What if Easter Hadn't Happened?

        Teacher, writer and speaker Tony Campolo writes, "I belong to a Black church in Philadelphia and we hear some great sermons. I was at a funeral service this year for a friend of mine who was killed in a horrible automobile accident. I will never forget the funeral service. The sermon was going on. And this old preacher got up there and the first thing he did was preach to the congregation for about half an hour. Then he preached to the family for about another half hour and then the last half hour he came off the platform.

       “The open casket is right there and the last half hour he talked to the corpse.  If that isn't weird. So he started off by saying, Clarence, Clarence, there is a lot of things I should have told you that I never told you, so I am going to tell you now.’ And that guy just preached eloquently to that corpse.

       “Before the funeral even starts the woman who was married to the man, went to the corpse. She was crying and screaming and going through the whole bit. She was yelling ‘Clarence, speak to me, speak to me Clarence, speak to me.’ Campolo says, "Two guys sitting behind me, one said to the other, ‘if'n he does. I got the window, you got the door.’ No response.

       “But then there we are, and this guy is preaching at the casket. Now you want to hear a tremendous ending to a funeral service? After he finished talking and sharing the gospel with this corpse, he said, "Well, that's it Clarence, that's it. I've said it all." He reached up, grabbed the lid of the coffin and he looked at the corpse, and he said, "Clarence, good night!"  And he slammed the lid down.

       And then he turned on us and he looked mean at first…and he looked at us and we all waited. And then a smile crossed his face and he said "And I know the Lord is going to give him a good morning."

       Isn't that great? And then with that the choir came in with, "On That Resurrection Morning, We Shall Rise, We Shall Rise." Isn't that the good news of Easter morning?  Jesus is alive and because Jesus is alive we can also live.  You know when you say good night, you know that person is saying good morning -- and that's the gospel.

       But what if Easter hadn’t happened.  What if Jesus had died and stayed dead? 

       To answer this, I want you to use your imagination and picture our world as a terrarium.

       My version of this terrarium is this large bottle from the office cooler  (bring out bottle).. Into the bottle you pour gravel, sand, and soil. With long tweezers you plant seeds of special plants. Then you put in just the right amount of moisture and a cork in the top. You set it where it gets just the right amount of light. The water rises to the top and condenses, and it rains inside. The plants grow. Everything is well ordered.

       Now I want you to picture your life as lived in this kind of enclosed world.  It has hard boundaries but it meets most of our physical needs and many of our emotional and psychic ones.  Yes, there is a cork in the top, but that doesn't bother us at first. Because, as we look around at what is inside, there are so many things to do, so many places to explore, so many issues to uncover.   Three years ago a group conducted online voting to come up with a new list of the Seven Wonders of the World.  But there are a lot more than seven. In fact, we could take dozens of lifetimes -- just to explore what's inside the world.

       Wouldn't that be an ideal place in which to live? If I could just have life in this world to the full, couldn't I say "I’ve checked off the things on my bucket list.  I've lived as much as I really want to live -- even if God doesn't give me another good morning after I die?"  Couldn't we say that?

       Today I'd like to explore this question with a famous guide -- a man who wrote a book about his exploration of this terrarium that he walked through called earth. The guidebook that he left is the Old Testament Book of Ecclesiastes.

       He introduces himself in chapter 1, verse 1. "I the teacher was king over Israel in Jerusalem. His name is Solomon. Solomon is rich and handsome and famous, young, intellectually gifted, and inquisitive. And he has the power to do whatever he wants.  So he decides to go on a journey through the whole broad range of this earth and to document what he finds.

       The first verses of his text: "Meaningless! Meaningless!' Everything is meaningless."

Solomon begins his book with his conclusion. His conclusion is that life as we experience it just on earth is ultimately meaningless.  It’s simply not big enough.

       Singer Peggy Lee agrees.  In her song “Is that all There Is?” she talks about her house burning down when she was a little girl.  She talks about going to a circus. She talks about falling in love.  At the end of each experience she asks, “Is that all there is?”  There’s something missing.  She always expected something more.

       The inspiring final stanza goes: “I know what you must be saying to yourselves, “If that's the way she feels about it why doesn't she just end it all?  Oh, no, not me. I'm in no hurry for that final disappointment, for I know just as well as I'm standing here talking to you, when that final moment comes and I'm breathing my last breath, I'll be saying to myself, ‘Is that all there is, is that all there is. If that's all there is my friends, then let's keep dancing. Let's break out the booze and have a ball If that's all there is.’”

       I wonder if that’s what Peggy Lee said when she died in 2002? I was going to ask the choir to sing that song this morning but…despite the beautiful words it’s actually kid of a downer.  And I don’t want to be a downer this Easter morning. 

       You should picture me as a jeweler laying out the black background so you can then appreciate the wonder and beauty of the diamond that is the resurrection.  Trust me.  We’ll get to the diamond.

