Easter Sermon: Part 1

Part One of my Easter Sermon - Keith F. (Nelmes URC)
12th April 2020

Opening Prayer
Come with joy.
Come with praise.
Come with expectation and wonder.
He has been raised from the dead!
Come and worship our risen Lord.

There are two pervasive themes in the resurrection stories: surprise (or awe) and joy. Despite Jesus telling his disciples that not only would he suffer and die, but he would rise on the third day, they would not believe the first, and could not believe the second. Sadly, our problem today is different. Christians are so familiar with the story that it ceases to surprise us. How can we recapture the sense of surprise and joy today?   ​

Due to the current situation we find ourselves in we would in theory have more time to watch television, for some of us that means watching the soaps, back in the day all the soaps reflected life quite accurately, not so today, when person X seems to have found there perfect partner, we all know it won’t last – Soaps are invested with every conflict & tragedy imaginable, Do we all like happy endings, Jesus died on the Cross to be raised from the dead, were the disciples filled with JOY was it a happy ending for them,  in most cases the answer was NO – but in the time they all had they filled there known world with JOY & Happiness as they spread the word of the Lord. What does Christian Joy look like?
 
There will be many who look at the events that occurred over this period and are unsure that we are remembering a real event, once all the Easter Eggs have gone, and in normal times we would  go back to work! Interestingly in these difficult times, there is a split between those coming to our Lord and those laying the blame at his feet. We know that even people who met Jesus after he rose from the dead doubted the truth they were presented with. But the reality to me is that nobody is to blame! Our Jesus is there for us through thick & thin, our effort to let those that don’t see – to see the light well I believe that is what our real work should be!

Inspiration from ©ROOTS for Churches Ltd (www.rootsontheweb.com) 2002-2020. Reproduced with permission