Rev. David Holwick K Easter
First Baptist Church
Ledgewood, New Jersey
March 31, 2013
Acts 17:16-23,29-32
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I. People can find humor in the strangest things.
A. An Easter joke from an atheist website [modified a little].
A week after Easter, Jesus and Moses are walking along the
beach.
Moses says, "You know what? I'm going to try and part the
ocean again."
He throws his hands in the air and, magically, the ocean parts.
Jesus sees this and says, "I'm going to try to walk on water
again."
He walks up to the water, takes a step on top and sinks almost
immediately to his knees.
Moses says, "Try it again, Jesus. It's been a while."
Jesus takes a running start, but once more goes down like a
rock.
Moses puzzles over this, then says, "The last time you tried it,
did you have those holes in your feet?" [1]
1) Perhaps it is not so strange to find humor in Easter.
2) Orthodox churches have a tradition of telling jokes the day
after Easter. [2]
a) It is their way of celebrating the fact that God pulled
a fast one on Satan on Easter day.
B. Some think the joke is on us.
Back in 2011 a person on the internet who calls himself
"Orphan Soul" in Fort Worth put this comment online:
I [am] beginning to think that all of Christianity is a joke.
Easter was from a non-Christian source, the numbers don't add
up with the number of days [Jesus was] dead...
Did the Christians just completely convolute a story in place
of the facts even in the Bible because it sounded better
or is it just self-lying and passing the lies on to others
who are weak and impressionable.[?] #63999
1) Note that he doesn't just ridicule the Bible's account
of Easter.
2) He is mocking anyone who would believe in it.
II. Aspects of Easter are certainly questionable.
A. There is the obvious pagan element.
1) Word "Easter" itself refers to a European nature goddess.
a) The secular world uses almost no Christian symbols
for Easter, it's all bunnies and eggs.
b) At least with Christmas you see secular reference to a
manger every once in a while.
2) The rites of spring run deep, even in the church.
a) Lilies are okay, but it is their connection with beauty
and new life that ties in.
b) New hats and suits are a little better.
1> It would symbolize our new life in Christ.
2> But still not what Easter is really about.
B. Difficult details bother some people.
1) Fitting the traditional three days into the time frame.
a) If Jesus died on Friday afternoon, and was raised Sunday
morning, it seems like less than two days, much less
three.
1> Three full days would be 72 hours.
2> If Jesus died at 3:00 p.m. on Friday, and was raised
before dawn on Sunday, that is only 39 hours.
b) It is not an off-the-cuff mistake.
1> Early Christians, including Jesus, saw three days
in the grave being predicted in the Old Testament.
2> Jesus mentions it on several occasions.
c) Most likely solution is that it is not three 24-hour
days, but parts of three different days - Friday,
Saturday and Sunday.
2) The question of days is a minimal issue.
a) There is a larger question - do we really accept the
reality of a supernatural realm?
1> Things we cannot see: God, heaven, angels, etc.
2> Not just the physical and spiritual, but a new kind
of physical - a resurrection reality.
3> This requires quite a leap for modern thinkers.
b) Dead people don't normally come back to life.
1> They never have, not even in super-duper Bible days.
2> If Easter is true, and Jesus was really raised from
the dead, you need to bow before him.
III. Paul's sermon in Acts 17 presents Jesus to skeptics.
A. Like us, he was reaching out to a clueless culture.
1) Jesus and the concept of resurrection were foreign concepts
to the ancient Greeks.
2) They didn't want new bodies - becoming a pure spiritual
being was their ultimate goal.
3) To them, Paul's ideas sounded like a step backward.
B. They were clueless about the Bible and basic Christian beliefs.
1) On other occasions in the book of Acts, preachers quoted
from the Old Testament a lot.
2) Not here - instead, Paul quotes their own pagan philosophers.
a) He meets the Greeks on common ground.
b) Modern Christians should learn from this.
1> It doesn't do you much good to wave a Bible in front
of your neighbor's face.
A> They don't know the Bible.
2> But you can use common references to reach them,
like television shows or current events or sports.
A> God's principles are found everywhere, not
just in the Bible.
B> We believe religious yearnings are natural, even
if people aren't familiar with the religious
words we use for things like salvation.
C. God still requires repentance. 17:30
1) Ignorance is no excuse.
a) God will tap your shoulder one way or another.
b) Every one of us will be held accountable for our
beliefs and our actions. 17:31
2) The proof that God is real? Easter.
a) Paul wraps up his message by pointing to the resurrected
Jesus.
b) He will be our judge, but he can also help us believe.
c) If God can raise Jesus from the dead, he can do
anything.
