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Today is the first Sunday after Easter.
What a wonderful celebration we had last week! The sanctuary was packed – close to 200 people with the kids.
Rev. Kim and I were saying this is what every Sunday should be like.
Not for numbers sake. But when the sanctuary is full, the worship becomes full. Your presence contributes to other peoples’ connection with God.
Think of it that way – you are not coming only for yourself. You are coming so that others may also be blessed by God’s presence.
That is why God calls us to worship together. God’s presence is felt when we come together for worship.
That is like the vision that writer of Revelation had:
After this I looked, and there was a great multitude that no one could count, from every nation, from all tribes and peoples and languages, standing before the throne and before the Lamb, robed in white, with palm branches in their hands. They cried out in a loud voice, saying, “Salvation belongs to our God who is seated on the throne and to the Lamb!” (Revelation 7:9-10)
We came to celebrate Easter.
What is the message of Easter?
Jesus was dead but rose again. What is dead, God has the power to make alive.
When Jesus died, everything seemed to be finished. But the empty tomb proved that it was not over. What seemed over, God made alive once again.
Today, we want to delve deeper into the meaning of Easter.
This is what Peter says today:
By his great mercy he has given us a new birth into a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead… (1 Peter 1:3)
The resurrection gives you a new birth – it makes you a new person. A new person born into a living hope.
What does that mean?
You are born into hope. Hope is all about the future. It is about something that will happen in the future. It is a desire for something different in the future.
The resurrection means you are someone who is future-oriented.
Resurrection hope means that no matter what you’re going through right now, there is hope for the future. Because He lives, you can face tomorrow.
Throughout his letter, Peter uses the words “strangers”, “aliens” and “exiles” a lot. His readers felt like aliens and exiles in their own communities.
Why?
Because the resurrection gives you hope in a very hopeless world. That makes you stand out. That makes you a minority.
When you look around, there are so many reasons to lose hope. Unnecessary wars and the suffering of innocent people. The powerful doing whatever they want with no restraint.
A world in which if you have no money, power or connections, your opportunities are very limited. AI is taking away jobs and making the future very uncertain. For the first time in history, many young people are wondering whether they want to bring children into this world.
Having hope in this world can seem very out of touch and naive. It can make people who have faith feel like aliens and exiles in this world.
What the world often does, though, is mistake hope for optimism.
Those are two very different things.
Hope vs Optimism
Optimism is wishful thinking that everything will be okay. It is empty sentiment not rooted in facts or reality.
Optimism ignores the hard facts and reality. It ignores the real suffering and tragedies that take place. It just somehow wants to feel like everything will be okay.
There is no more room for optimism in today’s world. The facts are in our face. You can’t ignore them.
So optimism has gone away. Optimism used to be the domain of young people. But even among young people, you don’t really see that optimism now.
Optimism has been replaced by cynicism. Cynicism a resignation to the hard facts of the present.
So the only option is to work within the rules of present reality. But cynicism is not the only option.
What the resurrection has given us is hope.
Hope does not ignore the hard facts of the present. In fact, hope is born from trials and suffering. It feels suffering and difficulty in its bones.
Hope cries out, hope feels pain. But it still chooses to believe. Hope does not give up. Hope keeps on believing and trying.
Why?
Because Jesus rose from the dead. What was dead, God made alive again.
That is the basis of our hope.
What human beings cannot do, God has done. And God will do.
So the resurrection gives hope to hopeless people.
Peter describes this hope like an inheritance:
By his great mercy he has given us a new birth into a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead and into an inheritance that is imperishable, undefiled, and unfading, kept in heaven for you… (1 Peter 1:3-4)
The resurrection has given us this imperishable inheritance. I like that imagery.
My son Joonie really likes my parents’ house. Him and Abby call it “the mansion”. I don’t know how he knows about this, but a number of times, he’s asked me: “when hammoni and haboji (grandma and grandpa)… you know… can we get the house?”
The guy is 10 years old and already after his inheritance! How does he already know about that kind of stuff?
When you know that your inheritance is secure, you can be more confident in the present. Today may be difficult, but the future is assured.
The resurrection gives hope to the hopeless because it is all about the promised future. If that is the case, then it is also a warning to those who have it good right now.
When your present circumstances are good, be thankful for them. But don’t be too dependent on them. Enjoy it, but don’t make your main priority the enjoyment of it.
A lot of fear and anxiety these days is because people are afraid to lose the good things they have now. This is especially true of those who had a difficult past and had to work hard to get where they are now. They don’t want to lose what they have now and go back to the past. Their vision of the future is to maintain and keep what they have now.
The temptation for resurrection people is to focus only on the present good they have now.
Nicodemus was a powerful, influential Jew. He was a member of the Sanhedrin – the highest council of Jews.
But he felt something when he met Jesus. He came to Jesus at night to learn more about him.
This is what Jesus said to him:
Very truly, I tell you, no one can see the kingdom of God without being born from above. (John 3:3)
Nicodemus had to be born as a new person. He had to remove himself from his attachments to his power and privilege. His perspective had to change. His orientation had to change.
Another temptation is to bring back a glorious past. The present might be challenging, but the past was good. So let’s make the future great by bringing back the past.
That is what’s happening among evangelicals in the United States. They have this notion that the past was good, and that their calling is to restore the past.
But that is a fundamental misunderstanding of what resurrection faith is all about.
The resurrection is not about bringing back the past. It is about an entirely new future.
We don’t know exactly what that future looks like, but some people like Isaiah and the writer of Revelation had visions of this future: Tears will be no more. Justice will reign – every mountain will be laid low, every valley lifted up. Peace will be everywhere – the lion shall lie with the lamb, swords will be turned into ploughs.
That is certainly not what the past was like. Some people may have enjoyed life, but others suffered terribly. Christianity was used to make powerful people feel comfortable and justify the suffering of the weak. They did not understand the true meaning of resurrection faith.
The Apostle Paul had a good past as a Pharisee. He enjoyed power and privilege. But after meeting Christ, everything changed. His orientation changed.
This is what he says after he changed:
I want to know Christ and the power of his resurrection and the sharing of his sufferings by becoming like him in his death, if somehow I may attain the resurrection from the dead. Not that I have already obtained this or have already reached the goal, but I press on to lay hold of that for which Christ has laid hold of me. Brothers and sisters, I do not consider that I have laid hold of it, but one thing I have laid hold of: forgetting what lies behind and straining forward to what lies ahead, I press on toward the goal, toward the prize of the heavenly call of God in Christ Jesus. (Philippians 3:10-14)
Forgetting what lies behind. I would add – not being fixated on the present. And straining forward only to what lies ahead. His orientation changed entirely to the future.
That is resurrection faith.
When we look to the United States, do you know who had this faith? Black slaves.
They did not have a past they wished to bring back. There was no present they were trying to protect and preserve. All they had was the future.
They had resurrection faith. That faith gave them hope. It gave them perseverance.
That faith produced the spirituals and gospel music. That is how they were able to have joy amidst terrible circumstances and suffering.
That is the meaning of the term “black joy”. A joy rooted in resurrection hope and the future.
The resurrection is all about the future. A future that is glorious, bright, filled with hope. That shapes everything. How we live, how we think, how we act today.
Leave your past behind – the good and the bad. Don’t be too attached to the present. Look only to the future that God has for you.
The future is your inheritance. Claim this inheritance. Live confidently with it. Because He lives, you can face tomorrow.
Turn your face to tomorrow with confidence. That is the meaning of Easter.
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