[Machine transcription]
Grace, mercy, and peace to you from God our Father,
and from our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.
Amen.
If there’s a title for the sermon today,
it’s Having an Easier Life.
I think it’s safe to say that most people
want to have an easier life.
I mean, who really wants to have a hard life?
And in our culture in the United States these days,
there’s a lot to help people have an easier life.
Technology alone does this.
Like communication, it’s easier to be in touch with people these days.
Cell phones and computers have pretty much made time and distance
non-factors in communication.
And so much information literally at our fingertips.
It’s easier today to get news, weather, sports, recipes, the status of your friends, pictures of cats.
It’s easier to get into arguments with people in the world you’ve never met before either.
And you can order food online.
Who’d ever thought that we’d be able to deposit checks on a phone?
Who would ever think that we’d be able to find things by Googling it?
And it’s easier to get to places.
You Google it, and then a GPS device tells you how to get to there easily.
Well, usually easily.
Life is easier today because you can bank, shop, pay bills, register for events, buy tickets,
Get boarding passes get transportation share pictures and all kinds of things you can do on
wine and
working at home
Wow
Who would ever think we could could do that?
Maybe the only thing that hasn’t gotten easier is traffic. I was expecting
Yeah, somebody was at the early service today. Yeah
Now, wanting an easier life, that’s not necessarily something that’s bad, okay?
But an easier life may not be truly satisfying, and certainly it’s not guaranteed.
Because for everything that can make life easier, there are just as many things that
can make life hard, maybe even more so.
loss of employment, loss of finances, strained or broken relationships, sickness,
injuries, bad economy, bad weather, worry about the future, your own personal
failures. I already mentioned traffic. And then sometimes life is hard for no
reason at all. Yeah, life can be downright hard. It can be perplexing,
frightening, to make things worse. There are times when you make life hard on
others. When you do things that are harmful or even damaging to other people.
Take advantage of people, cheat them, say or think evil things, ignoring people
when you could help them, sometimes you can make life really hard by doing some
really hard things. In the Christian worldview, that’s called sin. Breaking
God’s laws. Going against God’s ideas for our relationship with Him and our
relationship with others. Basically, it’s rebelling against God. And sin makes
life hard. Hard on others and hard on you. Sin can be hard to deal with. It can
burden your conscience, cause guilt and shame. Wouldn’t life be easier without
dealing with sin? Besides life sometimes being hard for no reason, here’s another
Another little quip, life is hard and then you die.
Life is hard and then you die.
The pinnacle of optimism in our world, I guess.
But there it is, there is the thing that can really make life hard, that takes away from
an easier life.
The very thing, in fact, that ends life, death.
Wouldn’t life be easier not having to deal with death?
I’m going to get back to that, okay?
But right now, let’s look at that gospel reading today
that it certainly wasn’t an easier life
for the followers of Jesus after His death,
especially for those women who went to the tomb
early on that Sunday morning.
their beloved friend, their teacher, and son had been arrested, brutally beaten, and
wrongly crucified, dying a horrible death that they witnessed.
And when they get to the tomb, it’s as if they say, well, if life isn’t hard enough
already, where’s Jesus’ body?
They’re perplexed.
They’re frightened.
And I guess we could say they were uneasy.
But then life got easier for them because two men, angels there, said to them,
Why do you seek the living among the dead?
He’s not here but has risen.
The angels are trying to comfort them and they tell them this good news, that Jesus
has risen.
And the women didn’t know it yet, but life just got easier for them.
Easier because their sin and death had been dealt with.
Jesus died to forgive sins.
And he rose again from the dead to conquer death.
To give eternal life.
And that same good news that came to those women some 2,000 years ago comes to you today.
That even though life is hard, don’t be perplexed or frightened.
Jesus is not in that tomb. It’s empty and He is risen.
Thank you. Okay, I’m just making sure you’re awake out there.
see you can have an easier life but not just with technology or information or
entertainment you can have an easier life because sin and death those two
things that make life really hard they’ve been dealt with Jesus dealt with
your sin and death by dying on the cross for your sins and rising again to give
you eternal life. You see that that tomb of sin and death is empty for you not
just for those people back then but for you today that tomb is empty because
Jesus did this for you. Yeah I know sin and death make life hard but Jesus was
no stranger to a hard life because that hard life that you have in your sin and
And in your death He took it all on Him and died with it on the cross.
Your sin, your death, He dealt with it on that cross and in that empty tomb.
So you don’t have to deal with your sin except to admit it and confess it and receive the
forgiveness Jesus gives to you.
And to have the easier life that comes through Jesus’ resurrection.
His resurrection is an easier life because it is life, eternal life.
Now again, wanting an easier technological, informational, entertaining life isn’t necessarily
a bad thing, okay?
but it is basically a self-serving, self-centered life. It’s focused on
self. And I’ve got a visual to helpfully kind of illustrate this a
little bit to talk about this, but wanting an easier life is kind of
self-focused, self-centered. In fact, what’s in the middle of easier?
What’s in the middle of it?
I.
Me.
But if your life is focused on Jesus,
on His death and resurrection for you,
if the cross of Jesus is at the center
of the easier life you want,
then you have an Easter life.
You have an Easter life,
and that’s an easier life
because it’s life.
It’s life without death.
It’s life with the forgiveness of your sins.
They’ve been dealt with, forgiven,
and instead given you life.
That’s what Christ gives to you in His cross
and His empty tomb.
Now, an Easter life,
it doesn’t take away all those hard things in life.
I mean, your failures, your losses,
sicknesses and things,
We’re still going to have those, but an Easter life can help you deal with them.
We still live in a world of sin and death, but Jesus has dealt with them for you.
No, it’s not always an easier life, but you can always have an Easter life.
May you have that Easter life, all of your life,
in all of the hard things of your life,
focused on the death and resurrection of Jesus for you.
Amen.
