Gloria Dei Lutheran Church | Urbandale, Iowa

Easter: Redefining Hope

Pastor Burcham’s Sermon

Easter Sunday, April 4, 2010

Grace, mercy and peace to you from God our Father and our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. Amen.

The wide use of the cell phone redefined personal communication. Prior to the cell phone, if you wanted to make a call, you had to use a device that was tethered to a wall through wires, which means that either you had to be in your home or you had to be in a place of business or, I guess as a last resort, you’d have to use a pay phone, but you were pretty limited on when you could make a call. Now, because of the cell phone, you can be sitting in the middle of Saylorville Lake pretending you’re hard at work at the office. The cell phone has redefined personal communication.

The Apple II personal computer redefined what it is to be a computer. Prior to Apple, computers were large beasts that lived in university campuses or in big businesses. And highly trained personnel needed to run them but then Apple came out and, all of a sudden, it fits on your desktop and the average American could get frustrated at the green screen. Apple redefined the computer.

The GPS unit has redefined travel for us. Prior to the GPS unit, if you wanted to go across the state or if you wanted to go across the country, it took a long series of maps and the continuous drone from the backseat saying, “Dad, would you please just ask for directions?” But now, punch in the coordinates and this happy little voice tells you every turn and even gives you an estimated time of arrival. It has redefined travel for us.

And the resurrection of Jesus Christ has redefined hope. What we celebrate today, the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, has redefined hope for us. Prior to this, hope was something that you could envision. You hope for something that you could imagine, a scenario that you could paint in your mind. If you couldn’t picture it, even if it was far stretched, well then, it simply was beyond hope.

For instance, I can hope that tomorrow it’s going to be 75 and sunny. Now I don’t know if it’s going to be 75 and sunny but that’s a reasonable hope, wouldn’t you agree? It might hit it. I could hope that tomorrow will be 90 degrees and sunny. That’s a bit of a stretch, it’s April. But hey, we hit 87 on Thursday, right? It could happen. Now if I said I hope tomorrow it hits 125 and sunny, you say, “No. No, that’s beyond hope.” Because we can’t imagine, in April of all places, let alone in Iowa, that we’re going to hit 125 degrees. That’s beyond hope.

Another example, I could say, “I hope that the Cubs will have a winning season.” It could happen. It could happen. I could say, “I hope the Cubs make it to the playoffs.” That could happen, stretching it a bit. But now if I say, “I hope the Cubs win the World Series,” you understand what I’m saying. Some things are beyond hope.

That’s because we have defined hope by what we can imagine, what we can envision. But Jesus, He redefines hope. Let me show you what I mean. Just a few moments ago, we read about two disciples. They leave Jerusalem, they’re heading to a neighboring town called Emmaus. They’re walking along. They watched Jesus die. It’s three days later. It’s Sunday afternoon. Jesus comes up. They don’t recognize Him. He starts talking. He says, “Man, you guys look sad. What’s up? What’s going on?” They say, “Are you the only guy around here that doesn’t know what’s happening?” He says, “No. Tell me what’s happening.” So they do. And they say, “Haven’t you heard about Jesus of Nazareth? He was a prophet, powerful in word and deed before God and all the people. The chief priests and our rulers handed Him over to be sentenced to death and they crucified Him. But we had hoped that He was the one who was going to redeem Israel. And what’s more than that, it’s the third day since all this took place. In addition, some of the women amazed us. They went to the tomb. He wasn’t there. They saw a vision of angels and said that He’s alive.” Now did you catch how they put that? They had hoped that He was the one.

They had hoped that He was the Messiah. They had hoped that God was going to use Him to redeem Israel but no longer because now they’re beyond hope. It’s significant that they tell Him it’s three days later. In the Jewish belief system, after three days, the soul has left the person. So on Friday, certainly their hopes were dashed but maybe. Maybe if they stretched it, they could envision something happening. One day later, while it’s going to be rough, but possibly. Two days, that’s really a stretch, maybe God has something amazing. But three days? Three days, no. Three days, they are beyond hope and that’s when Jesus redefines hope for us.

Scripture goes on to say that beginning with Moses and the prophets, He reveals to them through the scriptures everything that has been said about Himself. A little bit later on, He breaks bread with them and He reveals Himself to be alive and He defines hope because hope is not based upon what you can do. It is based upon what God has done. And what God has done is sent His one and only Son to live among us. What God has done is sacrificed His Son for our sins. And what God has done, He has raised His Son to life and that’s what we celebrate today and it is the resurrection of Jesus that redefines hope. It redefines hope for you right here, right now, today.

Because I don’t know about you, but I need hope. Have you looked at our world lately? Have you seen all the things that are going on? We have wars that seems like there’s no end in site. We have terrorists who have lost their minds. They are doing things that are unheard of and they are relentless in their attacks to us. What about our economy? They keep telling us it’s getting better. Tell it to the guy who lost his job last week. And with all the advancements that we have in the medical field, have you ever noticed in all the reports, there seems to be a growing number of maladies that seem to affect the American people. It seems to be increasing.

