I love Easter. Easter is glorious! The music is good. Even mediocre preachers find something uplifting to say! (Bible) The material is good!

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1 Easter, March 31, 2013 Page 1 of 5 V is for Victory: Victory over Death Biblical Text: John 20:1-8 Dr. Michael F. Gardner, Senior Pastor Old Mission United Methodist Church, Fairway, Kansas For two thousand years the Easter greeting has called Christians to celebrate the victory that is ours in Christ. The pastor says, Christ is risen! and, three times, the people respond, He is risen, indeed! So, join with me today: Christ is risen! He is risen, indeed! Christ is risen! He is risen, indeed! Christ is risen! He is risen, indeed! Alleluia! Eighteen hours ago those words rang out in New Zealand! Almost nine hours ago, the Easter greeting echoed across St. Peter s Basilica in Rome. And now it is our turn. Thanks be to God! I love Easter. Easter is glorious! The music is good. Even mediocre preachers find something uplifting to say! (Bible) The material is good! Bill Willimon tells the story of such a Sunday at Duke Chapel, when he was chaplain there. They had a guest gospel choir, he says, who raised the roof. The Chapel was packed with people. And he says that it was one of the Sundays he preached so well, that he wanted to take notes on himself! After the service, a visitor greeted Dr. Willimon at the door, and said, That was amazing! It made me want to believe! Dr. Willimon said, What could I do? I lied. I said You know it was a pretty typical Sunday around here! 1 And it should be! We have an amazing message - I Corinthians 15:54 says: Death (despair, doubt, defeat) are swallowed up in victory! But there are times and seasons, on the roller coaster of life, when we just don t feel like proclaiming or listening to a joyous message. Last Sunday, when we should have been waving palms, the snow came, and I wasn t thinking happy thoughts about how beautiful the snow was. 1 Adapted from Preaching to the Baptized: An Interview with William Willimon by Michael Duduit, Preaching Magazine.

2 Easter, March 31, 2013 Page 2 of 5 By the end of today, we ll know who will be playing in the Final Four next weekend. If our team wins, we ll be thrilled; if they lose, we ll feel deflated and defeated. And ultimately only one team can win, everyone else loses. Real life is even harder. And too many people I know are facing tough issues. Death of loved ones, a diagnosis we can t handle, a child who has lost their way, unemployment, a marriage in trouble, financial challenges - that may be real life for you or someone you know today. Henry David Thoreau said it this way in Walden: many people are living lives of quiet desperation and go to the grave with the song still in them. 2 But we don t have to settle for that! Don t you see? The good news is that true victory does not come in the absence of defeat, but even in the midst of it! Eugene Peterson says, Resurrection... is what God does when we have done all we can and it is not enough, when we have done all we can, and it turns out to be crucifixion. 3 Hear his message! Easter is what God does! Jesus came that we might live in victory regardless of circumstances! He said in John 10:10, I have come that they may have life, and that they may have it more abundantly. That s what Easter is all about. He brings life! And you don t get that message anywhere but here. You won t find it out there. Out there winning means the payoff, the promotion, the business success, the championship trophy, the gold medal. But those are just symbols of a momentary victory. And you can have a symbol for victory, and still not have victory in your life. Many people do! The famous swoosh, found on either side of Nike shoes is patterned after the wings of a Greek goddess named Nike, or as the word is pronounced in Greek nee-kay. The word literally means victory in Greek. 2 From Walden by Henry David Thoreau, Eugene H. Peterson, Living the Resurrection: The Risen Christ in Everyday Life, Copyright 2006, NavPress.

3 Easter, March 31, 2013 Page 3 of 5 But long before the Nike Corporation appropriated this Greek word, it figured prominently in the message of the Bible. You ll find it in three forms: νίκη - nike (victory) νικάω - nikao (to be a conqueror, to overcome) ὑπερνικάω - hupernikao (to be hyper-victorious) I never understood the power of that word in the Bible until I visited the ancient city of Ephesus. And there among the crumbled ruins of a deserted city, I found a sculpture of Nike. (Hold up pic) It wasn t in a museum for all to admire, but in the ruins, a reminder not to trust in gods of our own making. And I began to see that true victory does not come when we receive the gold medal, or the championship trophy. It comes in the most crumbled and difficult moments of our lives - when all we have to turn to is God! That surely is what it was like on the first Easter. Open your Bibles to our Gospel text from John 20:1-8. (I m serious about that.) Look at verses 1-2. Mary Magdalene, whose life Jesus changed forever, comes to the empty tomb first, and devastated by her grief, she runs to tell the rest of the disciples that Jesus' body is gone. She says They've taken away my Lord and I don't know where to find him. Once they heard, Peter, Jesus closest disciple, and another unnamed disciple identified only as the disciple whom Jesus loved ran to the tomb. The disciple Jesus loved got there first but only peered into the darkness of an empty grave. Peter entered the tomb. But it wasn t Peter or Mary who first believed, but this unnamed disciple. Look at what the Bible says. Mary did not believe until John 20:16, when she heard Jesus call her by name. Peter also did not believe right away, until Jesus appeared to the disciples in John 20:19. But look at the unnamed disciple. He doesn't hear Jesus. He doesn't see the Risen Christ. All he does is come, and peer into the dark and empty tomb, and finally finds the courage to step inside. And in verse 8, John simply says, He saw and believed. (John 20:8) But what did he see? A darkened. empty tomb but there in the darkness,

4 Easter, March 31, 2013 Page 4 of 5 God did a work in his heart. Without seeing Jesus, standing face to face with the emptiness, without tangible evidence, he believed. There s a message for us! That s who we are, this side of Easter. We are those who believe without seeing. Listen to the words of Jesus from John 20:29: Have you believed because you have seen me? Blessed are those who have not seen and yet believe. We may be on top of the world, for a season. Or we may be facing the emptiness of life, broken promises, or an uncertain future. But it isn t our circumstances that hold victory. In Romans 8:37, Paul writes, In all these things we are more than conquerors. By faith, by trust in God, we can become more than conquerors, ὑπερνικάω - hupernikao, more than victorious! This verse is the only place this form of the word for victory appears in the Bible. Paul says, in Christ, we are more than victorious. He continues: I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord. (Romans 8:39) Neither death nor life... Let me tell you something! If you are not afraid of death, then you need not be afraid of living. Jesus said, I am the resurrection and the life. He who believes in me will live, even though he dies; and whoever lives and believes in me will never die. (John 11:25) You can t achieve it in your employment, or by the size of your bank account, or even in your family. At the end of a lifetime, even for overachievers, all those things will fade away. 1 Corinthians 15:19 says: If for this life only we have hoped in Christ, we are most to be pitied. But 1 Corinthians 15:22 has this promise: In our humanity, all die. But in Christ all will be made alive.

5 Easter, March 31, 2013 Page 5 of 5 That s the Easter message. Life! Even in the face of death. Life! When life is good but strangely empty. Life! Even when our lives are crumbling. Life! We don t say, Christ was risen! Instead, we say what? Christ is risen! Do you have the courage to believe that today? Many people settle for less. Tony Campollo says, Too many people come to Church and sing Just As I Am and leave just as they came! But don t settle for that. Don t leave here stuck in Good Friday, when God offers you Easter! Don t write the conclusion to the story of your life before God writes his promise of victory in your heart and in the days of your living. And here is God s word for you: Romans 8:37 - In all things, (all things,) you are more than conquerors, through him who loved us. Let s put that in the first person, this Easter as you repeat after me. In all things I am more than a conqueror Through Christ who loves me If you believe that, it will change your life. Thanks be to God!