       But first I want us to pay attention to what Solomon has to say.  Because I am confident that some of us here this morning are living in the belief that, "if all I could have were a good life on this earth. That would be enough. I would be satisfied."

       Solomon says, "Listen to me. It's not enough. I've been there: you won't be satisfied." He calls himself the man "under the sun -- the man whose world is limited by space and time. His conclusion is "what you'll find is an empty life."

      How does he know that anyway? I mean, what right does Solomon have to write off 2010 and tell us that it's meaningless?

       It's because he tried it all. He says in chapter 2, verse 1, "I thought in my heart, 'Come now, I will test you with pleasure to find out what is good. But that also proved to be meaningless. I tried cheering myself with wine and embracing folly -- my mind still guiding me with wisdom. I undertook great projects. I built houses; I planted vineyards for the future. I built ships. I had gold and silver. I built parks and gardens. I had slaves. I had many women. I gave myself to music and comedy and laughter. I did it all."

       Today his resume might read like this: "I flew rescue helicopters in Iraq. I played in the PGA.  I've built my own solar house. I saved the whale. I won the Nobel Peace Prize – twice.  I developed a great and prestigious winery in the Napa Valley. I've owned and quarterbacked an NFL championship franchise. I've performed in the nightclubs. I've lived with the movie stars and dated all the hot ones. I've done it my way."

       "And," he says, "don't think I'm some pallid, little, wheezy killjoy." He says in chapter 2 verse 10, 'I denied myself nothing. I refused my heart no pleasure." "And," he says, "I loved it all. I wasn't setting out to prove that it was meaningless. I set out to enjoy it, and I enjoyed it." So this is not someone who is ready to take all of our fun away.

       Then in chapter 2 verse 9 He says. "In all this my wisdom stayed with me. In all the things I tried -- pleasure, music, travel, ownership, dominion over the work world -- in all those things I kept my mind about me to sort and process and evaluate and conclude." You know what his conclusion is -- Chapter 2. Verse 17: "So I hated life. I hated all the things I had toiled for under the sun."   And now here’s why.  Solomon says, “It’s because I have to die and leave these things to one who comes after me."   Solomon says “The one who dies with the most toys doesn’t win a thing.  He or she just has to leave them behind.”  Solomon says that he hates what he loves -- because he can't keep it. He hears time keep on slipping into the future.  That’s the theme of Ecclesiastics 3.  He clock ticking.  He knows that his time is going to run out and that one day he will simply be a character in a sermon.

       Many of you probably remember the film Out of Africa. You'll remember it's the true story of a young Danish woman named Karen Blixen. At an early age she goes to Kenya. There she marries a man she hardly knows. She plants a coffee plantation; and for a while, paradise belongs to Karen Blixen. Then, after about fifteen years of hard labor, within the span of a few months she loses it all. She loses her health, she loses her lover -- Robert Redford -- she loses her friends, she loses her coffee crop and her farm. Everything she lived for is taken away from her. As she is reflecting in that movie she writes with burning, utterly answerless nostalgia and fatigue about how meaningless it all was. She says: "If I know a song for Africa, of the giraffe and the African new moon lying on her back of the plows in the fields and sweaty faces of the coffee pickers, does Africa know a song of me? Would the air over the plain quiver with a color that I had on? Or the children invent a game in which my name was? Or the full moon throw a shadow over the gravel in the drive that was like me? Or would the eagles of the hills look out for me?"  

       She gives her life to Africa. But when she's gone, Africa doesn't remember. There's nothing there that remembers her, though she remembers it.

       Why does Solomon hate life? With every pleasure available, every vehicle for enjoyment, every conceivable advantage to a young man, why does he hate life? I'll tell you why he hates life. He has found the boundaries of the terrarium. No matter how beautiful it is, no matter how pleasant and nice, life under the sun is finally meaningless because it's not big enough. Salomon says, "I have discovered the boundaries. I have looked around this earth, this terrarium, and the one thing I find is this: There's a cork in the top of the bottle, and I can't get out. And that destroys my pleasure because it’s no good to have it if I can’t keep it." 

       But I have news for you. That's not even the toughest part.  The toughest part isn’t that were  trapped but that we know we’re trapped.  In chapter 3, verse 11. Solomon says "God has made everything beautiful in its time. He has also set eternity in the hearts of people.”

       We’re not dumb animals.  We are spiritual creatures.  And as spiritual creatures God has put eternity in our hearts.  He’s given us the desire for more but, for Solomon, “the person under the sun,” all that desire gives is frustration.  .  Solomon says it’s that that the walls of the terrarium are transparent -- but impermeable. We can see through them. We know in our hearts there's something wonderful and lasting on the other side. But we can't get through.

       Okay. I want to thank you for enduring this litany of bad news – the black background before the diamond.  I promise you there is a purpose in it. Because did you know this Easter morning, this resurrection Sunday, that the one thing we can tell you about all this bad news is that this bad news is wrong. That's what Easter tells us.  

       If Easter hadn’t happened we’d be as frustrated as Solomon and death would win. But Easter tells us that we have hope not just now but forever.

