[Propertalk] Fwd: Sermon Resources for Easter - Part 1

Tue Apr 19 10:36:29 EDT 2011

Sermons for Easter: 

    John 20:1-18 – “Why I Believe in the Resurrection”  
    Matthew 28:1-10 – “All Boxed In?”  by Leonard Sweet
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John 20:1-18 the sermon titled "Why I Believe in the Resurrection"] 

You probably do not remember the name Nikolai Ivanovich Bukharin. During his day he was as powerful a man as there was on earth. A Russian Communist leader he took part in the Bolshevik Revolution 1917, was editor of the Soviet newspaper Pravda (which by the way means truth), and was a full member of the Politburo. His works on economics and political science are still read today. There is a story told about a journey he took from Moscow to Kiev in 1930 to address a huge assembly on the subject of atheism. Addressing the crowd he aimed his heavy artillery at Christianity hurling insult, argument, and proof against it.

An hour later he was finished. He looked out at what seemed to be the smoldering ashes of men's faith. "Are there any questions?" Bukharin demanded. Deafening silence filled the auditorium but then one man approached the platform and mounted the lectern standing near the communist leader. He surveyed the crowd first to the left then to the right. Finally he shouted the ancient greeting known well in the Russian Orthodox Church: "CHRIST IS RISEN!" En masse the crowd arose as one man and the response came crashing like the sound of thunder: "HE IS RISEN INDEED!"

I say to you this morning: CHRIST IS RISEN! (congregational response should be: HE IS RISEN INDEED!). I am convinced! I have faith that Christ was dead and he was buried. That I believe. But, this too I accept as true: He rose from the dead and will come again in glory.

This is Easter. And to stand here on this day in this pulpit and proclaim this word. . . I cannot begin to tell you how this defines all that I am.

But, you will say to me, how do you know that the resurrection is real? How do you know that it is really valid?

1. I believe in resurrection because somebody told me about it.
2. I believe in the resurrection because it has stood the test of time.
3. I believe in the resurrection, because I have experienced it.

The rest of this sermon following the outline above can be obtained by joining www.Sermons.com. 
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Matthew 28 the sermon titled ‘All Boxed In?’ by Leonard Sweet  

Here is my thesis: the greatest public service the church can perform for its community, and for the world, is this: celebrate Easter. A true, beautiful and good celebration of Easter.

Here is the proof of my thesis: last year’s “Resurrection Sunday Dance,” that took place in Budapest, Hungary, where God is up to some amazing things. This very moment on Easter Sunday Christians are “Resurrection Dancing” at various capitols and courtyards around the world. But here is my favorite one from 2010 Resurrection Sunday in Budapest, Hungary:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i5dSIL358NM&feature=related

Can anyone watch this dance, or join the dance, and not have a heart full of Easter? Can anyone watch this dance and not feel resurrection everywhere? For resurrection is all about a 4 letter word ---- LIFE ---- a life that triumphs over death.

Will you join the Resurrection Dance or won’t you? It’s your choice. Will you live your life in a confined space, a “prison cell? Or would you prefer to live your life “out of the box?”

Who would possibly choose for confinement over freedom?

No one. Yet eventually almost all of us do. We winnow down our life choices. We sieve out our career selections. We sift events and experiences into “important” vs. “insignificant.” The more we determine what is crucial to our life plan; the more we dismiss people, places, and possibilities that might throw a monkey wrench into the preconceived prequel of our life; the more we arrange our life according to what we like; the more we remove ourselves from what we don’t know and don’t like: the more we put ourselves into “ a box.”

Who was it who first said — the only difference between a rut and the grave is the depth?

Easter is all about blowing out the box. Easter is all about unlooked for possibilities…

The rest of this sermon following the outline above can be obtained by joining www.Sermons.com. 
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When Is Easter This Year?

In an article in The Christian Century, history professor Steve Ware asks the question, “When Is Easter this year?”

For those of you who didn’t learn this in confirmation class, the date of Easter corresponds to the first Sunday after the first full moon after the vernal equinox. Seriously.

In his article, Ware explains how this came to be. Here’s the short version of the story: In 325 A.D., Constantine, emperor of the Holy Roman Empire, convened the Council of Nicea. Among the business before the council was to establish a uniform date for Easter. Out of the discussion and debate came the “Easter Rule,” setting Easter, as I said, on the first Sunday after the first full moon after the vernal equinox. As is often the case with church councils, the decision was not unanimous. The Eastern bishops wanted to schedule Easter in conjunction with the Jewish Festival of Passover since, after all, Jesus went to Jerusalem, in the first place, to celebrate Passover. The Western bishops preferred a date corresponding with the beginning of spring, because that was the time already established for a lot of pagan celebrations, and they figured to capitalize on the momentum. This is why, to this day, we have such things as the Easter Bunny and colored eggs ass ociatedwith Easter. Well, on this, and other issues, the church eventually split. To this day, we, who are descendents of the Western line of Christendom, use a different calendar than the Eastern Orthodox churches. Sometimes our celebration of Easter falls on the same day, and sometimes it varies by as much as five weeks!

Philip W. McLarty, When Is Easter This Year?
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Old Clothes

When I was a girl, I spent a lot of time in the woods, which were full of treasures for me. At night I lined them up on my bed: fat flakes of mica, buckeyes bigger than shooter marbles, blue jay feathers, bird bones and -- if I was lucky -- a cicada shell, one of those dry brown bug bodies you can find on tree trunks when the 17-year locusts come out of the ground. I liked them for at least two reasons.

First, because they were horrible looking, with their huge empty eye sockets and their six sharp little claws. By hanging them on my sweater or -- better yet -- in my hair, I could usually get the prettier, more popular girls at school to run screaming away from me, which somehow evened the score.

I also liked them because they were evidence that a miracle had occurred. They looked dead, but they weren’t. They were just shells. Every one of them had a neat slit down its back, where the living creature inside of it had escaped, pulling new legs, new eyes, new wings out of that dry brown body and taking flight. At night I could hear them singing their high song in the trees. If you had asked them, I’ll bet none of them could have told you where they left their old clothes.

That is all the disciples saw when they got to the tomb on that first morning --two piles of old clothes.

Barbara Brown Taylor, "Escape From the Tomb," article in The Christian Century, April 1, 1998, page 339.
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