Passage: This Week's Second Reading

"Of First Importance"

I’d like to begin this morning by reviving, or at least telling you about an old Lutheran tradition. In Germany, as late as the middle of the 18th century, Lutheran pastors would begin their sermons on Easter Day with a joke. The custom even had a Latin title: It was called risus paschalis — "the paschal joke."

You all know that Lutherans, at least according to Garrison Keillor, are not exactly given to hilarity, and the thought of a Lutheran pastor, especially back in the 1700’s, climbing into his pulpit, fiddling nervously with his starched ruff, and saying to his assembled congregation, "Have you heard the one about …" or, "A funny thing happened to me on the way to the Bundestag this morning …" that’s just almost bizarre. I can almost picture Rodney Dangerfield in the pulpit doing his "I don’t get no respect" thing.

Why a joke? Because in the Lutheran tradition, the empty tomb and resurrection are seen as God’s great joke on the world. We Lutherans and of course all of Christianity can laugh and sing because God was laughing and singing as he raised His Son from the tomb.

Death and the devil had been defeated for all who since Adam and Eve believed in the promised Messiah and for all who ever since that day until the Last Day believe and celebrate Jesus rising from the dead. And celebration of this day is important.

How would you describe what’s of first importance in your life? Something that important is the core, heart, basis and center of who we are and what we do. Something of first importance has us coming back again and again because we can’t live without it. It gives us hope for the future. It provides a reason to live.

The apostle Paul answers the question of first importance for us. Most important is Jesus. Jesus died, was buried, and rose again. Nothing else comes close. Certainly family, work, and stuff like that are important. But of first importance is Jesus, particularly His resurrection from the dead.

Jesus is the foundation for life. He is the basis of what we do and who we are. Easter is the heart and core of what the church believes. For two thousand years, the message that has been handed down and proclaimed is "Christ is risen! He is risen indeed! Alleluia!

Why do we come back here every week? What holds the Church together? It’s not this building. It’s not the pastor. It’s not money. It’s Jesus, alive and active among us. That’s what brings us back. Somewhere, somehow, it dawned on us that we just can’t live without Him.

About 350 years ago, Blaise Pascal, mathematician, philosopher and physicist, observed that the human heart is like an "infinite abyss." He discovered that we human beings try in vain to fill our hearts with everything around us — education, jobs, homes, money, friends, family. But none of these earthly things can help, "since this infinite abyss can be filled only with an infinite and immutable object; in other words by God himself." In spite of his brilliance and his contributions to mathematics, Pascal realized that life apart from God is empty. He found refuge in Jesus Christ alone. He couldn’t live without him.

Along those same lines, astronomers have found a big empty place in the universe. It's a massive void, maybe even bigger than the infinite abyss of our human hearts. This hole is gigantic, nearly a billion light-years across. Inside it there are no planets, no stars, no galaxies, no gases. It’s just a huge cold spot. A whole lot of nothing.

It can stretch and even boggle your mind to think of the incredible distances between stars in the sky. You probably know that a light-year is a unit of distance — it’s the distance that light can travel in one year. One light-year equals about six trillion miles. Quite a distance.

So how far away are the stars in the sky? Our nearest neighbor is a star called Proxima Centauri. It’s just over four light-years away; twenty-five trillion miles.

And how about that massive void, that huge cold spot in the sky? It’s between six and 10 billion light-years away from us, and it’s nearly a billion light-years across. That’s a hole equal to a billion times six trillion miles. My tiny pea brain can’t even begin to comprehend that many zeros, much less a hole that gigantic.

It’s been described as a big bubble in the cosmic pancake batter. A massive void. No planets, no stars, no galaxies, no gases. Absolutely nothing. An empty place. An empty space.

Now the apostle Paul was no astronomer, but he knew the story of an empty place that had cosmic consequences. He had heard that on Easter morning, Mary Magdalene and two other women encountered a massive void when they showed up at the empty tomb, one that was as mind-boggling as anything at the edge of the universe.

It was early when they arrived, and after meeting a young man and hearing about the resurrection "they went out and fled from the tomb, for terror and amazement had seized them; and they said nothing to anyone, for they were afraid" (Mark 16:8).

Can you imagine how empty Mary and Mary and Salome were feeling at that point? They had already suffered the crucifixion of their friend and teacher Jesus, and they were mourning his death deeply. Now they go to his tomb to pay their respects, and what do they find? Nothing. A big empty spot.