In fact, I came across something interesting. Bob Garfield is a reporter and he decided to look at all of the medical journals and he took a pile of lists of all the different things they said that are wrong with the American people and then totaled them all up. This is his partial list: 53 million Americans suffer from heart disease, 25 million from migraines, 16 million struggle with obesity, 3 million with cancer, 2 million with severe brain disorders. And the list goes on from there. He totaled it all up. 543 million Americans suffer from a serious illness. It’s a staggering number. 543 million Americans. It’s really staggering when you consider that only 266 million people live in this country.

What I’m saying is that we, as a country, are beyond hope. When you have news like that coming, if hope is based upon solutions that you can come up with, if it’s based upon scenarios that you can imagine, that you can envision, then, my friends, we are beyond hope. Because there’s too much in this world that happens which is out of our control and that we don’t have solutions for.

When your spouse walks out the door, you’re beyond hope. When your teenager runs away, you’re beyond hope. When the job is gone, you’re beyond hope. When the test results aren’t good, you’re beyond hope. When your best friend dies, you’re beyond hope. When things happen in our lives that are completely out of our control and we can’t come up with a solution, that’s when it’s beyond hope. And that’s why we need the resurrection of Jesus to redefine hope.

Because the resurrection of Jesus says that He goes beyond hope. There’s more than the hope that you and I can envision. There’s more that could happen in ways that God can amaze us with the things that He has done. When we move beyond hope and get into God’s realm, that’s when hope is restored and it is redefined.

Listen to what God’s word says in Romans 8, “Christ Jesus who died, more than that, who was raised to life and is at the right hand of God and is also interceding for us.” Christ Jesus who died, okay, I can imagine that. I understand that. But more than that, was raised to life. I don’t understand that. I don’t know about you. Raised to life? More than that, he was raised to life and now He’s sitting at the right hand of God interceding for us. What I’m saying is God goes beyond what we can imagine. God goes beyond what we can envision.

The disciples on the road, they had lost all hope because they never imagined what was going to happen. And just at the moment that they felt they were beyond hope, Jesus shows up and redefines it.

My friends, just about the moment that you think you are beyond hope, Jesus is going to show up and redefine it. He’s going to show you solutions and scenarios that you could have never dreamed of, could have never come up with on your own. You see, Jesus said, “I am with you always to the end of the age.” He is with us always because He’s not dead. He’s alive.

You see, we worship and we follow a living God, a living God who is with us every moment of every day. He’s not dead but He is alive and He has redefined hope for us. So the next time tragedy comes knocking at your door, the next time your world is spinning out of control, remember that Jesus has redefined hope and try the three-day rule.

The three-day rule: The three-day rule is based upon Jesus. Consider this. Consider the day Jesus had on Friday. If you can come up with a worst day than what Jesus had on Friday, I challenge you to tell me about it. In one day, one of his close companions turns Him over to His enemies. The other eleven close companions all run away. One of his closest friends, swearing like a sailor, that he doesn’t know Him and he wants nothing to do with Him. He is arrested. He’s beaten. He’s mocked. He’s spit upon, nailed to a cross and hung out to dry. And if that wasn’t enough, His heavenly Father takes the weight of the sin of the world and puts it on His shoulders and He makes the payment. And then He literally goes through hell, breaths His last and dies. Now if you have a worst day than that, let me know about it. That’s Friday for Jesus.

Three days later, He walks out of the tomb in all of His glory and all of His majesty. Give it three days. The next time your world is spinning out of control because of some news that you got, give it three days. I’m not saying that it’s going to all disappear. I’m not going to say that magically life is going to be wonderful after that. What I am saying is you have three days to pray about it. You have three days to gain perspective. And I guarantee you, three days later, it won’t seem nearly as bad as what it did when you first heard it. Give it three days and remember that you worship a God who has redefined hope. And it doesn’t matter that you can’t come up with a solution because, just about the moment that you’re beyond hope, Jesus shows up with solutions you have never dreamed of. He has redefined hope for you here, right now, today.

But He’s done more than that. He redefines hope from your past. It’s great that God redefines our hope for right now, right here and going into the future but what about yesterday? What about last week? What about last year? What about five years ago? You see, I look out at all of you and you all walked in here all dressed up nice. You have smiles on your faces but I know that some of you have heavy hearts. I know that some of you came here this morning carrying a lot of baggage because you have the baggage from your past. So if regret and remorse are your best friends, you know what I’m talking about. If you have regrets of things that you have done in your life, if you have remorse over poor decisions and bad decisions that you have made, then you know what I’m talking about. If you feel uncomfortable being here because you think you’re surrounded by a lot of people who are better than you and there are these churchy people but you went for the family, so you came today but this is the last place you want to be because it’s convicting of you and you’re feeling a lot of guilt right now, you understand what I am talking about. And right now, you may think that you have gone too far, that you’ve stepped over the line and that you are beyond hope; in fact, I want to know do you feel like you are beyond hope? If you don’t, you should.

