Sermon Tone Analysis

*STEVE – Bothwell & Clachan March 30, 2008*

*Series: 50 days of “Easter” Why Did They Believe This?*

*Message: No. 01.

“Can He Really Be Alive?”*

1 Peter 1:3-9; John 20:19-31; Acts 2:22-32                                        

 

*INTRODUCTION*

*Easter in Us*

The Jesuit poet Gerard Manley Hopkins once wrote an ambitious poem entitled 'The Wreck of the Deutschland.'

It commemorates the death of five Franciscan nuns who drowned as the German ship Deutschland sank at the mouth of the Thames in the winter of 1875.

One half-line especially intrigues me: 'Let him Easter in us.' Let Christ 'Easter' in us.

A rare verb indeed, but it suits this post-Easter season.[1]

With that in mind, I would like to use a similar theme for the next few Sundays.

But instead of Manley’s “Easter in Us” I want to use the phrase “50 Days of Easter.”

The “50” refers to the length of time from Easter Sunday until Pentecost Sunday.

That occasion is celebrated in the Bible as the day on which the Holy Spirit came upon the Disciple~/followers of Jesus after he had ascended into Heaven.

This year that day falls on Mother’s Day.

As we check out some of these readings and themes I hope it will provide us with an opportunity to reflect on whether we do believe that Jesus is alive in our world, and if so, is present and alive in our hearts.

*Faith in the Unseen*

There are at least two ways to look at belief; the first, although humorous, might also be seen as rather negative.

Vesper Bauer of Audubon, Iowa, writes in the Christian Reader:

My aunt and uncle had a missionary family visiting.

When the missionary children were called in for dinner, their mother said, "Be sure to wash your hands."

The little boy scowled and said, "Germs and Jesus.

Germs and Jesus.

That's all I hear, and I've never seen either one of them."[2]

But just because we cannot see something does not mean that it is not real.

Although we also cannot see them with the naked eye, the germs, viruses, and bacteria that cause diseases, such as Flesh Eating Disease and the common cold, are also real.

We see the results of their presence in our bodies.

*Christ's Alive and at Church Today *

The other way of looking at faith is exhibited by the youthful enthusiasm of the following young boy.

Peggy Key, of Portage, MI. writes in Today's Christian Woman:

While driving to church on Easter Sunday two years ago, I told my children the Easter story.

"This is the day we celebrate Jesus coming back to life," I explained.

Right away, my 3-year-old son, Kevin, piped up from the back seat, "Will He be in church today?"[3]

That was the challenge that faced Thomas in our reading from Johns Gospel.

Would Jesus ever be at Church again?

*Do we think he is dead or alive?*

In his book "Living Jesus" Luke Timothy Johnson declares: The most important question concerning Jesus, then, is simply this: Do we think he is dead or alive?

If Jesus is simply dead, there are any number of ways we can relate ourselves to his life and his accomplishments.

And we might even, if some obscure bit of data should turn up, hope to learn more about him.

But we cannot reasonably expect to learn more from him.

If he is alive, however, everything changes.

It is no longer a matter of our questioning an historical record, but a matter of our being put in question by one who has broken every rule of ordinary human existence.

If Jesus lives, then it must be as life-giver.

Jesus is not simply a figure of the past in that case, but a person in the present; not merely a memory we can analyze and manipulate, but an agent who can confront and instruct us.

What we can learn about him must therefore include what we continue to learn from him.[4]

This is the same type of shocking new reality that faced the two disciples who had traveled that Easter afternoon with the mysterious stranger on the Road to Emmaus.

It led them to rush back, even though during a dark night, to share “good news” with the other disciples, still huddling behind the locked doors of the Upper Room where Jesus, not so many days before, had led them through his “Last Supper.”

*HOW DO WE APPROACH THE UNBELIEVABLE?*

It is not easy to embrace the unbelievable.

