Easter 2020 New Life in Christ
Redings - Matthew 28:1-10 and Colossians 3:1-4
Preached by Joshua - Easter 2020
I was talking with someone the other day on zoom and they used this image which really captured for me how they have felt over the last couple of weeks of lockdown. They said it felt as if their head was full of marbles, bouncing around inside their skull.
This image is dizzying, it speaks of confusion, not knowing what to do, restlessness, worry, and disorientation.
For me it made sense.
All of our familiar maps for life are out of kilter.
Our routines have changed, our regular lives has been upended across the globe by this pandemic.
In moments of uncertainty and unrest, in moments of disruption we become alert to the stories we have told ourselves about reality, about what is good, and true, and right. Many of our ideas are shaken up. Particularly at the moment, our ideas around our security, our plans, and the reality of human frailty and weakness.
Maybe you’ve felt those marbles of disorientation rattling around in your head too?
I wonder if that’s how the disciples felt on Holy Saturday.
Confused, restless, worried, disoriented, shocked.
Jesus, their teacher and guide, their friend and inspiration, their hope. He’s just died a criminal’s death. “Where to from here?” they must have thought.
What they didn’t know, which we have with the benefit of 2000 and something years of hindsight, is that Jesus was about to become their saviour in a way that they could never have dreamed of. He was about to re-write their stories, and re-orient their world completely.
In the Christian tradition we celebrate Easter every year. Year after year after year after year, yeah you get it.
And every time for me it is fresh.
It is fresh because Jesus is alive here and now and the resurrection isn’t just a nice idea, it is a reality that transforms our lives and gives us hope.
We heard the Gospel of Matthew’s account of the resurrection of Jesus read this morning. I have taught elsewhere on why you can trust the eyewitness accounts of the Gospels and why I believe the resurrection was an actual physical historical event. I’m not going to talk about that here.
This is no dry historical account, but an event at the heart of reality. This is a life defining, world changing moment. The beginning of a “new creation” of which we are invited to be a part.
The apostle Paul knows this and in his letter to the Colossians he is helping the first followers of Jesus work out what it meant for them, for their story, for the time and place they lived. Paul applies the Easter drama, and invites the church to participate in it. This morning I want to focus in on Colossians 3:1-4 and ask the central question –“What does Easter mean for us?”
Colossians 3:1-4
“So, if you have been raised with Christ, seek the things that are above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God. 2 Set your minds on things that are above, not on things that are on earth, 3 for you have died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God. 4 When Christ who is your life is revealed, then you also will be revealed with him in glory.”
In this little section of Colossians we see Paul articulating one of his key ideas – that believers are “in Christ.” That when we become disciples of Jesus, His story is our story. We participate in the reality of Easter. It reframes and reshapes us.
Easter is the story of how God saves us in Jesus Christ. And here in Colossians 3, in the first 4 verses we see 3 “tenses of salvation.”
1) We have been “raised with Christ.” (past)
2) Our life is “hidden in Christ.” (present)
3) Our lives will be “revealed with Christ in glory” (future)[1]
So, Jesus story is our story.
For the Christian, our self-understanding and identity is not grounded in any other story apart from that of Christ. We can only understand who we are in communion with God.
Rankin Wilbourne has written an excellent book on this theme of union in Scripture says this:
“Your frantic attempts to find or craft an acceptable identity, or your tireless work to manage your own reputation—these are over and done. You can rest. In Christ.” (Rankin Wilbourne)
Raised with Christ.
Colossians 3:1 says: “So, if you have been raised with Christ, seek the things that are above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God.”
Paul talks about this theme of sharing in Christ’s death and resurrection in Romans 6 and in Galatians 2:20 – “I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me. The life I now live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.”
When Paul says that we have been raised with Christ, the point is that we share in the victory of the miraculous defeat of death that we see in the resurrection of Jesus. In our believing and trusting in Jesus, we share in his resurrection. It defines us and brings new life and hope.
This changes everything. Pauls says in verse 2 in light of this “set your minds on things that are above, not on things that are on earth…”
Here Paul invites us to have a heavenly perspective.
This is not inviting us to daydream about harps and angels and fluffy clouds – rather it is an invitation to a life shaped by our identity in dying and being raised with Christ, in sharing in His Easter story.
It is an invitation to set our mind on Jesus and let that shape our stories and our day to day lives.
So, the first tense of salvation is past – we have been raised with Christ.
The next one is present.
