EASTER SUNDAY 1999
Phil Campbell
Mitchelton Presbyterian Church
I’ve got something here I want to show you. It’s a FASCINATING can of INSECT SPRAY. It’s AMWAY SURFACE SPRAY.
Now I don’t know if you’ve looked at many insect sprays lately. You can get all different sorts. There’s the Low Irritant sort. That I guess only makes the insects SLIGHTLY IRRITATED. There’s the Citrus scented; smells like a lemon tree. All sorts of sprays, for all sorts of insects.
But look, I’m sorry if you’re an Amway agent here today, but this is one insect spray I can’t recommend. Because listen to what it says.
It says on the can that AMWAY Surface spray KILLS COCKROACHES FOR UP TO THREE MONTHS.
Now I know cockroaches are pretty tough. And they reckon cockroaches can survive a nuclear blast. I know they’re hard to kill. But what a rip off. I mean, who’d want to buy insect spray that only kills cockroaches for three months. I want something that kills them so they STAY DEAD FOREVER.
But when I saw on the can that it says it KILLS COCKROACHES FOR UP TO THREE MONTHS, the reason I bought it is because I wanted to do an experiment. Kill a cockroach with it, put him in a jar, and then in three months time, I’m going to watch. And see if he revives. I reckon if he does it’ll make it onto the TV news. Or tales of the unexpected.
Now of course, someone explained to me after I bought it that’s not what the message on the can means to say at all. When it says KILLS COCKROACHES FOR UP TO THREE MONTHS, what they MEAN to say is that if you spray AMWAY SURFACE SPRAY on your kitchen shelves, it’ll KEEP KILLING COCKROACHES for three months. The goo’s going to stay there where you’ve sprayed it and keep killing cockroaches for month after month after month.
It’s not the DEATH that lasts three months. It’s the SPRAY. And in the usual way, the Cockroaches stay dead for ever.
But just imagine if it DID MEAN IT THE OTHER WAY. Just imagine if DEATH WASN’T PERMANENT after all. It wouldn’t be so great with cockroaches, I know; but wouldn’t it be sensational news if DEATH WASN’T THE END. For us. And there was something more to come.
At the Easter Awakening Prayer meeting on Friday night, they’d collected prayer points from kids in scripture classes in the primary schools. They asked, what do you want to pray for your family. And one little girl wrote, I want to pray that my family will STAY ALIVE FOR EVER, and NEVER DIE. Don’t we ALL WISH THAT.
Wouldn’t it be GREAT NEWS if death wasn’t permanent after all.
But of course, from what we see, it is.
Our experience of life tells us DEATH IS VERY FINAL. Our experience of life tells us that anything else is just wishful thinking. There were those members of a cult in America a couple of years ago, the Heavens Gate cult. Their leader told them to drink poison and lie down, and they’d be taken up to a spaceship and come back to life. Didn’t happen. They got taken off in a truck to the morgue instead. And that’s our experience, isn’t it - death doesn’t just last a few days. Or three months. It lasts forever.
Which means for most people, to be told any different, to be convinced it was any different, to be convinced that death’s not just a big FULL STOP at the end of the sentence of life, you’d need to be have some pretty concrete PROOF.
Because all our experience tells us WHEN YOU’RE DEAD YOU’RE DEAD.
It’s interesting as we come to our bible passage this morning, the person we can relate to best is the disciple THOMAS.
It’s easy to be critical of poor old Thomas; he’s gone down in history as DOUBTING THOMAS. Because when the other disciples want to tell him JESUS HAS COME BACK FROM THE DEAD, he reacts just like an ORDINARY PERSON. Like you would. Or I would.
You’re kidding. You’re having me on. I mean, if you think that’s a joke, it’s in pretty poor taste. What sort of APRIL FOOLS JOKE is that? He says, I went to the FUNERAL last Friday. He’s in the cemetery.
Talk of Jesus ALIVE AGAIN sounded just as crazy to Thomas as it would to you or me when we’re just getting over a funeral, and three days later people try to tell you that the friend you just buried has COME BACK. And after you finished getting angry about it, you’d say, YOU’RE WATCHING TOO MANY EPISODES OF THE X-FILES. Or it’s just your overactive imagination. Or… maybe you saw a GHOST.
Have a look at the disciple John’s account of it. He was there. And this is how he tells it. Chapter 20, verse 24. And if you haven’t got a church bible, it’s printed inside the service sheet as well. "Now Thomas, called Didymus, which means THE TWIN, one of the twelve, wasn’t with the other disciples when Jesus came. When the other disciples told him they’d seen the Lord, he said exactly what you’d say. Or I’d say. He declared, "Unless I see the nail marks in his hands, and put my finger where the nails were, and put my hand into his side, I WILL NOT BELIEVE IT."
Because this sort of thing just DOESN’T HAPPEN.
