Being Like Jesus Means Becoming A New Creation

Matthew 28:1-10

They had been so sure. There had been no doubt in their minds. This was the promised one from God. They had seen the many miracles he had performed. People healed. Demons cast out. He had even calmed the waters of the Sea of Galilee during a horrendous storm. There was no part of creation beyond his influence. No one could have done these things unless he was from God. He had been so strong in his faith, so insightful in his teachings. Yes, this truly angered the religious leaders, but he never wavered. The integrity of his life remained unquestionable. It was why when he asked them, “Who do you say that I am?” that Peter could answer with such surety “You are the Christ, the Chosen one of God!” So what happened? How could they have been so wrong? The doubt takes over. They are feeling more than the grief of losing one they loved. They now feel hopeless, lost, terrified. But just when despair seemed it would completely overwhelm them. . .Let us hear the first Easter story as it is written in the Gospel of Matthew.

Read Matthew 28:1-10

One can only imagine the shock and then the tears of joy and then the overwhelming relief and elation the disciples must have felt when they realized who greeted them. All their despair simply vanished as they ran to Jesus and began to worship him. Easter, for us, often becomes totally focused on the hope and promise of eternal life. If God can raise Jesus from the dead, as Paul said, we, also, have that hope. It is a message that we, too, will meet Jesus, someday face to face. But for these first disciples, Jesus’ resurrection was an affirmation of his life with them on earth. The resurrection affirmed his teachings and their calling to come and follow. It was God saying “Yes” to all that Jesus had done in the living of his life. It is the concrete affirmation of God’s words at Jesus’ baptism of, “This is my beloved son in who I am well pleased.” It was their affirmation of “go and be like him in all you do and you can trust that I will also affirm you.” It is important that we hear this central message of Easter as well, for it is this realization that changes the very focus of how we live our lives today.

Read 2 Corinthians 5:14-17

Today concludes George’s and my sermon series entitled, “Being Like Jesus Means…” If we, as the church, make being like Jesus our goal, if we commit to being his disciples today, then we, as the church, say, “Yes” to God’s hope and promise of new life in Christ, not someday, but today.

Sermon:

I think one of the most heartfelt questions I have ever been asked by a parishioner is, “How do you know what to believe as truth? How do you make choices for your life? This is the only life I have and I don’t want to blow it.” Some questions seem universal to me, and what I mean by that is they seem to get to the very heart of our humanity, that place where we all have our deepest wonderings and deepest wrestlings about life. This question, for me, is expressed by the thought, “Life is God’s gift to us. What we make of it is our gift back to God.” I believe deep within each of us is this understanding that life is indeed a great gift to be honored and celebrated in how we live it.

This is in part, why understanding the first Easter is so important. In Jesus’ resurrection we see God’s “Yes” to his life. In Jesus, we catch glimpses of who God hopes we will be in the living of our life. I also believe it is one of the reasons Easter is so important to us all. In this resurrection we know that God is seeking to speak to our lives at the deepest most profound sense of who we are and what we need to make life the greatest gift it can be. There is something about Easter that touches us all at the very core of our being.

Yet, we have just come through Holy Week, and we have been reminded of how harsh, and sometimes even cruel people can be, hence how cruel life can be. From domestic violence to Darfur we have seen the brokenness and deep pain human beings cause each other. Living through this week we are not naïve about life and what it holds for so many. It certainly is not a gift. So now we are challenged by a another question, “If heaven is possible, why not now?” If God is love and God truly wants life for us in paradise, if God wants our lives to be the great gift of love, why wait? Why do we see all this inhumanity? The reality is God has not waited. Jesus, himself, says this about his life, “The kingdom of heaven is in your midst.” It is not, yet, fully realized, but it has already begun. Said another way, “If eternal life is real, we have already started to live it.” The question is, “Do we believe it?” God said in the Old Testament, “I set before you this day life and death. Choose life.” Easter says this is the truth of Jesus’ life. Choose Jesus and you choose life. Choose Jesus, and I give you entrance into the kingdom. This is the challenge of the first Easter. And it is our challenge and our choice today.

If I could convince people of one thought it would be that Easter and our choice of Christ is not about life someday, it is about life today. Easter is not about resurrection someday, it is about resurrections and new life today. God turns tombs into wombs. Death into life. Brokenness into wholeness. Pain into healing. Inhumanity into love if we say “Yes” to God’s “Yes” in Jesus. Because it is only if we believe this is a central message of this day that we will risk making this choice to come and follow. In Jesus, we find the answer to our deepest longings of making life the great gift it has always been intended. It is where we discover how to become more than we already are.

