Holy Joys Podcast
A discussion of theology and ministry practice, all for a holy, happy church. A ministry of holyjoys.org.
Holy Joys Podcast
The Necessity of Christ's Resurrection, Physical Salvation, and Easter Preaching
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In this episode, Johnathan Arnold and Dr. David Fry discuss why the resurrection is the necessary for our redemption.
And I think this really requires us to think uh uh about what we mean by redemption. Why is the cr why is the resurrection necessary for our redemption? Well, that's not going to be self-evident if we don't really understand the nature of redemption.
SPEAKER_00Uh what these seasons, what the liturgy gives to us is it gives us a structure for practicing faith and uh for for the church to uh to gauge in corporate worship with a corporate focus.
SPEAKER_01You're listening to the Holy Joys Podcast, co-hosted by Jonathan Arnold and Dr. David Fry. Visit us at holyjoys.org and stay tuned for weekly discussions of theology and ministry practice, all for a holy, happy church.
SPEAKER_02All right, so we're just a few days after Easter, Easter Sunday, and um continuing to remember and reflect on the resurrection of Jesus to celebrate all that it means for us as Christians. And uh I would say that in some ways this year was was perhaps the the deepest and the richest um time of celebration for for me personally, for our family, and uh and I think our church as well had a wonderful Easter Sunday. The Lord helped us. And I uh I was laying in bed uh Easter Sunday night, and I sat there and I laid there and I felt disappointed that you know Easter was over. And it hit me, I had learned last year sometime through a church historian that for much of church history, Easter was not a day, it was a season. And uh so when when you would have said Easter, many would have thought of the season, not just the day. Just like when we say Lent, we don't mean a day, we mean a 40-day season or period. And um, and I this historian uh he would regularly remind the church week after week, it's still Easter, it's still Easter. And uh so in some ways we are we are remembering that it's still Easter, it's still the the time, the season of resurrection and celebrating that. And uh so we want to spend some time here reflecting on the resurrect uh the resurrection of Jesus. We had had a discussion on atonement theories and um talked about the cross, uh special uh and the atonement more generally, but especially talked about the cross and some some uh theories of atonement. And um one of the comments that I made in that um in that discussion was that I had met a uh a Bible college teacher who said who admitted that he was not sure why the resurrection was necessary for our salvation. I mean, we know that it is, you know, we know that the resurrection is necessary. Paul says, uh, you know, if Jesus didn't rise, then we are of all men, you know, without most miserable, we're without hope, uh, our faith is in vain. Uh, but his mom had actually asked him, you know, why if Jesus was the sacrifice for our sins on the cross, if if that's what needed to happen so that we could be forgiven, why is the resurrection necessary? And I think in response to this question, um, so often we we fall back on something like this. Well, if Jesus didn't rise, he wasn't really who he said he was, therefore he wasn't the lamb without spot and blemish who died on the cross for our sins. So immediately somehow we get back to the cross. It's really like, you know, why does the resurrection matter? Well, because of the cross. And it's it's it's never really understood, I think, holistically. It's always that the resurrection is reduced to pointing back to the cross in some way. And and I think um what I'd like to do is talk a little bit more about how we need to go beyond vindication. The the cross, you know, shows that uh the son really was who he said he was. God raised him, showed that Jesus was who he said he was, which is certainly important. And even revelation, which again, vital, you know, he's the son of God. Romans 1 says that he was declared to be the son of God, you know, in the resurrection by the power of the Holy Spirit. But move beyond that to what scripture has to say about resurrection as participation and new creation. Um, and I think this really requires us to think uh uh about what we mean by redemption. Why is the why is the resurrection necessary for our redemption? Well, that's not going to be self-evident if we don't really understand the nature of redemption. Um, so why don't you just share maybe a few thoughts about uh resurrection, the resurrection season, and uh, you know, why you think this important this question is important, and then maybe we can get into this discussion a little more.