Resurrection or Nothing

I am going to be perfectly honest with you - Easter Sermons are the hardest! You know why? It is not that Resurrection is hard to talk about, because it is not. What makes it hard is that for eighteen years I have preached a sermon on the Resurrection and when I come into my study on the Monday of Holy Week, I am faced with a difficult task - how do I say something fresh, creative, or new? I mean, after eighteen years you have just about covered every angle you know.Anyway, on Monday I was in my study pondering these things and looking at old stuff I had preached before and as I did this question sort of hit me afresh - 'Well Jim, why do you believe in the resurrection? Is it really that big a deal?' So I pondered that all day Tuesday and then by Wednesday morning, I started writing a sermon to myself on why I believe in in the Resurrection of Jesus. I did this because it is hard to believe that a human being was really dead and really got up out of the grave. Heck, it was hard for the disciples to believe it! In fact, after Jesus told them over and over again he would rise from the dead, no one, not one of them, showed up on Easter morning! Why? Dead men don’t recover from death! Dead is dead!So being committed to utter rationality, I wrote and wrote and wrote a sermon to myself called Resurrection or Nothing. I did this because I, like Thomas, need help with doubt but also because being committed to rationality I am committed to true things. As much as I love stories, I don’t build my life on them unless I am utterly convinced they are true. So, there it is. Sunday we will talk about why it takes more faith to believe the Resurrection didn’t happen than to believe it did. We will also talk about why it is a glorious but traumatizing truth.Blessings,James M. Holland