Feb. 14, 2021 1 Cor. 15:12-20 “The Tomb Is Empty!!”

12 Feb Feb. 14, 2021 1 Cor. 15:12-20 “The Tomb Is Empty!!”

Feb. 14, 2021   1 Cor. 15:12-20    “The Tomb Is Empty!!”

Have you ever stopped to think about some of the things that you really don’t want to do?  I have noticed as I’ve gotten older that I really don’t have too many things anymore that I don’t want to do.  And if I don’t want to do them, then I just don’t do them.  However, I received an email from the bishop a couple of weeks ago.  I have never received any direct contact from the bishop before.  When I used to work at the Post Office, I never really wanted to talk to any of the bosses.  Therefore, I wasn’t really sure that I wanted to answer this.  I figured that if it was from the bishop, it couldn’t be good news.  Anyway, to make a long story short, it turned out to be a scam where they wanted $1500.  The point I’m trying to make here is that there are always things that we don’t really want to do.  I have a system for choosing Scriptures to preach about every week.  I looked at the selections for today and they were all about the same basic thing.  This is Valentine’s Day and I didn’t really want to preach about this obstacle to our faith.  But then I realized that it wasn’t so much an obstacle but a real jump start passage.  Today, we will look at what Paul has to say about if the tomb wasn’t empty.  I want you to see the uselessness of such thoughts and help you to know for a fact that it was empty.

I would like to share a story of a little boy with Down’s Syndrome named Philip.  He was a happy child even if he was different from other kids his age.  He went to Sunday School every week when he was a third grader with other 8-year-olds.  He wasn’t readily accepted there so his teacher came up with an idea.  You know those things that L’Eggs pantyhose come in, they look like great big eggs?  The teacher collected 10 of them and gave one to each child in her class.  On a nice spring day, the assignment was for each child to go outside and find a symbol for new life, put it in the egg and bring in back to the classroom.  Then they would open the eggs one by one and share.

They did all this and brought them back inside. The teacher opened each one and they explained.  One had a flower in it, another had a little butterfly, and a third had a leaf.  The next one had nothing inside.  Of course, the other children said as only 8-year-olds could, “that’s stupid!  Somebody didn’t do it right.”  The teacher felt a tug on his shirt and looked.  Philip, the little boy with Down’s Syndrome said, “It’s mine.”  The other children said, “You don’t ever do anything right, Philip.  There’s nothing there.”  Philip then replied in a very upset voice, “I did so do it right.  I did do it right.  It’s empty.  The tomb is empty!”  Little Philip had it right.  There is no greater symbol of new life than the empty tomb.

Silence followed. From then on Philip became a full member of the class. He died not long afterward from an infection most normal children would have shrugged off. At the funeral this class of eight-year-olds with their Sunday school teacher marched up to the altar not with flowers, but each had an empty pantyhose egg. The tomb was empty.  (Pause)

Before we begin, we need to know what the problem was in Corinth.  All the churches we read about in the New Testament are new churches.  They were started by actual eye witnesses of the things that Jesus did.  There is no other religion in the world that has nearly as many witnesses as Christianity.  And these people are just like us.  They had their moments of doubt just like us.  They had many little problems that Paul has already addressed and now he comes to one of the big ones.  They were having trouble believing the resurrection.  Many of the religious leaders of the day didn’t believe in this so why should they?

Now you may think that this isn’t a problem today but you would be wrong.  It is a huge problem today.  There are not only many people who don’t believe in the resurrection and some of the other miracles of the Bible, but there are many, many pastors who also don’t believe.  You see, the trend today is to stand up here and be a feel-good pastor.  We are instructed not to tell the hard parts of the Bible but to only tell of the wondrous love that Jesus has for us.  And, of course, Jesus has this love for everyone but that is only half the story.  The other half of the story is about the truth and justice of Jesus.  There are way too many people today who feel that everyone will get to heaven.  This is totally not true and it goes against everything in the Bible.  The Gospel writer John does the best job of telling us of the balance of Jesus Christ.  It is the delicate balance of the truth of God and the love or grace of God.  These two things must be in perfect balance or we have false religion.  The worst part of this is that I would estimate that at least 50% of people coming out of seminary today don’t believe in the miracles of the Bible.  We aren’t supposed to talk about sin!  I could go on and on about this but I hope you get the idea.

Paul is trying to tell us the truth today and he is brutally honest as only Paul can be.  I think this is the only way to be, honest.  I’m going to begin with three things that Paul tells us.  He tells them in a very rational way, that if there was no resurrection, then all his preaching would be worthless.  Think about that for a minute.  All these wonderful letters that Paul wrote, would have been worthless and probably lost.  It would be the same way for any of the New Testament writers.  Everything they had said would have been worthless because this was the main point of their preaching.  They didn’t preach about how you are to feel good.  They didn’t preach about how everything would be hunky dory when you follow Jesus.  They preached the resurrected Jesus Christ.

And the problem we have with this today is that many, many pastors don’t believe in the resurrection of Jesus and many of the other things that He did.  And it shows.  One of the largest churches in this country today is run by Satan and he is attracting lots of people with his lies. Denominations are dying out because they aren’t telling the truth.  They package Satan’s lies in a way that if you don’t go along with it, then you are out.  I’m here to tell you today that we have a much bigger problem now than ever before because just about everyone thinks that things are ok.  We are complacent.  You, along with me, have allowed these liars into places of power in our churches for so long that we have a near impossible time getting them out again.  People, it’s time that you held your pastors accountable for what the Bible says.  A good way to check on a pastor is to ask them if they believe in the creation story.  Do they believe in the bodily resurrection of Jesus?  Do they believe in everything in the Bible?  It’s time to ask the tough questions.

