! Again, some might say, "Neither did Jason (in the movie Friday the 13th) or Freddy (Halloween). So what if Jesus did come out of the tomb? What does that mean to me on this Easter Sunday morning?"
Well, it can mean everything!
First, it means that we can trust Jesus Christ. The resurrection means that Jesus Christ is what He claimed to be. It means that He was deity...God in the flesh. Easter means that Jesus was telling the truth when He said, "I and my Father are one." (John 10:30) And if we can trust Him for that, it is a lot easier to trust Him when He said that He came to save us from our sin. We can trust Him when He says that if we believe in Him we'll be saved. Jesus meant what He said ... and He said that there is no other way to salvation except through Him.
Hubert Humphrey said, "It's true that everyone has an equal right to speak, not all have earned an equal right to be taken seriously."
For example, if your surgeon tells you, "I had to remove one of your livers, but you'll be up and around in no time at all or I don't know my medicine." You'll have a difficult time taking him seriously.
Now, there are some things we won't take anyone's word for. The late Carl Sagan could tell us there are 300 billion stars in the universe and we'd believe him. But if, in the next sentence, he told us not to sit on that chair because it had just been painted, we would have to touch it to be sure.
So how does one gain credibility? There are a couple of ways:
1) Steal it. Someone said that people will accept your idea much more readily if you tell them that Benjamin Franklin said it first.
2) Earn it. Max Lucado tells the story of Dr. Evan O'Neill Kane who proved his theory of local anesthetics by removing his own appendix in 1921 at Kane Summit Hospital in New York. In doing so, he earned the ear of the entire medical community. That's credibility.
As soon as Jesus stepped out of that cave/tomb on Easter morning, he earned the right to be taken seriously. The resurrection means that we can trust Jesus at all that He says and we can believe that He wants the best for our lives.
Second, the resurrection means that God has provided everything we ever need to have fellowship with Him. Romans 4:25 says, Jesus was given to die for our sins, and he was raised from the dead to make us right with God.
When Jesus died, he paid the price for our sins - suffering spiritually and physically the whole way. When He was raised from the dead, He demonstrated God's power to conquer death and his desire to share that victory with all who will trust in Him. The resurrection is living proof that anyone can be saved by trusting in the cleansing power of Jesus' blood. How do you do that?
1) By believing in the Lord Jesus Christ - that means to mentally accept the fact of his perfect life, his equality with God, his sacrificial death, and his literal and eternal resurrection.
2) By accepting Him as your Lord and Savior - that mean to trust in Him with your heart as well as your head. It means that you place Him on the throne of your life (which means taking yourself off of that throne). This transfer of ownership results in a new focus in your life as well as new priorities. No longer are you seeking to "live only for yourself", but your desire is to serve the One who has provided forgiveness for your sin and eternal life.
The Bible tells us that you can be born again - that means that you can start your life all over, fresh - by accepting Jesus Christ as your Lord and Savior. Romans 10:9-10 says that "... we confess with our mouths that Jesus is Lord and believe in our heart that God raised Jesus from the dead, we will be made right with God." But you can't be saved without believing in the resurrection of Jesus Christ because unless He rose again, His death would mean no more than the death of any human martyr.
Many of the early Christians were beaten and killed - that's an historical fact which has been recounted in movies, books, and other writings. Do you know why? Not for preaching all of the teachings of Jesus about loving your neighbor as yourself, although He demanded such selfless love. Not for preaching that He would come back again at the end of the world, although He surely promised that He will. Not for proclaiming that Jesus was born of a virgin, though the Scriptures undeniably proclaim the miracle of Mary's pregnancy with the Messiah.
No, the unbelievers couldn't stand the truth of the resurrection because it is the hinge of all of the human story. If Satan could win in the battle for the resurrection, he'd have won everything. But Satan never won that battle! The war was won by Jesus Christ when He died and was raised up by God from the grave. In that victory, God gave us all we need for salvation.
Third, the resurrection means that Christ is the living companion of every person who puts his trust in Him. Jesus said in Matthew 28:20 "...I am with you always, to the very end of the age."
A grandfather was walking with his grandson and after a while he paused, look down at the boy and asked, "How far are we from home?"
"Grandpa, I don't know," said the boy.
"Well, do you know where you are?" asked the Grandad.
"No, grandpa, I don't know," came the little boy's reply.
Then the grandfather said good-naturedly, "sounds to me like you're lost."
The youngster looked up at his grandpa and said confidently, "Nope, I can't be lost . . . I'm with you!"
And that's how it is for us. Because of the resurrection, we can know that no matter how far out in the forest our lives go, we are never lost because the living Lord Jesus Christ - God in the flesh, raised from the dead by God as a means of providing for our salvation - our Savior is always with us.
That's what Easter means. And that's something worth giving our lives for!
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