Easter Season May Almighty God, who has redeemed us and made us his children through the resurrection of his Son our Lord, bestow upon you the riches of his blessing. Amen. May God, who through the water of baptism has raised us from sin into newness of life, make you holy and worthy to be united with Christ for ever. Amen. May God, who has brought us out of bondage to sin into true and lasting freedom in the Redeemer, bring you to your eternal inheritance. Amen. And the blessing of God Almighty, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, be upon you and remain with you for ever. Amen. Sermon-Easter Sunday April 20, 2014 O Lord, we pray, speak in this place, in the calming of our minds and in the longing of our hearts, by the words of my lips and in the thoughts that we form. Speak, O Lord, for your servants listen. Amen. One of my favorite movies is Chariots of Fire, it s the story of two English runners in the 1924 Olympics. It was supposed to be a true story, so I looked it up online. One of the characters in the movie is a guy by the name of Eric Liddell. He was the son of Presbyterian missionaries, and he was in training to be a missionary to China, also. Much is made in the movie that Liddell wouldn t run on Sundays-he felt that it violated his understanding of keeping the Sabbath. It was going to cost Liddell, and England (the Prince pointed out) medals in the Olympics, but Eric wouldn t run. But of course, what the movie doesn t show is what happens after the Olympics. After the Olympics Liddell joins his family in China and serves as a missionary there for the next 19 years. He taught, built churches, and mentored children in sports. In the 1930s the Japanese, who wanted to rule Asia, invaded China and began overrunning the Chinese army. This is from Wikipedia: In 1941 life in China had become so dangerous because of Japanese aggressiveness that the British government advised British nationals to leave.
Liddell sent his wife and daughters to Canada to stay with her family while Liddell accepted a position at a rural Chinese mission station which served the poor. He joined his brother, Rob, who was a doctor there. The station was severely short of help. A constant stream of locals came at all hours for medical treatment. Liddell arrived at the station in time to relieve his brother, who was ill As fighting between the Chinese Eighth Route Army and invading Japanese reached the mission station where the Liddells were, they were taken prisoner and interned at a Japanese Internment (read concentration) Camp. Liddell became a leader and organizer at the camp, where food, medicine and other supplies were scarce. He busied himself by helping the elderly, teaching at the camp school Bible classes, arranging games and teaching science to the children, who referred to him as Uncle Eric. Langdon Gilkey, who also survived the camp and became a prominent theologian in his native America, said of Liddell: "Often in an evening I would see him bent over a chessboard or a model boat, or directing some sort of square dance absorbed, weary and interested, pouring all of himself into this effort to capture the imagination of these pennedup youths. He was overflowing with good humour and love for life, and with enthusiasm and charm. It is rare indeed that a person has the good fortune to meet a saint, but he came as close to it as anyone I have ever known." In 1945 the war was nearing an end, but Liddell s health had been deteriorating for some time. In his last letter to his wife, written on the day he died, Liddell wrote of suffering a nervous breakdown due to overwork, but in actuality unbeknownst to him he was suffering from an inoperable brain tumour; overwork and malnourishment hastened his death. He died on 21 February 1945, five months before liberation. He was greatly mourned not only at the Internment Camp but also in Scotland. According to a fellow missionary, Liddell's last words were, "It's complete surrender", in reference to how he had
given his life to his God. The children in the camp were bereft at his loss. In 2008, 63 years later, just before the Beijing Olympics, Chinese authorities revealed that Liddell had refused an opportunity to leave the camp, and instead gave his place to a pregnant woman. Apparently, the Japanese and British, with Churchill's approval, had agreed upon a prisoner exchange. News of this final act of sacrifice surprised even his family members. Hold on to this story. Famous English Bishop, N.T. Wright did a dvd series. One night he was talking and he mentioned, almost offhandedly, that Jesus didn t die and rise just for me. I never thought that the resurrection happened only for me, but it started me thinking. How often at Easter I talk about how the resurrection impacts each individual. That s usually the point of most of my Easter sermons. But Wright pointed out that if all we ever do is think about our own eternal life only, that we have failed. And the church has failed. And Jesus has failed. If Christianity is only about how I get to heaven, then it s only a club-and not a faith worth dying for. Carl Gregg, a preacher that I read often, said that he doesn t care if people believe in the resurrection or not. For him, that is irrelevant. The person who influenced Gregg a lot was Clarence Jordan, the writer of the Cotton Patch Gospels, helped start Habitat for Humanity, and founded Koinonia Farm. Jordan once said this: The proof that God raised Jesus from the dead is not the empty tomb, but the full hearts of his changed disciples. The crowning evidence that he lives is not a vacant grave, but a spirit-filled fellowship. Not a rolled-away stone, but a carried-away church. Gregg continues, Again, what I take away from this quote is that we should worry less what people say they believe happened 2,000 years ago and more whether we are living as if resurrection still happens. In the first days of the church the issue wasn t what you believed, but whether your life was changed. Within 5 weeks of the Resurrection 10,000 people were proclaiming the Resurrection. Do you know what moved them? 11 men who had
been cowards were suddenly willing to die for someone they had earlier abandoned. Believing the Resurrection was important, but Practicing Resurrection was what changed people. Wright makes this point very loudly, the lives of the disciples were transformed such that they were willing to die for their conviction that Jesus had risen from the dead. After the crucifixion of Jesus, his followers were disheartened and depressed. The one who they had believed to be the Messiah, the promised Savior of the world, had died in the most dishonorable way possible, crucifixion. They scattered and fell away, but within weeks they were leaving their jobs, gathering together and committing themselves to proclaiming the Gospel that Jesus was the Messiah sent by God, who died on a cross to pay the penalty for sin and then was raised to life seen alive by them. From an earthly perspective, they had little to gain in return. They were often hungry, ridiculed, beaten and imprisoned. Ultimately, most of them were brutally executed in torturous ways. Why were they willing to proclaim this Gospel to their death? Because they were absolutely convinced that they had seen the resurrected Christ. What s the point? It means that that if someone is going to believe in the Resurrection-it s going to depend on us. If Easter is going to be real for someone, it will be because they saw us practicing resurrection. What if the future of Easter relies on whether people see you living differently? What if the future depends not on what I say, or what I profess, but on how I live. Is that scary or what? Let me ask you something, if Jesus was just a good guy, would you be here this morning? Jesus trusted his followers, the people who came after him, for the Resurrection to continue. We have relied on those who have come before us to see the resurrection. The people of the future depend on us. That the resurrection happened isn t the issue. What matters is not what we say we believe, but what others see in us. Do people watching us see the power of love, the power of hope, the power of courage, the power of faith? If future
Christians depend on how well I practice resurrection, how strong will Christianity be? Does my life show the resurrection? Am I a person of hope? Of courage? Of faith? Is the Resurrection still happening? Can people see it in my life? Alan Watts, a Zen Buddhist whose books were very popular [in the 60s] once said that Christians are too reticent in their proclamation, too restrained. He said, "If I were a Christian and believed my savior had been raised from the dead, I would shout it from the rooftop, and I would not be silent on the subject." There are many people we meet every day who are trapped in prison camps in their lives-people who are without hope, without peace, without value, without love, without faith. They are waiting for someone to show them new life, waiting for someone to practice resurrection. The Resurrection is up to us. The future of Christianity is up to us. Today we celebrate the power of God overcoming death. Let s shout it from the rooftops. If people are to know the resurrection, if they are to know new life, it will be because they see it in us. If we really want to proclaim Easter, we will need to practice resurrection-we will need to show people changed lives. Amen. Alleluia, Christ is risen! He is risen, indeed, Alleluia!