Introduction: Grace be to you and peace, from God our Father, and from our Savior and Lord, Jesus Christ. Our theme for this early celebration of Easter Sunday is based upon all three Lessons just read. We begin with prayer.
Dear fellow disciples of our Savior and Lord, Jesus Christ:
- I like reading novels – though I don’t really get enough time or have enough energy to indulge this pleasure. I also like watching “mini-series” on Television. The only thing I don’t like is having to wait a week to find out all the things that the producers “flirtatiously” intimate are coming in the previews. With a novel you can keep on reading.
- Once we are “hooked” on a plot line, we want to keep watching until we get “THE WHOLE STORY.” The producers know this – that once they get an audience interested, people will want to keep watching week after week to the end. This is good for advertising sales and making money.
- It should be the same when it comes to our faith and life in Christ – that we want to know “THE WHOLE STORY.” Often when we read the Bible we look at it as the past – the beginning of the story. We are living today as Christians – in faith and hope, and we look at this as the middle of the story. And often we forget, or pay little mind to the future, to the end of the story. But Scripture actually describes “THE WHOLE STORY,” and it is important for us to know the whole story, so that we can internalize it and live by it, and also live for it.
- Our three Lessons actually have the story in reverse sequence – Mark records the beginning, Paul describes the middle, and Isaiah covers the glorious ending. And we will consider Christ’s work, and our life and salvation, in this order.
I. The Beginning Was The Suffering, Death, And Resurrection Of The Lord Jesus Christ
Rom. 4:25 “For He was delivered up for our trespasses and raised for our justification.”
Statement: The Scriptures from the very beginning are centered in this great gift of redemption and salvation that God planned for us. It is really the very high point of the history of mankind when Jesus came into this world, and when He suffered and died on the cross as the Lamb of God, taking away the sin of the world, and when He rose again in glory to establish the church. There is no greater or more blessed reality in human existence than the blessings that are ours in Christ Jesus.
Application: We know our sin – both from conscience and from what we have been taught. We have struggled against sin, and we know that it so permeates our being that we cannot escape its clutches. We know that we must have forgiveness, and God’s gift of salvation, or there is no hope for us under cosmic justice. Life really begins for us with this gift of salvation that God has provided for all human beings, the whole world, in the suffering, death, and resurrection of the Lord Jesus Christ.
Transition: And the story continues. Jesus met with His disciples, and commissioned them – including also the apostle Paul later on. And this is the middle of the story which continues on to this day – we are participating in it right now, for:
II. The Middle Is The Life Of The Church – Preaching, People Coming To Faith In Jesus, God’s Word, The Scriptures Being Taught, And God’s Grace Working In Us
1 Cor. 15 “I remind you brothers, of the gospel I preached to you, which you received, in which you stand, and by which you are being saved, if you hold fast to the word I preached to you – unless you believed in vain. . . . in accordance with the Scriptures [what Christ did for us, His suffering, death and resurrection] . . . working hard . . . though it was not I, but the grace of God that is with me . . . whether it was I or they, so we preach and so you believed.”
Statement: This is why preaching is despised – it is the means God has chosen to bring us to faith and salvation, and the devil opposes this, the world opposes this, and our own sinful flesh does not appreciate this. If God had determined that eating apples, or eating steak, or eating lobster, was the means by which He would bring us to faith, we would despise and oppose these things just as much. But this is the middle of the story – the spread of the Gospel, of God’s Word – the Scriptures, for the building up of the church, that we might believe.
Application: And so it has been to this very morning – we have come to faith and to salvation by what has been preached and taught to us, by the very Word of God. And the preaching continues, and God’s grace is at work also in us to do all that we can that the preaching continue and that people come to believe – that they too may have life and salvation.
Now, the middle of the story might be somewhat laborious. Scripture says that we will have much tribulation on our way to the end of the story. But the Scripture also asserts and comforts us with the reality that the end will be more than worth the journey – “for the sufferings of this present time cannot be compared with the glory that shall be revealed in us.” And that brings us to what Isaiah describes, the end:
III. The End Is The Rich Feast Of The Finest Things – What We Wait For In Accord With His Promise, When We Are Completely Glad, Rejoicing In His Salvation
Is. 25 “On this mountain the Lord of hosts will make for all peoples a feast of rich food, a feast of well-aged wine, of rich food full of marrow, of aged wine well refined. . . . He will swallow up death forever; He will wipe away tears from all faces; He will take away the reproach of His people. . . . On that day it will be said: This is the Lord, we have waited for Him; let us be glad and rejoice in His salvation.”
Statement: So you see that we are still in the middle, but we are yearning for and straining toward the end of the story – which will be fulfilling and joyous beyond our expectations. Living now in the middle – still hearing the Word of God, the Gospel, believing and moved to work for God’s kingdom by His grace within us – we rejoice to recall the beginning and we look forward to the end. Christ is still living, still building His church, still comforting His people, still reigning at God’s right hand, still moving the story forward toward its end, and we are blessed to be an important part of that story.
Application: Just like we must have patience when watching a “mini-series” on TV, or reading a great novel, so we must continue to have patience in our life here on earth – even though we have great eagerness and expectation for the end! We continue to rejoice in what God has done for us in Christ Jesus, and hopefully we also have great joy in our part of the story being written even today, the history of Christ’s church. Indeed, we are waiting for Him but already we are glad to rejoice in His salvation. And it will only get better – after the tribulations and sufferings of this present time.
Conclusion: So God’s Word gives us, and urges to know, “THE WHOLE STORY.” To keep in mind what God is writing as the history of the world. It is a good thing to know where we are at in the plot line, and to know our part in the narrative. So we pray for God’s grace to abound in us – that we always rejoice in what God has already done, so that we are filled with joy in what is coming, and that we remain faithful in what we have opportunity to do today for God’s kingdom.
There is no doubt – “THE WHOLE STORY” truly is a great story! Amen.
Votum: And the peace of God, which surpasses all human understanding, shall keep your hearts and minds in the true faith, which is in Christ Jesus, even unto life everlasting, Amen.