“Love Stirs Everyone” – Psalm 118:1-2, 14, 17, 21-24, Acts 10:34-43, John 20:1-18
My opening illustration speaks to the theme of Easter that being resurrection from the dead.
A man took a vacation to Israel with his wife and mother-in-law. During their time in the Holy Land, his mother-in-law unexpectedly passed away. The following day, the husband met with the local undertaker to discuss funeral plans. “In cases like these, there are a couple of options to choose from,” the undertaker explained. “You can ship the body home for $5,000, or you can bury her in the Holy Land for just $150.” The man took a minute to think about it and then announced his decision to ship her home. The undertaker, intrigued by his decision, said, “That’s an interesting choice. Can I ask why would you pay $5,000 to ship your mother-in-law home, when you can easily bury her here for $150?” The man promptly replied, “About 2,000 years ago, a man died and was buried here. Three days later he rose from the dead, and I can’t take that chance!”[1]
“Remember that life is precious and ephemeral, and love like there’s no tomorrow,” unequivocally states the founder of Utne Reader, Eric Utne. After Jesus’ crucifixion, Mary went home and wondered if the promise Jesus made about the tomb being empty on the third day would happen. Like Mary, who did go to the tomb on the third day, many come to church on Easter Sunday really not knowing what they’re looking for. We “…come weighed down with grief and disappointment, hungry for hope…We are all like Mary, somewhere between grief and joy, somewhere between despair and faith.”[2] Whatever forms of despair, discouragement, and doubt you bring to church this day, a new way of living is available to you, because of the resurrection of Jesus from the dead. There is hope, because God is connecting to us and us to God. And we are connecting to one another. It is God’s unconditional love that stirs us to a new way of living. What drives your interest in Easter? My friends, I ask that question too.
It is clear the lectionary text from The Acts of the Apostles, which we did not read this morning, that Jesus being raised from the dead changed everything. The resurrection provided hope and power to the world…to humanity. Tim Keller writes,
[On Easter] I always say to my skeptical, secular friends that, even if they can’t believe in the resurrection, they should want it to be true. Most of them care deeply about justice for the poor, alleviating hunger and disease, and caring for the environment. Yet many of them believe that the material world was caused by accident and that the world and everything in it will eventually simply burn up in the death of the sun. They find it discouraging that so few people care about justice without realizing that their own worldview undermines any motivation to make the world a better place. Why sacrifice for the needs of others if in the end nothing we do will make any difference? If the resurrection of Jesus happened, however, that means there’s infinite hope and reason to pour ourselves out for the needs of the world.
N.T. Wright has written:
The message of the resurrection is that this world matters! That the injustices and pains of this present world must now be addressed with the news that healing, justice, and love have won. If Easter means Jesus Christ is only raised in a spiritual sense—[then] it is only about me, and finding a new dimension in my personal spiritual life. But if Jesus Christ is truly risen from the dead, Christianity becomes good news for the whole world—news which warms our hearts precisely because it isn’t just about warming hearts. Easter means that in a world where injustice, violence, and degradation are endemic, God is not prepared to tolerate such things—and that we will work and plan, with all the energy of God, to implement victory of Jesus over them all.[3]
Everything we thought to be true needed to be rethought. All suspicions about who’s in and who’s out were shattered. Strangers, foreigners, profane, and unclean were included.[4] The story told in John 20 demonstrates Mary’s hope that Jesus’ resurrection was true. While it was still dark, Mary Magdalene went to the tomb and saw that the stone had been removed from the tomb. The tomb was empty. Jesus was not there. James C. Goodloe writes, “This is the good news of Easter that God has raised Jesus Christ from the dead. This is the very content of the gospel…the major affirmation of the Christian faith…the great hope of all humanity that God has raised Jesus Christ from the dead…This is the courage, by which alone we live that God has raised Jesus Christ from the dead.”[5] And the psalmist confidently asserts that it is God’s love that endures forever. It is God’s unconditional love for humanity and creation that defeated death that early Easter morning.
Death, the end of all life as we know it, the destroyer of all dreams, the breaker of all hopes, the crushing burden of all life, and the loss of all love was defeated. Its power has been broken. The empty tomb by itself is not sufficient for faith, but it is necessary to the faith. Without the resurrection there is no hope. Whether it is love, peace, self-confidence, health or meaning, we’re all looking for something this Easter.
Our pain in the brokenness of death, despair, discouragement, and doubt is fertile ground for hope. God’s unconditional love for humanity is real. God is good and his goodness is the basis for our thanksgiving. God freely gives mercy and steadfast love to those who rely on God for help and grace. Joseph A. Donnella II writes, “Our hoped-for future with God is made possible by what happens to Jesus in life, death, and resurrection.”[6] It is true, my friends, God does offer hope, restoration, and salvation to all people. God’s love stirs everyone to seek salvation/restoration/reconciliation.
Jesus is alive. Jesus is building a new intergenerational community in which we belong with God and others in significant relationships and communities to experience unconditional love. Randy Frazee writes, “In all places of effective community, the various strata of generations spend structured and spontaneous time together. Intergenerational life isn’t a luxury to be tried just to see if we like it, to see if it’s “cool.” No, it is essential for members of true community to grow and mature.”[7] Because of Jesus’ resurrection, we are given hope that we can be connected in authentic intergenerational relationships with one another.
Easter is a celebration of hope. Unlike the son-in-law who didn’t want to take a chance that his mother-in-law might be raised/resurrected from the dead, Jesus did raise from the dead as promised. In Jesus Christ there is new life. Psalm 118:14, 17 and 24 read, “The Lord is my strength and my might; he has become my salvation…I shall not die, but I shall live, and recount the deeds of the Lord…This is the day that the Lord has made; let us rejoice and be glad in it.” Jesus came out of the tomb and declared that because he lives, so can we. God’s unconditional love is on the loose. Death loses. Life wins. You are loved, so love like there’s no tomorrow. Amen!
This sermon was preached on Easter Sunday, 20 April 2025
by the Rev. Dr. Steven M. Marsh in the Great Room and Sanctuary
at Grace Presbyterian Church in Wichita, Kansas
Copyright ã 2025
Steven M. Marsh
All rights reserved.
[1]A list of humorous Easter illustrations compiled by Jeff Harvey, Senior Manager of Marketing for Subsplash.
[2]Amy Plantiga Pauw in Joel B. Green, Thomas G. Long, Luke A. Powery and Cynthia L. Rigby, editors, Connections, Year C, Volume 2 (Louisville, Kentucky: Westminster John Knox Press, 2018), 191.
[3]Adapted from Tim Keller, The Reason for God (Penguin Books, 2009), 210.
[4]Some ideas adapted from A. Katherine Grieb in Joel B. Green, Thomas G. Long, Luke A. Powery and Cynthia L. Rigby, editors, Connections, Year C, Volume 2, 185.
[5]From James C. Goodloe’s sermon “Why Seek the Living Among the Dead?”
[6]Joseph A. Donnella II in Joel B. Green, Thomas G. Long, Luke A. Powery and Cynthia L. Rigby, editors, Connections, Year C, Volume 2, 182.
[7]See Randy Frazee, The Connecting Church 2.0 (Grand Rapids, Michigan: Zondervan, 2013), 138.
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