{"id":3466,"date":"2013-04-01T07:31:19","date_gmt":"2013-04-01T12:31:19","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/chilmarkchurch.org\/service\/?p=3466"},"modified":"2013-10-01T08:53:39","modified_gmt":"2013-10-01T13:53:39","slug":"christ-is-alive-033113-sermon","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/chilmarkchurch.org\/service\/index.php\/2013\/04\/christ-is-alive-033113-sermon\/","title":{"rendered":"Christ is Alive (03\/31\/13 Sermon)"},"content":{"rendered":"

1 Corinthians 15:19-26<\/strong><\/p>\n

19<\/sup>If for this life only we have hoped in Christ, we are of all people most to be pitied.<\/p>\n

20<\/sup>But in fact Christ has been raised from the dead, the first fruits of those who have died.21<\/sup>For since death came through a human being, the resurrection of
\nthe dead has also come through a human being;22<\/sup>for as all die in Adam, so all will be made alive in Christ.23<\/sup>But each in his own order: Christ the first fruits, then at his
\ncoming those who belong to Christ.24<\/sup>Then comes the end,
\nwhen he hands over the kingdom to God the Father, after he has destroyed every
\nruler and every authority and power.25<\/sup>For he must reign
\nuntil he has put all his enemies under his feet.26<\/sup>The last enemy to be destroyed is death.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

While shaking hands with the pastor after worship,
\nMrs. Jones noticed that he had a rather bad cut on his face.<\/em><\/p>\n

\u201cWhy pastor, what happened? How did you cut your
\nface?,\u201d she asked.<\/em><\/p>\n

\u201cWell, I was thinking about my sermon this morning
\nwhile I was shaving,\u201d the pastor replied. \u201cI guess I wasn\u2019t concentrating and
\ncut myself in the process.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n

\u201cThat\u2019s too bad,\u201d Mrs. Jones replied. \u201cNext time you
\nshould concentrate on your shaving and cut your sermon.\u201d<\/em>
\nThe Lutheran Church has a custom for an Easter sermon to begin with the telling of a joke.<\/p>\n

I don\u2019t know the origin of it, but I guess that this tradition\u00a0might have\u00a0been made for the people who can\u2019t
\nlaugh and celebrate the resurrection of Christ.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Today is Easter Sunday and this is the day
\nthat we can all laugh and celebrate the resurrection. There are many reasons we
\ncan joyfully laugh and celebrate this day. I will give you one reason among
\nthem and I hope that this can be a fruitful and meaningful message for you.
\nOur Spiritual journey is full of stories.
\nEach of us has our own story. We also learn many stories from books, movies,
\nand relationship with others. Interestingly, in many stories, there are some
\nenemies, which make the stories more dramatic. Think of the characters such as
\nBatman vs. Joker, Little Red Riding Hood vs. the woof, Frodo vs. Sauron in The Lord of the Rings<\/em>, Sherlock Homes
\nvs. Moriarty, so on and so on. In my case, me and my five year old son. It is a
\nlittle different for the above enemies, but my son always asks me to be a
\nmonster who scares him. I don\u2019t know what kind of monsters he wants me to be.
\nSo I just pretend to attach him, and all of a sudden he becomes a hero who
\ndefeats the monster. He throws something to me and they hit me. Sometimes he
\nkicks me and it hurts.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Likewise, we as Christian also have enemies in our spiritual journey. Paul says in Ephesians 6
\nthat \u201cwe wrestle\u201d against the powers of darkness. And \u201cYou be strong\u2026 You put
\non the whole armor of God that you may be able to stand.\u201d In our spiritual
\njourney, we have many enemies such as pride, self-egoism, lack of faith, and
\nskepticism.<\/p>\n

What are your spiritual enemies? Each of us has various enemies according to our life situation.<\/p>\n

No matter how many enemies we have, we all end up with two great enemies. Do you
\nknow what they are? They are sin and death and we are weak before them. We don\u2019t
\nhave the ability to conquer sin and death on our own.
\nPaul believes that Adam was literally our first parent and that Adam\u2019s sin infected<\/p>\n

the whole race and led us to know sin which resulted in both physical and spiritual death.<\/p>\n

That is, we all died in Adam. However, Christ our Lord has been raised from the dead
\nand became the first fruits of those who have died. This means that Christ
\nconquered sin and death. Paul says \u201cFor since death came through a human being,
\nAdam, the resurrection of the dead has also come through a human being, Jesus
\nthe Christ; for as all die in Adam, so all will be made alive in Christ.\u201d<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Today is the day when sin and death, our greatest enemies are conquered by Jesus Christ.<\/p>\n