Oh no, you heard me right. If you don’t, you should. Every single one of us, if we don’t think that we’re beyond hope, we should because there’s not one person here who can stand in judgment at another person because God’s word is very clear on this. God says that if you break just one of His commandments, you’ve broken all of His commandments. My friends, none of us can escape our past. None of us can go back and change the past, which means we’re all in trouble, which means that all of us are beyond hope.

And that’s why we need the resurrection of Jesus to redefine hope for us. Listen how He redefines hope. We go to 1 Peter 1, “Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord, Jesus Christ. In His great mercy, He’s given us a new birth into a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead.” He’s given us a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead. On Friday, Jesus paid the penalty for our sin. On Friday, Jesus died for our sins. On Friday, He took all of our regrets, all of our remorse upon His shoulders. He went through hell so we wouldn’t have to and He died so we wouldn’t have to. On Friday, He died for our sins. But on Sunday, He declares it success. On Sunday, when He rises from the grave, He declares His victory.

My friends, if Jesus had not risen from the dead, He would have been just one more prophet in a long line of prophets that died a tragic death. But Jesus didn’t. Jesus came out of that grave. His resurrection shows Him to be the Son of God. His resurrection shows that He has defeated death, that He has defeated sin itself. Because of the resurrection of Jesus Christ and His victory, God doesn’t remember our past anymore. Scripture says that He chooses not to remember our sins. It’s been wiped clean. So that each one of us, because of the blood of Jesus, because of His death and because of His resurrection, can stand before God in all righteousness and appear to Him to be holy without sin. He releases us from the past. He redefines hope from your past.

But He doesn’t stop there. He redefines your hope for the future. It’s great that He redefines our hope for today and for the past but what about the future?

This past Thursday, I had the privilege of being at the Iowa Prayer Breakfast. I love going there during my Holy Week. It’s always on Maundy Thursday, early in the morning. They always have great speakers who are there, the same this year, a great speaker. But they all start out kind of the same way. It’s early in the morning, it’s 7:00 a.m. so for some people, it’s really early. So he wants to get everybody woken up, so he comes up and he says, “Good morning!” And we all go, “Yeah, good morning.” He says, “No, no, good morning!” “Oh, good morning.” “Great day to be alive, isn’t it?” And everybody says, “Yeah, it’s a great day to be alive.” “It’s a great day to be alive, isn’t it?” “Yeah,” we kind of arouse a bit, “Yeah, it’s great to be alive.” “Better than the alternative, don’t you think?” Is it? St. Paul said for me to live is Christ; to die is gain.

Uh, oh. Isn’t the alternative where all of our dreams come true? Not that we want to cut this life short, but isn’t the alternative to this life everything we’re hoping for, where all of our dreams come true, where we will be in eternity with God? There is no sin. There’s no sorrow. There’s no pain. There’s no snow. There’s no humidity. I’m talking paradise. For an eternity, we will live in paradise. Isn’t the alternative better than the current life that we have?

So our hope, although it’s good for today, it’s good for hope from the past, doesn’t it need to go beyond that? Listen to what St. Paul said to the Church at Corinth, “If only for this life we have hope in Christ, we’re to be pitied more than all men.” If it’s only for this life that we have hope in Christ, as good as that is, we should be pitied more than all people. How long is this life going to last? 90? 100? 120? How does that compare to 1,000? To 10,000? To 100,000?

You see, the resurrection of Jesus redefines our hope for the future. The very next verse reads this way, “But Christ has indeed been raised from the dead, the first fruits of those who have fallen asleep.” Jesus Christ has been risen from the dead and He’s the first. He’s the first of all of us because His victory is our victory. His resurrection means our resurrection. Because of the resurrection of Jesus Christ, you and I are going to spend an eternity in paradise where all of our dreams are going to come true. We’re going to live with our God. And He promises that we’re not going to live as some spirit or some essence out there.

Scripture says you’re going to be given a new body, a perfect body. You’re going to live in a new earth, a perfect earth. And you’re going to live with your God. He says there will be a new earth and a new heaven. We’re going to go all the way back to the way God originally created and designed us to be, to live in paradise and in harmony with Him, real tangible beings that have bodies but perfect bodies that live on the earth but a perfect earth. That’s what’s waiting for us.

It’s a great day to be alive but the alternative is even better. We don’t want to cut it short. It’s a great day to be alive but the alternative is so much better. Maybe you haven’t heard it that way before but that’s because the resurrection of Jesus has redefined hope. It’s redefined hope for you here today right now. It’s redefined hope from your past and wipes it clean. And He redefines hope for your future, for your eternity. Amen.