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, there are a couple of interesting historical uh points here that I want to share. Uh first of all, we should recognize that before Easter became a set time as far as as far as the day, resurrection day, uh, under the Council of Nicaea 325, uh, Christians celebrated resurrection every Sunday. Uh so it wasn't a season, it was a weekly celebration. Sunday was the feast day, and sometime after 325, I don't really even know the years, it just developed. I know in the uh medieval uh years uh and under you know Christian Europe, uh then the the Christian calendar in various traditions was filled out uh in various ways, by the way, East and West, and and different traditions, even within the West, uh different holy days. Uh, but nonetheless, a lot of that has been streamlined worldwide uh now. Uh we for the most part, Catholics, Protestants, Eastern uh celebrate a lot of the same uh uh dates or same events on the same day now. Uh but uh we must remember Sunday was feast day for for Christians. So Augustine received a correspondence from a friend who was traveling from one uh part of the empire to another. And the the question presented to Augustine was uh how to uh conduct themselves on Sunday, which is commonly across the Roman Empire, was a feast day. But for this uh particular man in his geographic area, they commonly fasted on Sunday. And so Augustine says, well, when you are in an area where they are feasting, you feast on that day. When you are in an area where they're fasting, you fast on that day. But generally, Christians ought to be feasting on Sunday, uh not fasting. Uh and that's uh that is because the early Christians generally understood that the resurrection is a it's a festival, it's a feast, it's a time to celebrate, it's a time to fill the table and to come together in happy celebration. And so Christians celebrated resurrection every Sunday, and we continue to celebrate every Sunday as a little Easter. Uh, but we do have this uh Easter season that exists from uh last from uh Easter Sunday until uh Pentecost, uh a period of 50 days. Uh Ascension Day, of course, is is 40 days after Easter, which is uh puts us somewhere in mid-May. Uh I've forgotten what the exact date is, but uh Ascension Day is uh usually uh I guess it's on a on a Thursday, and we usually celebrate Ascension that following Sunday, uh is what we usually do here. Uh and then of course Pentecost. Uh so yeah, we are in a time of a season of celebration. Um, you know, our our Savior is risen, and uh this is not uh just a uh historical fact or vindication of his death, as if his death is what's loaded up with theological significance. No, the resurrection is too. So yeah, let's let's have a conversation about why the resurrection is uh how does it uh play into our salvation uh today?
SPEAKER_02Yeah, let me just tag this on quickly because uh it reminded me you were talking about as a festival or feast. Uh, just read Gregory of Nazianz's his uh you know his Easter sermon, oration 45, the Lord's Pasca, which would be, you know, Easter. Uh Pasca, again, I will say pasca to the honor of the Trinity. It is to us the feast of feasts and festival of festivals, as far exalted above all as the sun is above the stars. Uh so just a day of great, yeah, great feasting and celebration. Yeah, so the resurrection, um, you know, again, we don't want to downplay certainly um the role of of uh revelation or vindication, but there's there's much in the uh in the New Testament about our participation in the resurrection. And I want to start here because I think we do have a sense of this. Um we talk on Easter Sunday about the life-changing power of the resurrection, or we sing songs that talk about how you know this resurrection power has changed us. And uh, you know, 1 Peter, Peter talks about how we're born again to a living hope through the resurrection. Um, there's various places where uh Romans 6, where we're certainly there there's at least a spiritual resurrection in view. Um, and so I think the the resurrection unleashes the the transforming power of Christ, who is the resurrection and life, this this life-changing power. And so we live resurrected lives, we live uh new lives. And so there's certainly a spiritual resurrection. You know, we're dead in our trespasses and sin. We're now alive spiritually. This new birth, this new life is the resurrection life of Christ. It's the Son whose life has been unleashed. Um, but what I what I really have been focusing on and thinking about and shared on with our church on Easter Sunday uh has to do with the this not only our spiritual participation, but what the resurrection means for our our own physical redemption. And you know, the resurrection is the physical body of Jesus rising from the dead. Um we as evangelicals and especially conservatives, fundamentalists, would would really emphasize this as a physical resurrection. Um, but strangely enough, it seems that though we're adamant about the his, you know, the physical, historical nature of the resurrection, that doesn't always seem to translate into recognizing the physical implications for redemption and salvation. Um, so it seems to me like like the reason why this question, why is the resurrection necessary for our salvation or redemption, the reason why the answer isn't self-evident is that we have this this paradigm, this way of thinking, this filter that that views salvation and redemption as something merely spiritual. It really stops with um the spiritual transformation, the forgiveness of sins, the salvation of never dying souls. Um, but the resurrection is about um the about the physical body of Jesus rising. And if the physical body of Jesus rose, Paul argues in 1 Corinthians 15 and 2 Corinthians 5 and Romans 8, then our physical bodies will rise. And if our physical bodies will rise, then the whole physical creation will be resurrected or made new. Um, so this is the beginning of new creation, the God who made all things in the physical world is planning to make all things new, and it begins with the body of Jesus being made new in the resurrection.