I remember an event when I served a small town church. The churches were small enough that we would get together for weekly Lenten services which helped us become even closer as the people of God in the community. Because of this closeness, I received a call from a woman from one of the other congregations asking if we could help them in support of one of their families. A young boy, about 8, had leukemia, and the treatments had just about depleted the family’s health insurance cap. Would we be willing, she asked, to take a collection to help the family. Of course. But the truth is, how much can small congregations truly raise.

But as more people found out, the need spread through the community, and all of a sudden other groups inside and outside the churches began have fund raisers for the family. The young boy and his family appeared at all the fund raisers, I’m sure in part to say thanks, but maybe even more to receive the encouragement and strength from those who had gathered. I cannot imagine how emotionally drained they must have been. The community felt hopeful that their work would be blessed.

Sadly, after a few more months of treatment, it became clear that the present treatments were not working and that the only hope the young boy had for a cure was a bone marrow transplant. His family was tested and there was no match. So once again the community heard about the crisis and responded by setting up a bone marrow testing day. Hundreds of people came to be tested, and I believe with my whole heart everyone there hoped and prayed that they might be a match. Again, hopes were dashed as a match was not found and a little while later the boy died. It was indeed our Good Friday. The community was crushed. How could this happen? We had worked so hard. How could God have allowed this to take place? Sounds like the first disciples does it not? We struggled, especially because we knew that God cried with us. We knew that this death was not from God. Where was the Easter in this tragedy?

Finally it struck me that we, as the community, had been focusing on how we wanted to be a gift to the young boy and his family, and I believe in many ways we were. But something more had happened that was not as evident at first. In retrospect we saw it had been he and his family who had also been a gift to us. In his illness he had helped us to see what we were capable of being and becoming if we would only live daily what Jesus taught us. If we would love God and love our neighbor in all that we do. As we had lived this it showed us the truth of what it means to be the family of God and that God affirms us in the living of our love. It doesn’t mean that Good Fridays and crosses don’t happen, it simply means that they do not have to be the final word.

Walking with God makes our gift of life more now, and it also creates the deep trust that allows us to move to real hope for the someday. Easter surely touches that eternal longing that is within us, needing, desiring to know that the gift and meaning of our lives is not just a short and fleeting moment, but has eternal promise. As I grow older, I find that the promise and hope of eternal life becomes more prominent in my faith. And I find that it is because of the gift of God’s presence now, and my experience of it that my hope in the eternal becomes even more real.

Several congregations before my appointment to Prescott, I had a parishioner who was diagnosed with cancer. He was a doctor, so he was well versed on what was happening during his illness. One day he received test results that he knew showed that he was dying. During this time I would visit with him regularly and our relationship moved from pastor-parishioner into a friendship. Our conversations became a little more in-depth and personal. As he began to approach his final days, he said, “I have a question I need to ask you.” “Of course,” I replied, “ask me anything you would like.” He said, “Do you really believe that there is a heaven and eternal life, or is it some myth many of us just try to hang onto trying to convince ourselves this is not all there is?”

It caught me off guard at first. Finally I said, “Charles, we have always been honest with each other and I will not stop being honest with you now. I do not know how any of us can know about heaven and eternal life for sure, until we experience it. But this is what I do know. I know that every time I have trusted in what Jesus has taught, it has always proven to be true. Every time I have given God the chance by living in the way God has shown me in Christ’s life, I have found a deeper source of love in my life. So what I can say for sure is this. Knowing how deeply God has loved me today, and knowing that all I have tried so far has been true, I have no reason to believe that this promise is any less true either. When Jesus says, “Let not your hearts be troubled, neither let them be afraid. Believe, have trust in God and trust in me. For in my Father’s house are many rooms. If it were not so, would I have told you that I go to prepare a place for you? And if I go and prepare a place for you, and I will come again and I will take you to myself, so that where I am, you may be also.” All I know for sure is that I have experienced the love of God in my life, and so I trust that whatever happens at my death in this life, it will be the most loving thing God is able to do for me and for you and for us all.” Charles pondered the words for a moment and then said, “That makes sense. I can trust in that as well. Thank you,” he said, “that was helpful.”

Today is about choosing life. Choosing to become the new creations in Jesus Christ that Paul tells us we become when we say “Yes” to him. Choosing life that makes our present moment the greatest possible gift it can be. Choosing life as we learn to trust more deeply and completely the one who promises to come and take us to himself, so that where he is, we may be also. This moment is the one life we have to live. God has affirmed that Jesus is indeed the way, the truth and the life. Choose life.

Sermon delived by Rev. George Cushman on April 12, 2009.