DAVID'S EMAIL BIBLE STUDY:
The END??
A. INTRODUCTION
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Dietrich Bonhoeffer was hanged by the Nazis. One of Hitler’s final orders. Bonhoeffer was a great German pastor, theologian, and patriot, giving his life to try to save his country from more of Hitler. As he was led to his execution he said, “This is the end. The beginning of life for me”. That is the essential Christian teaching of Easter faith: the end is just the beginning. Death comes for us, as it did for Jesus on Friday. But Easter, the new beginning, comes for us as it did for Jesus and Bonhoeffer
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C. SUMMARY.
Let’s review. Easter morning a group of women visit Jesus’ tomb to finalize his proper burial: working, perfuming, “closure”. When they get there the body is gone. Angels tell them Jesus is alive. Jesus appears to Mary Magdalene. The women tell the disciples who don’t believe. Peter and John do check it out and find the body gone. They return to their hideout/headquarters, per the angel’s instruction, to wait. Meanwhile, two non-disciples but followers of Jesus return to their home outside of Jerusalem, disheartened. They had heard about the missing body and stories of resurrection but couldn’t believe it. For them the end was the end. Jesus, incognito, meets them, tries to explain.
D. KEY POINTS
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From Moses to America. Twice on Easter Jesus explained his life within the context of the entire Bible. “And beginning with Moses and all the prophets, and the Psalms, he explained what was said in all the Scriptures concerning himself (vs. 27, 44)”. That Old Testament part of my Bible is 1066 pages, and here’s how Jesus fits into that without mentioning his name once. God created Paradise and gave it to Adam and Eve. They chose to disobey God and follow their own path, losing Paradise in the trade-off. That’s all done by page 4, Genesis 3. The other 1062 pages are filled with God and humanity trying to get back together, reconciled, in harmony. God sends great leaders, cataclysmic events, specific laws, clear instruction, dire warnings, carrots and sticks. By the end of 1066 pages, humanity and God are still estranged. Page 1 of the New Testament introduces Jesus as the living link to all that. Jesus is God’s way of saying, “let me show you how it’s done”. In the incarnation, God becomes human to show us personally the depth of God’s love (the cross), to win eternal life (Paradise redux), and to lay out our path to it: Christlikeness.
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NOW what? Many of us have had brushes with death. A heart attack. Car accident. Cancer scare. Then life goes on. What do we do with that “new lease on life”? Jesus was supposed to be dead, but he wasn’t. Christianity was supposed to end with his death, but it didn’t. We are left with a living Christ and we have to decide what to do with that reality. You know what clergy call the Sunday after Easter? Low Sunday!! People take the incredible, joyful, miraculous power of Easter, and fill our churches with exuberant faith. Then we turn aside. God back to regular stuff. It’s no big deal until next Easter.
But what if it IS A BIG DEAL? What if we lived our lives as if death was defeated, heaven assured, the curse of sin removed? What if we kept those truths alive in us each day after Easter? What if we saw each new day as a surprise bonus to be lived fully and faithfully? What if the new lease on life we get with Easter was viewed as a prelude to a permanent eternal life? What if we lived every day with Easter awe?
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LAST WORD. Luke in a shorter version (vs. 47-48), Matthew in a longer version (Matthew 28:18-20) leaves the disciples with marching orders called The Great Commission. His astounding life of love, sacrifice, grace and compassion is to be brought to the world. Now. By us. Always. No excuses.