SPEAKER_00We tend to spiritualize uh anything we can't see. And I remember several years ago, well, it's probably been 15 or 20 years ago now, uh, my mom on Easter Sunday told me, she said, I I don't think I ever realized how important the physical bodily resurrection of Jesus is until today. I always just thought that our resurrection was just going to be spiritual. And part of part of that is because in our imagination we have this idea of heaven now, where God is, God is spirit, and wherever heaven is, that must be a spiritual place. Those who go before us now, we lay their body in the grave, their spirit is present with the Lord. That's a spiritual reality and a spiritual heaven, and it's a faraway place, but it's spiritual. And so we import that into our final dwelling place, and we lose the physicality of eternity, uh, as well as the resurrection. So new creation, I think that is the theme of uh well, Paul talks about that in Romans 6, right? Romans uh six, one through four, where he says we have been baptized with Christ and his death, and we've been raised with him. Uh, and he says to newness of life. So the cross is about the death of humanity, the resurrection is about the rebirth, the new creation of humanity. The cross is about uh dying to all that we have inherited in the first Adam. The resurrection is about our new inheritance in the second Adam. Uh so this is uh this is uh you know from Friday to Sunday, uh the event it's all one event, but we're looking at it from one side of the door on Friday, the other side of the door on Sunday. Uh a critical passage there. I mean, there's so much packed into that, uh, that that single event of the death and the resurrection. And we don't want to leave out the rest of you know the ascension that's coming up as well, which we uh we should prepare to talk about that uh sometime soon before that comes.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, so maybe it would actually help our listeners if they haven't already to go back and listen to our podcast discussion on a happy anticipation of heaven on earth. Um, I actually shared uh with our congregation, we opened to a song in our hymnal, He Keeps Me Singing. And the final, the final verse is soon he's coming back to welcome me far beyond the starry sky. I shall wing my flight to worlds unknown. I shall reign with him on high. What does that even mean? And I said, you know, the problem with this is it's not biblical. And, you know, I do that um because I think that our hymns, we talked about this too before, are so powerful. And I think they betray the just the over-spiritualization of our salvation. But actually, it's something more like soon he's coming back to make all things new, you know, heaven and earth will be one. I shall, I shall reign with him here on earth. Um, you know, I shall be physically resurrected. And and this this resurrection of the body, so when we talk about redemption and salvation, the apostles' creed doesn't teach us to confess, I believe in the salvation of never dying souls, although that's of course vitally important, but I believe in the resurrection of the body. Uh, and I was actually just, I was reading in Hebrews here a little bit, and I don't think it ever stood out to me quite this way. But in Hebrews 6, Paul talks about the the elementary doctrine of Christ and the foundational truths. Now he's calling them to go beyond that and and to go deeper into that really and pack and live that out. But one of the things he lists here, along with repentance, faith towards God, is the resurrection of the dead and eternal judgment. So the resurrection of our physical bodies is part of what it means to be saved. It's actually a vital part because God's salvation is about making new what has been corrupted, purifying what has been corrupted. We'd be our human nature has been subject to corruption and death. Christ takes on that human nature to free us from death's power. And so the resurrection of Jesus, as you mentioned, is about the new Adam rising with our humanity. Uh, and now we are going to participate in this new humanity and be, you know, be risen with him.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, so salvation is restoration. Salvation is resurrection, uh, and it is the restoration of humanity as God intended it to be from the beginning, and Christ is the perfection of that. And it is in Christ now that we ought to be uh thinking and living and anticipating, theologizing in light of the second Adam. Uh, yes, we have a doctrine of sin, we need to have a that needs to be constant in our mind as we as we engage publicly, culturally, as we talked about earlier. Uh, but as Christians, we understand ourselves in the new atom. And I would I'd go I'd go beyond that though, and say we need to understand all of humanity in light of the new atom. Uh that that Christ died for the world and he uh raised it was raised again, resurrected for the world. Um again, that can be rejected, and people do reject that. Uh, but it has a real effect for the entire world.