When God "High-Fived" the World

When God "High-Fived" the World (April 20, 2003)

"Now I would remind you, brothers and sisters, of the good news that I proclaimed to you….that Christ died for our sins in accordance with the scriptures, and that he was buried, and that he was raised on the third day in accordance with the scriptures." 1 Corinthians 15:1,3

These words from Paul's first letter to the Corinthians summarize succinctly the original message of the apostles when they went out into the world: Christ died for our sins, he was buried, and he was raised on the third day. This was the basic message - the church's proclamation -- and it spread like wildfire. It was as if a great battle, or a contest, had been fought pitting the forces of good against the forces of sin and death and the devil, and on the cross God had utterly defeated these forces and in raising Christ from the dead God had given the proof of the victory.

St. Paul wrote to the Colossians that "God has now brought you to life with Christ. God forgave us all our sins, he canceled the unfavorable record of our debts and did away with it completely by nailing it to the cross. And on that cross Christ freed himself from the power of the spiritual rulers and authorities, made a public spectacle of them, triumphing over them."

One of the great Easter hymns picks up this contest idea very clearly: "The strife is o'er, the battle done, the victory of life is won; the song of triumph has begun. Alleluia!"

St. Paul may well have been an athlete in his youth. Certainly he used athletic metaphors frequently - metaphors from boxing and running and wrestling come up again and again. I like to watch the college basketball games called March Madness. I can't help noticing how often the winners greet each other with what are called "high fives", then they always fall on each other in the middle of the floor.

I think if he were writing today St. Paul might say that the resurrection of Jesus Christ was when God "high fived" the world. Alleluia means "Praise the Lord". It's high fives all around.

The game seemed to be over. You can just hear the courtside commentators. "Jesus certainly didn't seem to bring enough forces to this particular fight, did he, Chet." "That's right, Al, the Romans were just too big in the paint. You knew it was going to be a long night when he showed up on a donkey. No way to impress anyone with a power game, is it?" "No, I guess not, Chet.

Then one of his own men tipped off the other side and that was the ball game." "Right, Al, well we're winding things down here in Jerusalem, this game is certainly over. A total wipeout. One of the most one-sided losses in history. Jesus' team didn't have a chance. The time clock has mercifully run down and this one is over. The only ones left here are a few die-hard fans. I think one's his mother. Now back to the studio."

That's how it looked. But Easter changed that.

Easter is God's "high five" over sin, over despair, and over death.

In the 40 days of Lent the Christian Church remembers why it was in the first place that Christ died. He died for our sins. He died to bring us back to God. "God showed his love for us, in that while we were yet sinners Christ died for us." That is the basic message of the cross. On the cross he has "wiped away" our transgressions, set us free, to live life anew. This is a basic New Testament understanding of the cross. And the resurrection is God's proof of it. We are redeemed from the power of sin in our lives.

This is why Easter is always a good time for people to be baptized into Christian faith, or to reaffirm their commitment to Christ, to lay hold of the power of the living Christ to change lives, free us from wrongful ways, start life anew.

Frederick Beuchner wrote: "the power of sin is centrifugal. We all tend to make ourselves the center of the universe, pushing away centrifugally from that center everything that seems to impede its freewheeling. More even than hunger, poverty, or disease, it is what Jesus said he came to save the world from."

Easter Sunday we always begin with the reading from John's gospel: "early on the first day of the week, while it was still dark, Mary Magdalene came to the tomb…." It is significant it is Mary Magdalene, who had been a prostitute, led an unsavory life, but was rescued from sin by Jesus. That she was the first to come to the tomb has always had tremendous significance for the Church. God in Christ came to save us from our sins.

Easter is also "high five" time for God and the world because it is the greatest statement of hope in the history of the world. More hope has been given to the world through this one event than anything else in all history.

This doesn't mean life is always easy for us. Life still is filled with pressure and problems and pain. He never promised a rose garden. It was that way for the disciples and it has been that way for Christians in every age. But the message of the Cross is that God identifies fully with us in whatever happens to us, and the message of the empty cross, the cross of the resurrection, is that victory is assured, darkness will be turned to morning and the morning to noon day bright, and Christ's great kingdom shall come on earth, the kingdom of love and light. Jesus is alive by the power of God, not a dead figure to be memorialized in stone but a living Lord to be worshipped and glorified and loved now.

Today we heard "I Know that my Redeemer Lives" by Handel. Do you know what a mess Handel was in before he wrote the Messiah? He walked the streets of London every night in aimless, despondent wanderings. His abrasive manner had cost him friends. Gangs of rowdies broke up his operas. A cerebral hemorrhage paralyzed his right side. He was deeply in debt. He felt, old, tired and hopelessly beaten.

Then one night he got back to his apartment, pushed open the door, and there was a friend of his named Gibbon, a wealthy amateur poet, who had a manuscript for the composer. Handel was at first insulted by what he thought was religious twaddle. But with nothing better to do he leafed through it and suddenly a passage caught his eye: "He was despised and rejected of men…He trusted in God…God did not leave his soul in Hell…He will give you rest…I know that my Redeemer live…Hallelujah". And suddenly it seemed to Handel he saw heaven opened. Within a matter of weeks Handel had written his now famed oratorio.

Easter is God's great "high five" over all that would lead us to despair.

And it is certainly God's great "high five" over death. "The powers of death have done their worst, but Christ their legions has dispersed, let shouts of holy joy outburst. Alleluia!

The correct name for a funeral service in the Church is "witness to the resurrection". That is, it is a clear statement that this is not the end and because of God's great victory in Christ we know that there is more. The Christian Church confesses the "resurrection of the body". We do not disappear as does a drop of water into a limitless ocean, or some disembodied echo of a human being, but rather a new and revised version.

I've always liked the epitaph on Poor Richard's own Almanac by Benjamin Franklin, whose first occupation you remember was as a printer. "The body of Benjamin Franklin, Printer, like the covering of an old book, its content torn out and strips of its lettering and gilding, lies here, food for worms, but the work shall not be lost, It will (as he believed) appear once more, in a new and more beautiful edition, corrected and amended by the Author."

Franklin was more of a deist than a devout Christian, but he captured the Christian belief that something of our uniqueness and individuality, our "book" if you will, continues, in a "new and revised" edition, so that we do not disappear as a drop of water disappears in the ocean. And this is the greatest affirmation the world has ever known that the individual counts in the great scheme of things, and this concept has done more for human progress and to counteract tyranny and oppression than can possibly be measured. And it would have been lost, lost completely, if God had not "high fived" the world and in Christ's resurrection overcome death itself.

"Lord, by your wounds on Calvary, from death's dread sting Your servants free, that we may live eternally. Alleluia".