Christ Present
With Us!
the Source and
Sermon for Easter Sunday, March 27, 2005
1.
Good Morning: Let us pray. O Lord, may the words
of my mouth and the meditations of our hearts be pleasing to You
O Lord our Rock and our Redeemer. Amen.
2. Opening Comments: The
Lenten fast has ended and the Easter feast has begun.
No longer are we to walk
in dark places, to wear somber clothes, to fast, nor to hang our heads low in
penitential repentance – No! Our Savior has saved us for all eternity. Our
lives end now with the sweet benediction – And he lives happily ever after. Amen!
Death no longer has
control over us – As Paul put it so well: “Where, O death, is your victory?
Where, O death, is your sting?” (1Cor. 15:55) Christ defeated death when He died on the Cross
AND then was resurrected after 3 days. He came back to life – never to die
again!
Do we really
get what happened on that fateful first Easter Sunday? Do we have any idea?
Death was
defeated by love! Love wins the day – hate, scorn, disdain, sarcasm, cancer,
murder, rape, euthanasia – none of these has the final say for all evil
including death were defeated by Jesus Christ when He rose from the dead!
This is the cornerstone of our
faith. Truly Paul is right when he said,
“If there is no resurrection
of the dead, then not even Christ has been raised. 14 And if Christ has
not been raised, our preaching is useless and so is your faith. 15 More
than that, we are then found to be false witnesses about God, for we have
testified about God that he raised Christ from the dead. But he did not raise
him if in fact the dead are not raised. 16 For if the dead are not
raised, then Christ has not been raised either. 17 And if Christ has not
been raised, your faith is futile; you are still in your sins. 18 Then
those also who have fallen asleep in Christ are lost. 19
If only for this life we have hope in Christ, we are to be pitied more than all
men. (1Cor. 15:14-19)
If we’re wrong about that first
Easter then “we’re to be pitied more than all men!”
BUT IF WE”RE RIGHT! Ah! If we’re
right – if Jesus Christ did rise from the dead - then truly death was dealt a
mortal blow and was defeated once and for all and we, with Christ, get to
inherit eternal life!
3. Wow! This is grandness of
Easter thinking!
There’s nothing small minded
about Easter! It’s very
central idea – the death of death and life eternal – is so huge – so infinitely
radical – that we are left gasping for breath! Death – the final ignominious
end of life – has been dealt a death blow and is in fact itself dead and
finished forever. Life has won – Life eternal – is the true reality!
Now this idea
of eternal life is too too big for most of our minds!
The fact is though that it’s reality is stamped in history as a reality – it’s one of
those things that it’s hard to deny.
Many of our liberal brothers and
sisters want to reduce this
majestic idea to a metaphor – a form of fantasy that helps us deal with our
ultimate end. They seem to deny it’s historical
reality!
But
historical documents attest to it – least of all the Bible itself! But many
other extant documents also attest to the historicity of this event.
But at the end of the day actual historical facts aren’t always
able to carry the day!
Our personal
inhibitions, prejudices, and even our world-views seem to stubbornly avoid the
rational consequences of this fundamental historical fact!
So, many of
us are able to look at the irrefutable evidence and still deny the fact that
there was a man named Jesus Christ and that He was crucified and that He rose,
unlike anybody before or after, from the dead and now invites all who would –
to follow Him into eternal life!
So what is it that will carry
the day? What is it that
will enable us to live in “Resurrection reality?” What is it that will enable
us to live in the glorious reality that we get to live happily ever ever ever after! That life for
the Christian never ever ends – but just goes on and on into glory!
4. For our answer – let’s turn to our Gospel reading for today
– Luke 24:13-35.
It’s the classic story of the
resurrected Christ’s meeting of two disciples on the Road from
I won’t read the entire section again but let
me summarize before we focus on the key verse.
Two distraught disciples
heavy with a sense of defeat all over them. Christ had just been
brutally crucified and all was lost. All that they had been expecting was
shattered. Palpable depression lay heavily upon them when suddenly they met a
fellow way farer who joined them on their journey.