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, maybe we should just go a little bit deeper into this whole idea of uh recapitulation. We had we have a previous podcast on that as well, in light of prevenient grace and what that means for all humanity. Um, but when you when you begin talking like this, you know, uh that the resurrection of Jesus, you know, is the resurrection of humanity as a whole, uh, you know, people get nervous. Uh, but I think if we step back and we think, okay, well, what about the first Adam? Well, this is like what Paul talks about in Romans 5. Adam, the very first Adam, he he has human nature. It's the same human nature that we all share. There's one human nature. And because of what Adam does, there's consequences for all of us. Because his, you know, he sins, human nature is corrupted, human nature is subject to death. And then we, on the other side of the first Adam, you know, share in that human nature that's subject to corruption and death. But when Jesus comes, he comes as the new Adam, he takes our human nature upon himself as, and as the new Adam, as the new representative of all humanity, he dies on behalf of all. So he goes down, he dies, he puts human nature to death. The difference is, is unlike the first Adam, the second Adam, uh united to his humanity, is the power of the divine. He is the word incarnate. So not only is it human nature going down to death, but it's the divine nature entering into death. So now death is conquered. So human nature is freed from the power of death, and then resurrection is human nature rising again. So you think about it, the resurrection, it's gonna happen to all of us. The righteous and the unrighteous, all humanity is affected by Christ's resurrection. The problem is that those who are resurrected uh in the end, everybody will be resurrected, but some will be resurrected unto eternal life, some will be resurrected unto an eternal damnation if they've they've resisted and rejected that uh that consequence. But I think seeing this more in terms of uh the the again, the beginning of the resurrection of all humanity and all creation um is how we ought to think about this. And this has you know huge, huge implications for how we live, how you know our pastoral theology, uh, and how we view the world in creation.
SPEAKER_00So think back at in Adam, Adam and Eve. So Adam was instructed not to eat of the of the fruit, and he disobeyed, and but remember, he said he knew that he would die if he disobeyed God, right? And of course, Paul picks up on that, it is through Adam that we all die. But then there's something different about the death of this man, Jesus, in that his death is a death that Adam could not die, and that Jesus' death does something for humanity that no one else else's death could do. Adam's death could not uh could not satisfy the wrath of God, for instance. Um but Jesus' death does. But notice here, Paul doesn't stop at death. Uh in in verse 17, finally, he uh he he uses this word, and then I think he continues this theme the rest of the chapter. But he says, For if because one man's trespass, that's the first Adam, death reigned through through Adam, much more will those who receive the abundance of grace and the free gift of righteousness reign in life through the one man Jesus Christ. Then he talks about the obedience of of Jesus, uh, and he did earlier as well. How the through the disobedience of Adam we all uh we all fell, but through the obedience, that obedience of Christ is not just obedience. Obedience to death, it is the entirety of Christ's incarnate life from conception to ascension. That includes resurrection. Resurrection was part of obedience that Paul is talking about here. And so resurrection for us, we need to be reminded, salvation is resurrection. Salvation is resurrection. Sometimes, especially in our theology of uh maybe altar theology, uh those of us in the holiness uh movement going back to you know the 1820s and 30s, you know, altar theology emphasized dying, right? Death. Salvation is a death, it's a dying. Um and I have an appreciation for that. But let's not miss out. Uh salvation is is resurrection, it's restoration. Uh, yes, through the death of one, but through the resurrection of Christ as well.