       You see, Jesus Christ came out of eternity. He penetrated the barrier of time and our humanity. He lived in this world. He died. And then He rose from the dead. That's the message of Easter. He says, “The cork is out of the bottle. Because I am alive you can also have eternity.”

       There is a false form of Christianity in our day that claims that it's enough to have Jesus in this life -- even if there is not life after death. This false faith says that the real message of Easter is, “Jesus is the example; He is the moral teacher; He has given us the great example of His life and His teaching for us to follow. Now remember that and try to imitate Him."

       But a Christian message that is really only a good example of how to live inside the walls of the bottle doesn't answer our real need. In 1 Corinthians 15, the Apostle Paul echoes Solomon. He says in verse 17, "If only for this life we have put our hope in Christ, we are more to be pitied than all people." If this is all there is -- if all there is is an 80 degree day in Moorpark, California -- then live it up. Get out of here right now and go to the beach. If that's all there is -- if there is no resurrection from the grave -- then just enjoy. Because this is all you're gonna get.

       But that is not the Easter message. This Sunday morning we are gathered here to remember the greatest fact of history: Jesus Christ, risen from the dead -- and the promise of hope for us all. "Because I live, you will also live." The terrarium cannot hold us. There has been an outside intervention. It is God's only Son who died that you might live. That is good news.

       But it is only good news if you do something with it.

       One of the central themes of Jesus’ teaching was the need for all people to prepare today for eternity.  His asked, “What does it profit a person to gain the whole world in sixty or seventy years and lose his or her soul for eternity?” God has set eternity in your heart. You know better. There is life beyond the grave. You know deep down that you will spend infinitely more time in the afterlife than you will in this life. So think.

       Pastor Bill Hybels of the Willow Creek Church in Illinois writes,

       "I recall one time being in a restaurant studying for a message, and a gal looked over from her table and saw me reading my Bible. She said, "Why do you study that stuff?"

        And I thought, just to stimulate a little discussion, I'd try to knock her off balance. So I said, "Because I don't feel like going to hell when I die." I was going to be really blunt, but I took the edge off it a little bit.

       And she said, "There is no such thing as heaven or hell."

       I thought, well, I got something going now. So I turned in my chair and I said, "why do you say that?"

       She said, "Everybody knows that when you die your candle goes out...poof!"

       You mean to tell me there's no afterlife?"

       "No."

       "So that means you must be able to just live as you please?"

       "That's right."

       "Like there's no judgment day or anything?"

       "No."

       I said, "Well, that's fascinating to me. Where did you hear that?"

       She said, "I read it somewhere."

       "Can you give me the name of the book?"

       "I don't recall."

       "Can you give me the name of the author of the book?"

       "I forgot his name."

       "Did that author write any other books?"

       "I don't know."

       "Is it possible that your author changed his mind two years after he wrote this particular book and then wrote another one that said there is a heaven and a hell? Is that possible?"

       "It's possible but not likely."

       "All right," I said. "Let me get this straight. You are rolling the dice on your eternity predicated on what someone you don't even know wrote in a book you can't even recall the title of. Have I got that straight?" I was playing a little Colombo act with her.

       She looked me right in the eye and said, "That's right."

       And I said back to her, "You know that I think, sweetheart? I think you have merely created a belief that guarantees the continuation of your unencumbered lifestyle. I think you made it up, because it is very discomforting to think of a heaven. It is a very discomforting thought to think of a hell. It is very unnerving to face a Holy God in the day of reckoning. I think you made it all up." We had quite a conversation after that."

        God has set eternity in your heart. You know there is life beyond the grave.   God has put eternity in your heart. 

       But which eternity? 

       Easter is wonderful good news. But it is only good news if you do something with it.

       And it’s also worth the doing.  Because of the victory of Jesus Christ, not only are His promises sure, but what we do as His disciples will last.  Solomon’s works all perished.  But ours will last.  This is the main focus of what Paul writes about the meaning of Easter in 1 Corinthians 15.  He writes “be steadfast, immovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, knowing that in the Lord your work is not empty."

       Because Jesus Christ won the victory on Easter, it means not only that He reigns and that His victory is sealed and that His words have authority, but it also means that what we do for the Lord in our lives on this earth is going to last. What we accomplish together in this church is going to endure. Because our work is "in Christ" as Paul writes, our work can't perish any more than Christ can perish.  Unlike Solomon’s work, our work is not meaningless. 

       We have a great present and we have a greater future. We have a great invitation from Jesus to turn to Him in faith. And what we do with that invitation sets the course for the eternity God has placed in your heart.  God has a purpose for your life.  We would be delighted to help you discover and live it.  Next Sunday would be a great time to start as we talk about the meaning of faith.

Note: I am indebted to a sermon by Episcopal evangelist John Guest titled "The Good News is the Bad News is Wrong" for the analogy of the world as a terrarium and pointing me to the contrast between the bad news of Ecclesiastes and the good news of Easter.