With some very minor changes, this is a sermon I wrote and gave on Easter Sunday 2003. Please feel free to leave comments or send e-mails… I want to hear from YOU!



Sin is a four letter word! Or so it would seem in the context of many religions today… it must be the new math!

Some of you know that I had an opportunity to go on a ‘Walk to Emmaus’ some time ago, and one of the speakers there said that, “When the Church loses the word ‘SIN’ from its’ vocabulary, it loses the very language of salvation.” Now, I’m not going to preach to you this morning about sin… I’ll save that one for another day… but I do want you to learn what sin is. On my ‘walk’, I learned that sin was simply things being out of order! ‘What’s that’, you ask. Sin is simply a matter of getting things out of order. Sin and Order are directly related. You see, our God is a God of Order! And if you read and study His word, you should be well aware of what that order is.

For example, God’s order for our finances has always been to work, get paid for that work, and then spend what we have been paid to support ourselves. But over the last fifty or hundred years, we’ve been taught that it’s alright to spend our money before it has been paid to us, or even before we earn it! And just look at the turmoil that has caused in the finances of so many people today, and indeed in the world economy… all because we got things out of God’s order! In relationships, God’s order is to fall in love, get married, then sex. But in the fifties and sixties it became acceptable in this country for some to fall in love, have sex, and then get married. Our divorce rate, I heard, is approaching 80%! All because we have gotten things out of the order that God intended! I want to talk to you today just a little bit about order.

The church that I grew up in was very fundamental in its’ beliefs, and very ‘anti’ anything that wasn’t black-and-white in the Bible. This included most of the dates listed on a ‘Christian Calendar’, because none of the writers of the New Testament deemed them important enough to include in their writings. Most had been ‘chosen’ by a group of men sitting and discussing various historical aspects of different events and were not Biblically based. For example, we were taught, the day that most of the world chooses to celebrate the birth of Christ has no basis in Biblical history, so the day usually had little impact on our services, other than a remembrance of Christ as a man of peace, and many devout congregations refused to celebrate it in any form… they may exchange gifts to one another as a sign of their love for each other, but there would be no Christmas tree or decorations, nor any acknowledgement of the season.

The one date that they couldn’t argue with, however, was Easter! Jesus rode into Jerusalem to celebrate the Feast of Passover, and that date is on the Jewish calendar! So, Easter Sunday was Easter Sunday… period. But since Lent was a predominantly Catholic tradition, and so much was made by all of the other denominations about Palm Sunday and Holy Week, no mention was ever made of any of these things during my formative years. Instead, we condensed the entire Easter story into that one Sunday. And generally we concentrated on the death of Jesus on the cross as a sacrifice for our sins… which means that most of the Easter services I went to as a child were very somber affairs. And that’s too bad, because Easter is really about the resurrection of our Lord!

Some years back I had an opportunity to do the service in two small churches over in Pike County. Since it was Palm Sunday, I read the passage about Jesus triumphantly riding into Jerusalem on the colt of a donkey as the crowds all shouted “Hosanna! Hosanna! Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord!” Throughout this ‘Holy’ week many places have had special services or commemorations to observe Jesus’ overthrowing the tables of the moneychangers in the temple… sharing His ‘Last Supper’ with His disciples and giving them means to remember Him by… praying in the Garden of Gethsemane, and asking those with Him to remain awake… His betrayal by Judas and subsequent trial by the Jewish Counsel, Pilate, Herod, and Pilate yet again… and finally His walk to Golgotha as He dragged His cross, allowed Himself to be nailed to it and hung up until His earthly body was dead! Those who have participated in or at the very least considered these things throughout the week have surely come away with the overpowering feeling of unworthiness that each of us feel as we realize that He did all of this for our sake! And on this day… this Easter morning… we celebrate His triumph over death!

God’s order! To the men and women living at that time, it must have seemed inconceivable… indeed, verse nine of today’s reading (John 10:1-18) says that even after finding the tomb empty, “They still did not understand from Scripture that Jesus had to rise from the dead.” But… we have the advantage of four Gospel accounts and two-thousand-odd years of study to help us see all that happened over this period. And through it all we can see God’s hand at work orchestrating each event in such a manner so as to arrive at the end result… the death of His Son for the remission of our sins.