SPEAKER_02And it's not, and it goes beyond, you know, to um restoration. Yeah, I I love I love that image. I know that's a very important image for you. Um, and it's it's it's it's vital because it is get our humanity is liberated from the consequences that were brought. You know, Christ is reversing, he's reversing Adam's failures. We see that through his life and his temptations, you know, where Adam failed, Jesus is victorious. Um, but not only does he restore us to our original position, but what's different now is that our human nature has been united to the divine nature of Christ, which was not true, you know, in the garden. It was not true for Adam. And this divine human Christ who has uh reversed Adam's failures, who has, you know, caused our humanity to rise with him, he now has ascended, reigns, and is subduing all things. So he the new creation that's coming because of the resurrection of Jesus is a creation fully subdued, something Adam didn't see. So there's not only restoration, but then there's this taking us forward, this um, you know, this this surplus, um, as Ben Myers puts it, because of the the incarnation.
SPEAKER_00Right, right. I mean, it's it really is uh human flourishing, uh, right? It is it is uh it's beyond, you know, Christ takes us uh beyond uh to by the way, to the beyond that God intended, uh, but because of sin, this was the the the manner in which it must be accomplished. Um so so the resurrection is a uh is a celebration of not not just a vindication of who Christ is, but it is a statement, a moment of the renewal of humanity, of the human race. Uh the human race begins again in this new man, Jesus Christ. And now all of our thoughts and life and theology needs to have that as its reference point. It's a new reference point for all of creation.
SPEAKER_02Yeah. I I I'm a very visual person, so I'm just I'm just reflecting here on how to illustrate this. Um certainly starting with Paul's illustration, I think is is is helpful, the first fruits illustration. I use this a lot. In fact, I told our congregation they're probably getting tired of hearing it, but I I want them to, I want them to really get a hold of it. You know, Paul describes the resurrection as the first fruits. So if we're just if we're looking back to the resurrection primarily as something that happened, um that's the that's really not the primary uh posture of a Christian. The primary posture is looking at the resurrection through the lens of the wreck resurrection forward at what is yet coming. Like when you pluck an apple off the tree and you're about to bite into it and you think, oh boy, is this gonna be good? And then you bite it and it's crisp and it's sweet, and you think, oh yes, this is a great apple harvest this year. And where what's your posture? My posture is toward this orchard, and I just can't wait to pluck it because it guarantees me this whole beautiful harvest to follow. That's what the resurrection is, you know, it's like the beginning of something. It's like the it's just so exciting because it's like it's happening, like what God has promised from the beginning is happening, right? Like creation is being made new. This physical body of Jesus that eats fish and has wounds and and walks and talks with the disciples. This body has been made new. Everything's gonna be made new.