You know the trouble with that sort of thinking? The fact something doesn’t USUALLY happen, doesn’t mean it doesn’t EVER happen. The fact you’ve never SEEN something happen, doesn’t mean it NEVER HAPPENS. And if you think like that, you don’t allow for anything NEW.
Thomas has never seen anyone come back from death before. It’s always been a one way street. And now here’s someone driving down it the other way. And he’s just not ready to take it in.
But a week later, the disciples are in the same house again where Jesus had appeared to them before. And this time, Thomas is there with them. The doors are locked, they’re crowded into the room.
And somehow, Jesus is suddenly there with them.
And he’s not dead. He’s alive.
And he’s not a ghost, either.
I mean, this really looks like X-files sort of stuff, doesn’t it. Except the X Files isn’t real. And this, for one time in history, IS. Because it’s the SON OF GOD we’re dealing with here. And it’s a ONE OFF EVENT. That’s never happened before. And hasn’t happened since.
Read it for yourself, from verse 26; middle of the verse. "Though the doors were locked, Jesus came and stood among them and said, "Peace be with you." And then he turns and talks to Thomas. Because somehow, he knows exactly what Thomas has been saying. And what he’s been thinking.
Thomas is the classic "I’ll believe it when I see it" sort of person. He’s the classic SCIENTIFIC TYPE. Prove it. Demonstrate it. Thomas is the guy who said UNLESS I PUT MY FINGER WHERE THE NAILS WERE, I won’t believe it. And so Jesus says to him, come here. Verse 27. Put your finger here; see my hands. Reach out your hand and put it into my side where they drove the spear in." It’s real. I’m not a ghost. I’m flesh and blood. And I really died; and I’m really back.
At which point Thomas has to do a total rethink. And reconsider everything he always thought about LIFE AND DEATH. And everything he always thought about Jesus.
Can I say to you this morning, that the resurrection of Jesus should push YOU to reconsider both of those same things. To reconsider Jesus. And to reconsider LIFE AND DEATH.
Jesus says to Thomas, STOP DOUBTING AND BELIEVE. And that’s exactly what Thomas does. The CYNIC. The DOUBTER. The SCIENTIFIC MIND. Verse 28, here’s his new perspective on Jesus. "My Lord and my GOD." Convinced by the resurrection that’s who Jesus is. And in the light of what’s happened, a fair enough conclusion. That JESUS is entitled to his WORSHIP. That Jesus is entitled to RULE HIS LIFE. From that point on. Because of who he is.
And second, there’s a new perspective on life and death. Read about it in the next few verses. Because Jesus has shown in this ONE OFF HISTORICAL DEMONSTRATION that death’s not the end at all. And his life after death shows that the reality is, we’re not as limited by death as we think we are.
Verse 30, read what it says. "Jesus did many other miraculous signs in the presence of his disciples that are not recorded in this book. But these are written that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, just like Thomas did… and that BY BELIEVING, YOU may have life… in his name. That’s the offer. And it comes by bowing to Jesus, just like Thomas did. Believing that he’s the CHRIST. Just like he says.
I was talking a few months back to a guy who works for TELSTRA. He was fixing our phone. Telling me he’d recently become a Christian. His wife had been a Christian quite a while. He hadn’t. Because he said it just hadn’t occurred to him that the RESURRECTION OF JESUS WAS REAL. And that there were REAL eye-witnesses to it. He figured it was some kind of fairy story. He was like Thomas.
But as he was challenged to look at the evidence, at passages like this, at passages like 1 Corinthians 15 that tells us there were more than 500 witnesses who saw him, he realised he had to take notice. And take the resurrection seriously. And Jesus seriously as well.
There are plenty of well meaning half Christians, aren’t there. Christmas and Easter Christians, even every Sunday Christians, who’ve never got around to thinking it through. Who have never seriously looked at the claims of the resurrection.
I was looking through a book of gags the other day. One liners. One that said, EASTER IS CANCELLED THIS YEAR. THEY FOUND THE BODY. Ha ha. Let me tell you, if they do, IT IS. No joke. If they do, CHRISTIANITY is CANCELLED AS WELL. If they do, you can CAN HOPE. And MEANING. As well. It’s just life. Death. Full stop.
But according to John, according to an eye witness who was there, IT HAPPENED. Whether you like it or not. With enough evidence to change even the hardest cynic. Like Thomas. And convinced him to change his perspective on life and death; on heaven and hell. And on Jesus himself. So can I urge you this morning, take a fresh look. And if the evidence stacks up, let it make a difference – if it stacks up, don’t just HALF BELIEVE IT. Let it make a difference in the way you look at Jesus. And the way you look at life.
People want to say it isn’t real. When you’re dead you’re dead. This sort of stuff doesn’t happen. Except that for once, it DID HAPPEN. So that now, having a grip on reality means taking the resurrection on board. And saying to Jesus what Thomas said. MY LORD. And MY GOD.