Did it hurt? Jesus was born into this world as one of us so that He might feel the pain that each of us feels in our lifetime! He knew the pain of loss… He knew the pain of hunger… He knew the pain of frustration and loneliness… He felt all of the same joys, fears, hopes and sorrows that each of us feel over the course of our lives! So, YES… He felt the pain of the lash as it came down on His back… yes, He struggled with the weight of His cross as He was forced to carry it to the hill… and yes, He felt each nail as it was driven into each hand and through His ankles… He felt the agony as His weight shifted to hang by those nails when they lifted the cross up and dropped it into a hole to keep it upright… He felt the thorns of the makeshift crown pierce the skin about His head! He felt all of these things… and knew that He would… but went through it anyway! Why? Because He knew the pain of loss… He knew the pain of hunger… He knew the pain of frustration and loneliness… He felt all of the same joys, fears, hopes and sorrows that each of us feel over the course of our lives… and He knew that each and every one of us was doomed to eternity in Hell unless a sacrifice was made for our sake.


Do you know that there are some clergy… indeed, some denominations… that claim to doubt that Christ actually rose from the dead? They profess that it doesn’t matter… that the life and teachings of Jesus are all that anyone needs to know in order to live a full life! In the fifteenth chapter of 1 Corinthians, Paul addresses the church at Corinth with these words…


But tell me this–since we preach that Christ rose from the dead, why are some of you saying there will be no resurrection of the dead? For if there is no resurrection of the dead, then Christ has not been raised either. And if Christ was not raised, then all our preaching is useless, and your trust in God is useless. And we apostles would all be lying about God, for we have said that God raised Christ from the grave, but that can’t be true if there is no resurrection of the dead. If there is no resurrection of the dead, then Christ has not been raised. And if Christ has not been raised, then your faith is useless, and you are still under condemnation for your sins. In that case, all who have died believing in Christ have perished! And if we have hope in Christ only for this life, we are the most miserable people in the world.

But the fact is that Christ has been raised from the dead. He has become the first of a great harvest of those who will be raised to life again.


So… why does it matter that Jesus was raised from the dead and left behind an empty tomb? Why do we believe that Jesus’ resurrection is the key to the Christian faith? The Life Application Commentary says that since Jesus rose from the dead, just as he said, we can be confident that He will accomplish all that He has promised. Also, Jesus’ bodily resurrection shows us that it is a living Christ… not a false prophet or impostor… who rules God’s eternal kingdom. And, because of the proof of Jesus being resurrected, we can be certain of our own resurrection. Death is not the end — there is future life. The Resurrection is the basis for the church’s witness to the world.

Again, in 1 Corinthians 15, Paul said, “I passed on to you what was most important and what had also been passed on to me–that Christ died for our sins, just as the Scriptures said. He was buried, and he was raised from the dead on the third day, as the Scriptures said. He was seen by Peter and then by the twelve apostles. After that, he was seen by more than five hundred of his followers at one time, most of whom are still alive, though some have died by now. Then he was seen by James and later by all the apostles. Last of all, I saw him, too, long after the others…” Jesus Lives!!!

In Acts 10, verse 37-43, Peter says, “You know what happened all through Judea, beginning in Galilee after John the Baptist began preaching. And no doubt you know that God anointed Jesus of Nazareth with the Holy Spirit and with power. Then Jesus went around doing good and healing all who were oppressed by the Devil, for God was with him.

“And we apostles are witnesses of all he did throughout Israel and in Jerusalem. They put him to death by crucifying him, but God raised him to life three days later. Then God allowed him to appear, not to the general public, but to us whom God had chosen beforehand to be his witnesses. We were those who ate and drank with him after he rose from the dead. And he ordered us to preach everywhere and to testify that Jesus is ordained of God to be the judge of all–the living and the dead. He is the one all the prophets testified about, saying that everyone who believes in him will have their sins forgiven through his name.”


Jesus Lives!!! So, how do we deal with those who claim that the resurrection isn’t important? By being aware of God’s order in everything! And the only way that we can do that is through the study of His word and constant prayer.

It is true that as a youth, my church concentrated on the cross on Easter morning. But that’s not to say that we didn’t know ‘the rest of the story’! We studied year ‘round about every aspect of Christ’s life, including His death and resurrection… we may have always spoken about it at Easter, but it was never limited TO Easter! At one of those small churches in Pike County where I preached that Palm Sunday, the pianist apologized for her unfamiliarity of the songs… after all, she only got to play them at Easter time! And that’s not right! The story of the Gospel of Christ… of His birth, His ministry, His miracles and teachings, His death on the cross and subsequent rising three days later all show how God works to bring about His order to things, and should be taught on a never-ending basis regardless of the time of year! After all, life in the Grace of God is not a destination… it is a journey! And to make that journey, we must discipline ourselves to be available to the Holy Spirit, model our lives after Christ, study the scriptures, and live a life of love!

Mary did not meet the risen Christ until she had discovered the empty tomb. She responded with joy and obedience by going to tell the disciples. By the same token, we cannot meet Christ until we discover that he is indeed alive… that his tomb is empty! Indeed, we must all be able to shout with full conviction, “I HAVE SEEN THE LORD!!!”