Hidden with Christ
Paul says: “for you have died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God.”
Our present reality is that we are “hidden with Christ.” What is this mysterious phrase getting at?
The idea captures the reality of living in between times. By that I mean, living in light of what Jesus has done and in anticipation of what one day Jesus will do.
The Christian life is a life lived in this tension.
It is a life of faith and trust in which we know that we have died and been raised with Christ.
In our day to day life this reality is obscure and hidden. Our lives don’t suddenly become perfect upon becoming Christian, our suffering and our frustrations and our weaknesses aren’t instantly alleviated.
The spiritual reality is that we are a new creation, the lived experience day by day is that this is working its way into every part of our lives bit by bit.
John puts it wells saying “Dear friends, now we are children of God, and what we will be has not yet been made known. But we know that when Christ appears, we shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is.” (1 John 3:2)
So, the hiddenness names the reality and tension of our Christian lives.
But there is also an image here of safety and security.
Being hidden like a child retreating and taking cover under the warmth and familiarity of a blanket in the face of the terrors of the night.
There is a sense in the language here of being “hidden in a safe place.”
Psalm 27:5 articulates this saying: “For in the day of trouble he will keep me safe in his dwelling; he will hide me in the shelter of his tabernacle and set me high upon a rock”
The fact that Paul says “your life is hidden with Christ in God” alludes to this notion of protection and care and safe keeping.
There is a sense of eternal love and security that we have as our lives are hidden in Christ.
I don’t know about you right now, but in the midst of uncertain times that is deeply reassuring and life giving.
We live in the daily reality of our lives being “hidden with Christ in God.”
Revealed with Christ –
Then in verse 4 Paul says this: “When Christ who is your life is revealed, then you also will be revealed with him in glory.”
In other words, our life and destiny is bound up with Christ. In his resurrection we have hope in our future resurrection. The Biblical Scholar F. F. Bruce puts it this way:
“The day of revelation and glory will but bring to complete and public fruition something that is already true—that Christians have died with Christ and been raised with him, and in him are partakers of the age to come.” (F. F. Bruce)
So our future is shaped by the hope of resurrection, of life eternal.
These 3 realities of what happened at Easter are to be for us our central story – we have been raised with Christ, we are hidden with Christ, and we will be revealed with him in glory.
These realities are to be our guidepost, for all of our thinking and acting.
A friend of mine, and former Bible College teacher of mine, Steve Graham posted an excellent devotion on Facebook in which he outlined the movements of the Easter drama and its key themes in light of what we are experiencing around the globe right now in the midst of this pandemic and how it has shaken up our lives. He framed it like this:
EASTER STORY
Friday: the pain of loss, suffering, death – of dreams, hopes, certainties, confidences, the world as it exists, the status quo. My plans and schemes.
Saturday: the waiting, in between; silence, pause, reflection ...
Sunday: the day of new hope, new life, new beginnings.
This Easter we are invited to see the way that God is bringing his new creation in our midst.
To live in light of the resurrection is to embrace a new normal that is defined by being “in Christ.”
In regards to our “new normal”, one poet has said this:
“We will not go back to normal. Normal never was. Our pre-corona existence was not normal other than we normalized greed, inequity, exhaustion, depletion, extraction, disconnection, confusion, rage, hoarding, hate and lack. We should not long to return my friends. We are being given the opportunity to stitch a new garment. One that fits all of humanity and nature.” (Sonya Renee Taylor)
My only modification would be to say that the invitation for the follower of Jesus is to partner with Jesus in the stitching of this new garment, to be His Easter people in this moment.
So in this moment in history, in our lives today in the midst of global crisis and uncertainty what does it mean to be people shaped by the story of Easter?
-It means we aren’t shaped by despair
-We are not short sighted.
-We are not without hope
-We are not without comfort and help in this time (the presence of the Holy Spirit)
-We are not without a mission and calling to share this story, this good news with all we meet.
It also means that we are called to be a people who are open to God bringing newness, transforming our lives, shaking us up and making us more like Jesus…
So however you find yourself this morning – maybe you feel like my friend with all the marbles bouncing around in your head. Maybe you feel sunny and optimistic, maybe you feel depressed and exhausted. Wherever you are at, this morning may you know the hope and the joy of the Easter story. And may you embrace this story as yours, in Christ, Amen.
[1] James D. G. Dunn, The Epistles to the Colossians and to Philemon: A Commentary on the Greek Text.