SPEAKER_00It is, it's like the reverse of an infection, yeah. So so a bacteria or virus that multiplies within your body and makes you sick. It's the reverse of that, right? So the the resurrection has begun, and that's why I like to say the resurrection has begun. It's not finished, it's still happening. It's it's still it, we're we're in the middle of it, so to speak. Our resurrection is yet future. Christ's resurrection has happened, ours is yet future. Uh, but it is but it's begun. And and death, death is already dying. It is it death is on a downward spiral that will that it's yet to be completed, but it will be completed. And we're in that era in which uh things are not getting uh worse for life, they're getting better for life. What I mean is that we are nearer and nearer every moment to the final moment of death and the completion of life abundantly. Uh that's that's where we are. That's what this Christian era is all about. Uh so in a sense, you know, Easter uh is is not just a season. I mean, it's it's the life of of a believer, and the church, the church has appropriately uh observed you know these seasons because uh what these seasons, what the liturgy gives to us is it gives us a structure for practicing faith and uh for for the church to uh to gauge in corporate worship with a corporate focus instead of uh you know all of us being you know kind of scattered in our uh with where we are uh spiritually and and uh mentally tuned in. So it gives us a structure for worship, it gives us a structure for observing uh the uh the moments of Christ's life and his um his uh salvation for us through his incarnate life, and then of course the Holy Spirit uh and the season of Pentecost. Uh so it's an important structure. Uh but overall our life is uh in this great happy anticipation of the resurrection, and all of life should be defined by that.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, so let me go back to something you you said about, you know, really this the direction of of creation. Um we I think sometimes this is this is the danger. We still just think about it, we think about the world as though Christ had never come. We think about it as though we we were living on on the other side of the resurrection where it's like, well, Adam sinned and this old world is just it's just gone to nothing. Well, no, it's not. It's not going to nothing, it's going somewhere because of the resurrection. Look at the church. We are we are also the first fruits of the of the resurrection. You know, we are also the, and that's why Romans 8 says creation is waiting for the appearing of the sons of God, not just Christ, but if we are resurrected, then it creation, you know, personified, knows that it's going to be resurrected as well. So this optimism that marks Methodism, that marks Wesley is in the optimism of grace, it's largely due to this understanding of Christ's resurrection, death, burial, resurrection of having an effect on creation now. And I think of Athanasius, who, you know, in On the Incarnation of uh, which I'm reading again uh here with our Patricics reading group, where he talks about how after Adam um went, well, so first of all, he says, you know, God said, the moment you eat, you will die. And sometimes people are like, well, wait a minute, Adam didn't die, right? I mean, that's the common Bible question, like, wait a minute, he's still walking around like he's gonna die, but he God said he was gonna die. And you know, Athanasius says, Well, what does this mean except that you will begin to die? You you will now have a tendency towards, or your direction will be towards non-being and disintegration. You know, you're going, you're like walking into darkness, you're just headed towards death and disintegration and nothingness in the end. Um, Christ reverses that so that now creation's tendency is, even though it's still corrupted, it's still, but there's now this new tendency. The direction has been reversed now, as you said, towards not non-being and disintegration, but actually towards, you know, ultimate resurrection and restoration. And and the the foretaste of this is the church. And that's why I, you know, after preaching through Colossians 2, uh, I just keep coming back to like this is this is supposed to be like our church life. Yes, it's not perfect yet. Yes, it's not, you know, everything ought to be yet, but this ought to be in some way a foretaste of the creation yet to come. And so when we say, let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts or rule in your, you know, in the church, it's like this is this is huge because this is the new Adam who has subdued all things and is beginning to subdue the creation. And and where does he begin? In the church. He begins by ruling or subduing or having dominion in the church. So we ought to be a place of human flourishing. The church is a place of human flourishing because what's happening now in the church is going to be extended to the ends of the earth. There's this pro this primary optimism about what God is doing.