Eugene Peterson writes this about “Resurrection's Difficulty”:

The do-it-yourself, self-help culture of North America has so thoroughly permeated our imaginations that we don't give much sustained attention to the biggest thing of all: resurrection.

And the reason we don't give much attention to it is because the Resurrection is not something we can use or manipulate or control or improve on.

It is interesting that the world has had very little success in commercializing Easter, turning it into a commodity, the way it has Christmas.

If we can't, as we say, "get a handle on it," and use it, we soon lose interest.

But resurrection is not available for our use; it is exclusively God's operation.[5]

So how does our world try to get a handle on things?

Especially things that it cannot see, taste or touch, like “truth”?

 

*THE WAY THAT THE WORLD LOOKS AT BELIEF*

*“Secondhand Lions": Does Truth Matter?*

A few years ago during “30 Hour Famine” we were introduced to the movie “Secondhand Lions.”

At the heart of the movie, is a scene that teaches an idea about beliefs and truth that sounds good but is a far cry from what the Bible teaches about faith.

Walter (Haley Joel Osment) lives with his mother, a selfish woman who chases after men, often to the neglect of her young teenage son.

But when she decides to move to Las Vegas, she leaves Walter in Texas with two distant relatives, Uncle Garth (Michael Caine) and Uncle Hub (Robert Duvall).

While there, Uncle Garth tells Walter an epic story of how Uncle Hub spent 40 years in the glamorous French Foreign Legion, sword fighting with sheiks in Africa and loving a princess named Jasmine.

One night, out by his uncle's pond, Walter confronts Uncle Hub.

Walter's mother has lied to Walter many times; he is disillusioned with life, with growing up; and he secretly hopes that Uncle Hub really is the heroic father figure Uncle Garth has told him about.

Walter hopes that someone, anyone, can tell him how to be a man.

"Those stories about Africa," Walter asks, "about you—they're true, aren't they?"

"Doesn't matter," Uncle Hub answers.

"It does too.

Around my mom, all I hear is lies.

I don't know what to believe in."

"If you want to believe in something," says Uncle Hub, "then believe in it.

Just because something isn't true, that's no reason you can't believe in it."

Walter stares at him, confused.

Uncle Hub continues, "There's a long speech I give young men; sounds like you need to hear a piece of it…just a piece.

Sometimes, things that may or may not be true are the things a man needs to believe in the most—that people are basically good; that honor, courage, and virtue mean everything; that power and money, money and power, mean nothing; that good always triumphs over evil; and (I want you to remember this) that love…true love never dies.

You remember that, Boy.

You remember that.

Doesn't matter if they're true or not.

You see, a man should believe in those things…because those are the things worth believing in.

Got that?"

In contrast to this movie idea, Christians *believe* not just because they want to believe in something worthwhile, but because they believe the Bible is true.[6]

I was sorry that the movie approached the topic of truth in that way, because at the end it turns out that the stories, although unbelievable, had been true all along.

It is important that what we believe in, is true.

*Christ's Identity Not Important?

*

Another example of this type of thinking is illustrated by Jeremy Bowen, the presenter of a new British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) documentary on Jesus.

Bowen stated, "The important thing is not what he was or what he wasn't—the important things is what people *believe him to have been*.

A massive world wide religion, numbering more than two billion people follows his memory—that's pretty remarkable, 2,000 years on."

Bowen couldn't be more wrong.

Who Jesus is and what he did is the foundation of our faith.[7]

*THE BIBLE’S APPROACH MAY BEEM BACKWARD*

*Augustine on Understanding and Belief*

I will be the first to admit that the Bible’s approach to truth and belief may seem backward by the standards of our often skeptical world.

Many years ago, Augustine commented on the Bible’s approach to truth.

He wrote “Do not seek to understand in order that you may believe, but believe so that you may understand.”[8]

Unfortunately, for most of us, that is exactly the opposite of the way in which we have been educated.

*"The Polar Express": Believing *

More recently, in /The Polar Express/, a doubting boy boards a magical train on Christmas Eve, which is headed for the North Pole.