Rev. David Holwick Eastr97m Easter 1997
First Baptist Church
Ledgewood, New Jersey
March 30, 1997
John 5:21-25
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I. Concept of Easter has a powerful appeal.
A. Incredible tragedy of Heaven's Gate cult.
1) Million dollar morgue.
2) Testimonies of leaving earthly shells for spaceship.
3) Eerily echoes Easter.
B. The enticement of resurrection.
1) Transformation to a higher level of existence.
2) No more pain, aging or death.
3) No more moral failure, perfect love for eternity.
4) Supernatural abilities.
II. The possibility of resurrection.
A. We would like it to be true, but this doesn't make it so.
1) To skeptics, Easter is no more reasonable than UFO's.
2) Mention of resurrection is limited to Easter and funerals.
a) Is it any more than a religious fantasy?
b) More reasonable than a spacecraft following a comet?
B. Evidence of resurrection.
1) Human yearning cannot be discounted.
a) Not proof, but all humans long for something more.
2) Testimony of Bible.
a) Gospels give different angles, but all are in agreement.
b) Witnesses gave up their lives for their belief.
3) Testimony of changed lives.
III. How resurrection is obtained.
A. Cult attained it through suicide.
1) Three influences: Easter, millennium, Comet Hale-Bopp.
2) High tech Gnosticism.
B. Jesus attained it through power of God.
1) His preference was to live, and he prayed for this.
2) He accepted death as God's will.
C. For us, resurrection comes not by death but by new life.
1) New life is a gift from Jesus. John 5:21
a) Emphasis in not on pre-destination, but grace.
b) We must honor Jesus as God. John 5:23
c) Jesus is not optional, but necessary.
2) Hear word, believe, cross over to life. John 5:24
D. Crossing over happens now, not later. John 5:25
1) Those who believe HAVE eternal life.
2) It is a present possession.
3) Future, physical resurrection is icing on the cake.
a) For some, death won't even intervene. (Rapture)
IV. The dead need to rise.
A. Living dead people are in view. John 5:25
1) Bible speaks of us being "dead in our sins."
2) Until we are reconciled to God, we are not really alive.
B. A culture of death.
1) Fits in with abortion, euthanasia, Dr. Kevorkian.
2) We want control over everything, including our deaths.
3) Jesus' mission is that we might be truly alive. John 10:10
C. Dead or alive?
1) Where do you stand?
2) Many feel no joy or purpose in life.
3) We know the cultists are nuts, but we have no better answers.
4) Consider Jesus.
V. Coming alive.
A. Having Jesus changes things.
1) New beginnings for Vietnamese girl. (through faith)
Most people my age remember the Vietnam War, and everyone
else had heard about it.
Perhaps the most painful image of that long war was a photo
of a nine-year-old South Vietnamese girl running naked
down a highway.
Her skin had been seared by napalm after a bomb attack ordered
by an American commander.
The little girl's arms were stretched out as though in
supplication, her face contorted in a scream of pain and
terror.
The image earned the photographer a Pulitzer Prize and helped
turn the heart of a nation against the war.
Her name was Phan Thi Kim Phoouc, and she was rushed to the
hospital by the photographer, where she was treated for
third-degree burns.
Her wounds were so severe that every time they were cleaned
and dressed the pain caused her to lose consciousness.
Later, the Communist Vietnamese government discovered that
she was the "girl in the picture" and paraded her
endlessly in anti-American propaganda.
She was forced to pull up her sleeves and exhibit the deeply
ridged skin to visitors from around the globe.
Then, as an adult, her life changed dramatically: A group of
believers introduced her to the joy of new life in Christ.
Eventually she went to Cuba where she met a young Vietnamese
man who shared her Christian faith.
They married, and on their honeymoon the young couple
defected to Canada.
Getting off the plane in a strange country, without money,
without family, and without friends, Kim Phoouc was buoyed
up only by her intense faith.
"God guided me.... I go by faith," she told an National
Public Radio interviewer.
Today the couple lives in Toronto with their small son.
Last fall, Kim Phoouc, now 33 years old, laid a wreath of
flowers at the Vietnam War Memorial.
There she stood, slim and radiant before the black polished
granite, with a remarkable message:
She was extending forgiveness to those who had once bombed
her family and countrymen.
"I have suffered a lot from both physical and emotional pain,"
Kim said.
"Sometimes I thought I could not live, but God saved my life
and gave me faith and hope."
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2) Real power to change.
It is a fitting image for Easter, when we celebrate the power
of the Resurrection over the forces of death itself.
A world of sin will never be free of war and destruction.
Time and again we are promised that THIS is the "war to end
all wars."
But time and again the promise proves empty, and conflict
breaks out somewhere else in new forms.
The only power that conquers sin and evil is the Cross;
the only power that provides real peace is the Resurrection.
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B. An Easter emphasis in life.
1) We should be changed people.
a) Our hatreds should be transformed into love.
b) Conquer addictions, fears, sins.
c) Love as Jesus loves (enemies, not just friends).
2) We should be people-changers.
a) NJ ministry "Heaven's Gate" that helps the hungry.
1> Cultists wanted to "evacuate" this world.
2> Christians want to redeem it.
b) Christianity is not just saving your own soul.
1> Be concerned about everyone else's.
2> Whose life are you going to touch this year?
VI. Have you had your Easter?
A. Becoming a Christian is a conscious, life-changing decision.
1) An awareness that something in us in just not right.
2) A recognition that only God can transform, save us.
B. Those who have it, know it.
1) Salvation is not a stab in the dark.
2) It does not require us to change first.
3) We can know it because Jesus does it for us.
C. Making Easter-faith central in our lives.
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