SPEAKER_00It is. And and Paul uses uh is speaking presently in both Romans 6 and Colossians 2, where he uses the baptism as a metaphor. The going down is identification with his death, the rising up, the coming out of the water is identification with the resurrection. And for for every baptized believer, they are they are raised in newness of life. We have newness of life now. Obviously, physically, we still await a resurrection. We await death and resurrection, but there is a real spiritual newness of life, so that collectively, as the church, as the body of Christ, our living head, we we are to show forth life. Now, what's this mean? That sounds like a lot of theological jargon and and even cliche in in many ways, but what's this mean? Um, I am uh I'm teaching uh history of church and state, so this immediately comes to mind. Uh, it is the church's role in society to be the moral guideposts for our culture. That is to show what an abundant life is, to show what it means for humans and all of creation to flourish. That's a moral stance. And and the church ought to be taking a moral posture towards every other sphere of sovereignty, as as um Abraham Kuyper called it. You know, there are various spheres of sovereignty, you know, state and and church and family and and uh other uh education was another one. Um but the ch it's the church's role to show all other spheres within our culture what the abundant life uh looks like in anticipation for eternal life, um life in eternity.
SPEAKER_02So let me try to summarize that uh maybe a different way to make sure I understand your point here. Sometimes uh if we have this merely spiritual view of salvation, it's about escaping this world, getting to the other world where human flourishing will happen, versus if we understand that the physical resurrection of Jesus begins new creation in us, in the church, in our lives, we we begin to experience newness of life now. Then even though, of course, you know, we're not going to experience human flourishing to its fullness until Christ comes again and completes his work. Um, but but we still are experiencing now something of this resurrection life and power. And so we ought to be focused on trying to model this kind of whole holistic lifestyle now so that the world around us can see what God is doing and what God intends for humanity.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, yeah. So we know that uh justice will not be perfect until Christ returns, but that doesn't mean that we don't pursue justice. Uh we know that uh that the church, uh, as we mentioned earlier, it's a mixed bag, right? There are sinners and there are saints within the church, but it doesn't mean that we do not seek the purity of the church. Uh it does not mean that we uh you know take our our foot off the gas pedal, so to speak, and urging and and and pushing in in every way possible for uh the the moral life that God has revealed to us through scripture and through his son chiefly, that that that is for now, that that the uh the social interaction and social responsibilities and pursuing justice and peace and mercy and truth, that all of that is something to to be pursued even now. And um although at the same time we know that there is a not yet to the kingdom of God. Right. So while we're talking about uh the church and particularly pastoral ministry, let's let's just bring this down to the pulpit. Uh this past Sunday was Easter Sunday, uh beginning of Easter season. And uh so tell me what did you preach? Uh what how did that go? What was your emphasis?
SPEAKER_02Yeah, so I I did focus on this this theme um of the resurrection as the beginning of new creation. And so my my basically my three-point outline, you know, you got to have your three points there. I often don't, but I I guess I did in one way or another. Um uh what really ended up, it wasn't really planned that way, but it ended up just simply being um, you know, it uh about the first of all, the resurrection of Jesus is a physical resurrection. If Jesus is physically risen, the physical body of Jesus is resurrected, then our physical bodies will be resurrected. If our physical bodies will be resurrected, then the whole creation will be made new. And uh I have someone in our congregation that just loves the song, This Is My Father's World. And it was a beautiful, a beautiful day. Uh we just had a beautiful Easter Sunday here. The weather is just gorgeous. Uh, I went to my uh grandma's house and spent some time there. She's a 10-acre property right by the woods. It's a beautiful day. The birds were singing. Uh, you know, we're a rural church, so we have lots of lots of uh some farmers, some outdoor, you know, outdoorsy kind of people, um, like fishing and and hunting and hiking. And so I spent some time talking about how, you know, on this beautiful day um that we have in this beautiful world that God has created, um, we know deep in our hearts that the physical world that that God has made is very good. Now it's been corrupted, um, but it's it's still very good. It's just that it needs to be purified and cleansed from these corrupting influences. And uh, and then I also went a different direction and talked about another illustration. You know, we've had some deaths recently in our congregation, uh, and some that have hit our congregation pretty hard. And I talked about how, and I wrote an article for Holy Joys on this recently, how often at funerals we, again, we undermine, well, that body was just a shell, and talked about how we also know deep in our hearts that not having the physical presence of a loved one, you know, with us is a very difficult thing. You know, we we're we're embodied, we love, you know, the touch. And I said, you know, this resurrection is a day filled with hope because it's about the physical resurrection of Jesus. It assures us that what we love about this physical world will will not only be part of new creation, but it will be it'll be perfected, it'll be cleansed, it'll be purified. It's God's not gonna destroy this world again, you know, in the sense that He's gonna throw it out and start it all over, or we're gonna have some, you know, world beyond the sky and worlds unknown beyond the starry sky. And it assures us that the physical bodies of our loved ones are gonna be raised as well, and that the salvation that Jesus has provided with us is physical. And I quoted this friend of mine, uh, Dave Fry, who said that the beginning of thinking about things eternal is the resurrection body of Jesus. That stood with me from one of our uh former discussions, uh, but just encouraging people to begin to think more and more about salvation in terms of the God who made all things uh by the the Son and the Spirit, sending the Son and the Spirit into the world to make all things new. So, how about you?