IV. God still reaches people today.
A. Philosophers are not exempt.
One of the best-known American philosophers was Mortimer Adler,
who died in 2001.
He was born in a non-religious Jewish family.
At the University of Chicago he wrote extensively on philosophy
and helped universities, including Notre Dame, establish
"Great Books" programs.
In 1980 Adler wrote a book called "How To Think About God."
As he describes it, it was a book for pagans by a fellow
pagan -- himself.
The book sets out a rational basis for the existence of a God
who is impersonal and unknowable.
It was Adler's own "altar to an unknown God."
Adler could make rational sense of God's existence.
But this was the god of philosophers, an abstract idea of
something far off.
However, this was not Adler's last word on the subject.
One of his last books was a memoir entitled "A Second Look in
the Rearview Mirror."
Adler chronicled his journey from the god of the philosophers
to the God of Abraham, Moses and Jesus Christ.
After a trip to Mexico in 1984 he picked up some virus which
went undiagnosed and he became very ill.
There were lots of tests and long hospital stays, but nothing
seemed to help.
During one of these hospital stays Father Howells, the rector
of his wife's Episcopal church, visited Adler.
Sitting at Adler's bedside, the pastor prayed for his healing.
Unexpectedly, Adler says this prayer suddenly made him to choke
up and tears began to roll down his face.
This great thinker was brought to tears by a simple prayer.
Here is how Adler described it:
"The only prayer I knew word for word was the [Lord's Prayer].
On that day and in the days after it, I found myself repeating
the Lord's Prayer again and again, and meaning every word
of it.
Quite suddenly, when I was awake one night, a light dawned on
me, and I realized what had happened without my recognizing
it clearly when it first happened.
I had been seriously praying to God.
[I knew that] only if, by the gift of grace, one made the leap
of faith across the chasm to [this personal] God would one
engage in worship and prayer, believing in a good, loving,
just, and merciful God.
Here, after many years of affirming God's [philosophical]
existence, I found myself believing in God and praying to him.
I was saying voicelessly to myself, 'Dear God, yes, I do believe,
not just in the God my reason stoutly affirms, but the God to
whom Father Howell [prays], and on whose grace and love
I joyfully now rely.'"
Father Howells had had many philosophical discussions with
Adler, and had even invited him to lecture at his church.
But it was finally in that simple act of prayer to a personal
God, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, that God broke
through.
In that moment Adler took that leap of faith from the God of
the philosophers to the God who loved him in the person of
Jesus Christ.
#64000
B. Easter offers hope.
1) Modern culture is pretty pessimistic.
a) Gas will run out, after the price has hit $30 a gallon.
b) Global warming will wipe out the Jersey Shore.
2) God has other ideas.
a) Death and decay do not win. God does.
1> Easter is a foretaste of this.
b) Christianity calls for a positive outlook on life.
1> It deals head-on with the negatives, but offers a
way to overcome them.
2> Jesus suffered greatly, but ended up victorious.
3> If you have a personal commitment to Jesus,
you will be victorious as well.
A> You may experience tremendous heartache and
unexplainable suffering.
B> But you can have confidence that God has the
last word.
V. If you really believed in Easter, what difference would it make?
A. You would want others to know.
1) Christians tend to live in a spiritual ghetto.
a) We hang around people who are just like us.
2) We need to be engaged in the world.
B. You would live differently yourself.
1) You would take life more seriously than those who just live
for the next paycheck, the next weekend or vacation.
a) Life isn't a joke. It is serious stuff.
b) God has a reason for putting you here.
c) It is your duty to find what that reason is.
2) All of us will answer to God some day.
a) What will the testimony of your life be?
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SOURCES FOR ILLUSTRATIONS USED IN THIS SERMON:
1. This joke went over like a lead balloon, as expected, but it made a
nice transition to the theme of the sermon. The source is
<http://www.atheistnexus.org/forum/topics/blasphemous-easter-jokes>
2. This detail come from Rev. Donald Strobe, Kerux Sermon #26400.
#63999 “Easter is a Joke,” by Rev. David Holwick, quoting “Orphan Soul”
at <http://orphansoul.blogspot.com/2011/05/easter-is-joke.html>,
May 1, 2011.
#64000 “A Philosopher Finds Jesus Through a Simple Prayer,” adapted by
Rev. David Holwick from Rev. Leonard J. Vander Zee's sermon
“Paul And The Philosophers.” Kerux Sermon #22800;
<www.sbcrc.org/sermons/sermons.html>.
These and 35,000 others are part of the Kerux database that can be
downloaded, absolutely free, at http://www.holwick.com/database.html
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