Reading now from Luke 24: verse 27 And beginning with Moses and all
the Prophets, he explained to them what was said in all the Scriptures
concerning himself.
Luke 24:28 As they approached the village to
which they were going, Jesus acted as if he were going farther. 29 But they urged him strongly, “Stay with us, for it is nearly
evening; the day is almost over.” So he went in to stay with them. 30 When he was at the
table with them, he took bread, gave thanks, broke it and began to give it to
them. 31 Then their eyes were opened and they recognized him, and he
disappeared from their sight. 32 They asked each other,
“Were not our hearts burning within us while he talked with us on the road and
opened the Scriptures to us?” 33 They got up and returned at once to
Now the key here is to realize
that the resurrected Jesus revealed Himself palpably to them – they could see and touch and hear and
see and perhaps even smell Him! But they didn’t immediately discern who He was!
I find that very very interesting!
They
ultimately did recognize Him but it wasn’t their natural eyes that revealed Him
to them!
When was it
that they recognized who He was?
Yes, it was
at the very moment that He broke the bread! Go back to verse 30:
30
When he was at the table with them, he took bread, gave thanks, broke it and
began to give it to them. 31 Then their eyes were opened and they
recognized him, and he disappeared from their sight.
Ah! It was when He broke the
bread!
Make no mistake my dear brothers
and sisters! This is and has always been seen from ancient times as a bold and
clear and unambiguous reference to the Eucharist!
It was the Eucharist that
revealed His Presence – His resurrected Presence - to them!
What was at
the center of the first Christian worship services:
Acts 2:42
They devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching and to the fellowship, to the
breaking of bread and to prayer.
“To the apostle’s teaching – the Gospels, to fellowship – gathering together as
Christ’s Body – the Church, to the breaking of bread – the Eucharist, and
finally to prayer.”
These were
the cardinal elements of every early Christian worship service!
And the
central of all elements to every Christian worship service was the celebration
of Christ’s resurrection! And the most perfect element that celebrated that
reality was and is today – the Body and Blood of Jesus Christ! It was His Body and Blood that when sacrificed
bought every one of us eternal life!!!
That’s what
this is all about – remembering and celebrating the fact that we have eternal
life and all because of the once and for all sacrifice by Jesus Christ.
He died but then He rose – the
First Fruit - but one day we will rise with Him!
Now back to our two key verses
30 and 31:
30
When he was at the table with them, he took bread, gave thanks, broke it and
began to give it to them. 31 Then their eyes were opened and they
recognized him, and he disappeared from their sight.
It is in the breaking of the
Bread that our eyes, like those first disciples, are opened and we, like them,
suddenly realize that Christ is with us bodily in His resurrection reality –
the Holy Eucharist, which has been boldly referred to as the SOURCE and SUMMIT
of our faith!
Ah! The Holy
Eucharist is in fact the very source of our faith – it empowers, nourishes and
sustains our ability – our very capacity, to grasp the mystery of all mysteries
– that Christ actually came back from the dead and because of this death, death
is now dead to us and life eternal is alive and well within us!
O my dear
brothers and sisters! The Holy Eucharist, the Source and Summit of our faith,
is the thing that empowers us to grasp in a very real way the sublime and
almost unapproachable reality of our eternal inheritance – eternal life!
It’s the
Eucharist rightly appreciated that gives us that palpable sense of our Lord’s
Real Presence!
You see we
are fickly beings – we human beings, and God knew that we would need something
more than a whisper of His presence to sustain us – so He gave us Himself not
only on the Cross but now He gives us Himself – His resurrected Self in His
Holy Eucharist – as a perpetual substantial reminder of His resurrected
reality!
Amen and
Amen!
Let’s pray!
"O Heavenly
King, Comforter, Spirit of Truth, everywhere present and filling all things.
Treasury of gifts (or "blessings") and Giver-of-Life: come and abide
in us, cleanse us of every impurity, and save our souls, O Good One."