Jesus\u2019 resurrection tells us that death is not the end of everything. Today, those who follow Jesus
\nhave a new message to proclaim. Not only does Jesus\u2019 resurrection proclaim his
\nvictory over death, but also offers forgiveness for all sins, and invites
\nhumanity to live a new life. He became the symbol of hope that we will not be
\nleft for sin and death and that we can have a new life in God\u2019s kingdom. Our life
\nand our world have been turned upside down by Jesus\u2019 resurrection. Our greatest
\nand last enemies have been conquered, so we can joyfully laugh and celebrate
\nthis moment.<\/p>\n

Jesus’ resurrection from the dead is as essential to the Christian faith as His death upon the
\ncross. Paul writes in 1Corinthians “For what I received I passed on to you
\nas of first importance: that Christ died for our sins according to the
\nScriptures, that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day according
\nto the Scriptures” (1 Cor. 15:3-4). Especially, Paul emphasizes the
\nimportance of the resurrection with his statement “And if Christ has not
\nbeen raised, our preaching is useless and so is your faith.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Then, here is a question to take into consideration for our lives as Christians and for our
\nchurch mission. How can we become a community which lives out our faith in
\nChrist\u2019s conquer in sin and death? How can we, as a small church in Chilmark,
\nspread today\u2019s good news to others? How can we effectively build a faithful, fruitful,
\nand meaningful relationship with God and our neighbors?<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

To find the answers to those questions, let\u2019s start with a simple step. Celebrate the resurrection
\nwith our whole hearts and keep the faith that Jesus conquered our last enemies,
\nsin and death. Then, celebrate our unity with God and neighbors through Jesus\u2019
\nresurrection. Then, we can take the next step to become the second fruits which
\nfollow Christ, the first fruits. Even though we are a small church, our faith
\ncan be powerful enough to influence on the island and even the world.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Here is a very interesting theory. It is called the Hundredth Monkey Effect. Have you heard of
\nit? The Hundredth Monkey Effect was first introduced by biologist Lyall
\nWatson in his 1980 book, Lifetide<\/em>. He reported that Japanese primatologists had stumbled upon a surprising
\nphenomenon.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

The Japanese monkey, Macaca fuscata, had been observed in the wild for
\na period of over 30 years. In 1952, on the island of Koshima, scientists were
\nproviding monkeys with sweet potatoes dropped in the sand. The monkeys liked
\nthe taste of the raw sweet potatoes, but they found the dirt unpleasant. An
\n18-month-old female named Imo found she could solve the problem by washing the
\npotatoes in a nearby stream. She taught this to her mother. Her playmates also
\nlearned this new way and they taught their mothers too. This cultural
\ninnovation was gradually picked up by various monkeys before the eyes of the
\nscientists. Between 1952 and 1958 all the monkeys learned to wash the sandy
\nsweet potatoes to make them more palatable. Then something startling took
\nplace. Almost everyone in the tribe was washing sweet potatoes before eating
\nthem and a most surprising thing observed by these scientists was that the
\nhabit of washing sweet potatoes then jumped over the sea. This cultural
\ninnovation started on an isolated small island, but Colonies of monkeys on
\nother islands and the mainland troop of monkeys at Takasakiyama began washing
\ntheir sweet potatoes. Scientists concluded that when a certain critical number
\nachieves an awareness, this new awareness may be communicated from mind to
\nmind.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Do you get the meaning? Let us start living out our resurrection faith.
\nOur lives will influence the others\u2019 lives on this Island and even over the
\nsea. Our mission is to spread God\u2019s good news through the resurrection of Jesus
\nto our neighbors. Our start will be small but it will be great because our
\nawareness to the resurrection faith will be communicated from mind to mind.
\nToday, Jesus has been resurrected from the dead. Let us together celebrate and
\nspread this good news to our neighbors. Jesus our Lord is alive.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Let us pray.<\/p>\n

Dear God, we are filled with joy on this day of resurrection. In our
\nlives filled with sin and death, you have given us a new message that Jesus
\nconquered sin and death. Now, give us strength to live in light of our faith in
\nthe resurrection. Give us the joy of living with the faith in Christ and the
\ncourage to bring good news to the world around us. In your name, we pray. Amen.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

1 Corinthians 15:19-26 19If for this life only we have hoped in Christ, we are of all people most to be pitied. 20But in fact Christ has been raised from the dead, the first fruits of those who have died.21For since death came through a human being, the resurrection of the dead has also come […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3466","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-worship-and-teaching"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/chilmarkchurch.org\/service\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3466","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/chilmarkchurch.org\/service\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/chilmarkchurch.org\/service\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chilmarkchurch.org\/service\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chilmarkchurch.org\/service\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3466"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/chilmarkchurch.org\/service\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3466\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4010,"href":"https:\/\/chilmarkchurch.org\/service\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3466\/revisions\/4010"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/chilmarkchurch.org\/service\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3466"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chilmarkchurch.org\/service\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3466"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chilmarkchurch.org\/service\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3466"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}