SPEAKER_00What was your uh so I'm I'm not yeah, I'm not a three-point alliterated outline preacher. I I in fact, many times I don't have an outline that you would be able to follow. I'm very much a big idea preacher, and I pretty much just repeat that you know throughout. Uh so uh the idea on Sunday, uh reflecting uh on the difficult year. Uh of course my mom passed away, several uh people within the church uh passed away in the last year. So there are a lot of people who are uh you know hurting, grieving, experience, you know, very close loss. And so my idea, I mean, I started out you know saying, brothers and sister, I I I have good news. Uh the dead shall live again. And and that was my my theme. Uh, because Christ lives, uh, the dead shall live again. And not only that, but those of us who are in this very moment dying, uh, we are, we may not feel like we are, but we are dying physically. Uh, we shall live again uh because Christ lives. Uh so that was the theme that I I and I had several you know scriptures that I uh went through. And actually, my main scripture is Romans 8, 31 through 34, and uh talked about Romans 1 through 7 as a sort of uh you know, Paul the attorney here is setting out the case against humanity, uh, but then uh is it turns the scene to to Jesus Christ, our our intercessor, uh there in Romans 8. Uh so a a kind of a um a second chance sort of uh theme. You know, the resurrection is uh the uh the pinnacle of second chance for humanity. I mean, this is a renewal of humanity, and uh this is God's gift to us, him saying uh that uh when you are dying, uh when you are lost, you know, in your sin, uh I provided uh my own son so that you might live. So the dead shall live again. And uh, brothers and sisters, uh, that is the truth of the gospel. That's the good news. Uh the dead shall live again uh because he lives. Uh so maybe we need to come back sometime and talk about uh just preaching in general. Yeah. Uh I I yeah, I have always I've always struggled to be fit into that mold of three, four points, uh, especially alliteration. I that's not my gift, and so I don't even try it because it's gonna take terrible. I I I love hearing a sermon that is you know that way, uh as long as it's biblical and scriptural and theologically rich, uh enriching. Uh, but I'm not gifted in that way.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, yeah, I I'm I'm the same way because um often what I'll do is my manuscript will almost just read like a like a monologue, just go like when I'm talking, I don't just decide to have this like abrupt stop and shift to a totally different. There's a much more natural flow, and that tends to be how my my preaching is. And it's been encouraging, you know, when you read um you read sermons in the past, usually they don't they don't have points necessarily, especially from the church fathers. Um, so why don't we just end with this here then? A short excerpt, short reading from Gregory. Christ is risen from the dead, rise with him. Christ has returned to himself, return. Christ is freed from the tomb, be freed from the bonds of sin. The gates of Hades are opened and death is destroyed, and the old Adam is put aside, and the new is fulfilled. If anyone in Christ is a new creation, be made new.
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