So, I would have nothing to preach about and then you would have nothing to believe in.  Now think about this for a minute.  If Jesus isn’t resurrected, then most of the things we have today would not exist.  Think about the times before Jesus.  Things were not good.  Everyone was a pagan and they did what they pleased.  Oh, there would be groups of this and groups of that where they would have a common goal.  But there was no one but corrupt governments who had any semblance of gathering of power.  We have seen through the years what governments do with power.  They abuse it and soon anything goes.  Look at our lives today due to corrupt government.  Girls can play on boys’ teams and boys can play on girls’ teams.  And that is just a minor example of total foolishness!

Your faith would be worthless.  It would be like all the false religions through the years and today.  You would have to believe in something that wasn’t true.  None of the other world religions are true.  Jesus is the only leader of yesterday, today and tomorrow who is still alive.  If this wasn’t true you could just as well believe in some wooden statue.  You could just as well as pick up a rock outside and believe in it.  Let me remind you of a fallacy of today that just because you believe in something doesn’t make it true.  My favorite example is this.  Suppose you didn’t believe in gravity.  You worshipped anti-gravity.  So, we take you up on top of a ten-story building and tell you to jump off.  If you didn’t believe in gravity, you just might jump off and what would happen.  You would not survive even if you believed you would.  This is exactly what is happening today.  People believe in governments, companies, false religions to the point that they jump off the building and die.  It’s so tragic.

You can go back here and add many, many other things that would happen because you have no faith in the truth.  But the most important one is that you would have no place to go after you jumped off the building.  There would be no heaven.  There would be no after life, good or bad.  If you notice on all other religions where they promote an afterlife, they have no proof or witnesses.  In my estimation they are all very false and misleading.  If Jesus hadn’t been raised from the dead, we would have no perfect place to go.  We would have no one who we could talk to about our innermost troubles.  Everything good that we know about today would cease to exist.  This would be a very glum and primitive world.

I’m going to stop here and change course.  What I have been talking about so far are things that I would say that most pastors in this country today would never mention.  That is because Paul is talking about some hard truths here.  Paul knew, just like I know and many of you know, that in order to have the love of Jesus Christ, you have to realize what He went through.  All that He did on the cross was because we are all such terrible sinners.  That’s right.  You and I are sinners.  So is every person you know.  We need to be reminded all the time of this fact.  Because if we weren’t sinners, we wouldn’t need a Savior, there wouldn’t be a heaven, and about all we do would be in vain.

But we don’t have to worry about this or any other thing because of what Paul tells us in verse 20.  “But Christ has indeed been raised from the dead!”  Jesus went on ahead of us and did all the work.  There is nothing you have to do.  You only need to accept Jesus as the person He said He was.  Paul goes on here to explain in a little more detail how all this happens so I’m going stop here because it’s enough for today.  It’s nice to know all the details of this but we are also in some time constraints for today’s sermon.  All you need to know is that Jesus Christ did indeed raise up from the grave after He had been brutally murdered.

You know this for a fact because of the witnesses.  As I have said there are no other religions that even come close to the number of witnesses to the resurrection.  We begin with Mary who talked with Jesus before she was allowed to recognize Him.  The disciples saw Him after He entered the locked room where they were hiding.  We have the men on the road to Emmaus.  Jesus cooked and ate with them on the shores of the lake.  The Bible tells us that there were more than 500 people who saw Jesus after He has risen from the grave.  500!  Do you know what the founder of Buddhism, Hinduism, Confucius, Muhammad, John Wesley and Joseph Smith all have in common?  They are all dead.  Every religious founder that there has ever been are all dead with the exception of one.  They are dead.  Jesus Christ is the only one still alive because He is God.  He can never die.

This is such great news for us and we should be jumping out of our chairs!  This Wednesday is Ash Wednesday.  This is a perfect time to talking about this.  Jesus is alive and well and waiting for people to answer.  Have you asked Jesus to live in your heart?  Have you made Him your Lord and Savior?  If you haven’t, then do so today before it’s too late.

Now there are many people who try to keep Jesus out of their lives.  The longer that I am a Christian, the harder it is for me to wrap my brain around this concept.  Jesus does nothing but good.  He will turn your life into a life of joy, peace and love.  I know that He does this because this is what He has done for me, for many of you, and many people I have known in my life.  Why would you try to keep Him out?  Well, you can’t.

Peter Larson said: “Despite our efforts to keep him out, God intrudes. The life of Jesus is bracketed by two impossibilities: a virgin’s womb and an empty tomb. Jesus entered our world through a door marked ‘No Entrance’ and left through a door marked ‘No Exit.'”  This is the concept that we talked about in our opening story.  There would have been no story if Jesus had not been resurrected.  That little boy would have had no chance.  But leave it to the children to lead the way.  This little boy is now in heaven.  His Sunday school classmates are also on their path to heaven.  I have found, and experts agree, that little children can see, hear and talk to God.  If you ask them, they will tell you.  It is a very worthwhile discussion to have.  Anyway, listen to the children.

I should be fairly safe here in saying that we have all had someone close to us die.  It isn’t a pleasant experience.  I have been with people who have reached out to God as they died.  I have personally heard of people who have talked to their loved ones already in heaven, just before death.  What I’m trying to say here is that this is the result of what Jesus did.  He gives us hope and a perfect place to be after we are done here.  There are a lot of things that we don’t understand about this but the great news is that you don’t have to understand.  You only have to believe.  This shows you how much Jesus Christ has loved you since before time began and He will continue to do so forever into the future.  You will never, never find a better deal than that.  And thank you, Jesus, for first loving us.  Let’s pray.