We know what this feels like, don’t we? Each of us, at some time in life, comes face to face with a massive void, a big empty place. It happens …

• when you give your heart to someone who doesn’t accept or rejects the gift

• when you learn a sport, practice hard and still don’t make the team

• when you study and pursue a profession, only to find you hate your work

• when you create something beautiful, and discover that no one’s interested

• when you try to resist a temptation, but then give in to it again and again

• when you leave a job, jump to a new job, then lose it in a downsizing

• when you put money into a home, only to see your equity disappear

• when you retire from a long career, and wake up with nothing to do

• when you lose a spouse to cancer, and find yourself all alone in the world.

These are huge cold spots. Massive voids.

Mary and her companions are seized by terror and amazement, and they retreat into silence, saying nothing to anyone. Their world feels like a billion light-years of empty space. But it’s to their everlasting credit that they take some time to ponder this strange set of events, and let the disappearance of Jesus sink in.

Yes, it’s true that the mysterious young man in the tomb has said to them, "Do not be alarmed; you seek Jesus of Nazareth, who was crucified. He has risen; he is not here." This is good news — the Easter morning good news of resurrection life. But the women cannot grasp it, at least not yet. For now, it’s all terror, amazement and fear. How can they not be alarmed, when they are standing face to face with an empty tomb?

Too often we try to pretend that there are no massive voids in our lives, no empty places. Sociologist Jean Twenge observes that young adults in particular have been told things such as "believe in yourself and you can do anything" — which is not very good advice. The truth is, bad things can happen to good people, and not every goal in life is realistic. You may believe that you’re going to earn a graduate degree and get a great job, along with a perfect family in a beautifully

decorated home, but life doesn’t always give you what you want.

Twenge thinks that overblown expectations are largely to blame for the recent rise in anxiety and depression in young adults. She says, "It’s depressing to realize that your unrealistic dreams are never going to come true."

We’re all going to face some empty places in life, and we need to take them seriously. You cannot expect to step into a dream job right out of college. Many young people endure a lot of heartbreak before they find a partner for life. Loss and rejection are a part of just about every life story you can imagine.

Mary and her companions quickly discover that Easter is not about them — instead, it’s about God. In particular, it’s about God filling the empty places in our lives with new and unexpected life.

The apostle Paul picks up this thread in his first letter to the Corinthians, when he reminds the Christians in Corinth of the good news that he proclaimed to them. "For I delivered to you as of first importance what I also received." He goes on; "that Christ died for our sins in accordance with the scriptures, and that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day in accordance with the scriptures, and that he appeared to Cephas, then to the twelve. Then he appeared to more than five hundred brothers at one time .… Last of all, as to one untimely born, he appeared also to me."

The various appearances of the resurrected Jesus are of central importance to Paul, and he sees the new life of Christ as being at the heart of the vitality of the church. In fact, just a few verses later, he says that if Christ has not been raised, "then our proclamation has been in vain and your faith has been in vain" (v. 14).

Through the resurrection, God fills the empty places in our lives. He did it for the first followers of Jesus, for Paul, for the Christians of Corinth and He does it for us. Jesus is of first importance. His resurrection from the dead is the most important event in history. Nothing else compares. He makes all aspects of our lives important, significant, alive and purposeful. Yet, none of that stuff is as important as Jesus himself. Jesus Christ, dead on the cross and risen from the dead is of first importance.

The good news is that we don’t have to earn or deserve this gift of new life. What we have to do, is by the power of the Holy Spirit, believe and be willing to follow Jesus into the future he’s preparing for us. Although the apostle Paul considered himself as the least of the apostles, "unworthy to be called an apostle," he believed in the resurrection. The result was that God’s grace toward him was not in vain, and he was enabled to spread the Gospel throughout the Roman Empire.

Mary and her companions felt a disorienting mixture of amazement and fear on Easter morning, but they responded when the young man gave the command, "Go, tell his disciples and Peter that he is going ahead of you to Galilee; there you will see him, just as he told you."

Believe in the resurrection. Follow Jesus into the future. These are responses we can make, responses that can fill our massive voids. The fact that the tomb is empty is a massive, world-changing reality, a reality that much of the world, even much our community, takes for granted.

Think again about that enormous empty place that was recently discovered by astronomers, that gigantic hole, nearly a billion light-years across.

That space is not nearly as cavernous as a heart without God. If you are feeling a massive void in your life, the very same will be true for you. Your emptiness will not be eliminated by a new career, a new spouse, a new house, a new car, a better salary. Instead, the hole in your life can be filled only by believing in the resurrection, letting Christ’s resurrection be of first importance, and following Jesus into the future.

The good news of Easter is that Christ is risen! He has been raised from the dead, and is waiting for you, beyond the empty tomb. He is risen indeed. Alleluia. Amen.