Resurrection!

[AI translation] When I read this Word, some of you may have wondered, "What gives this Word its topicality, since Easter has already passed? Well, I chose this Word precisely because after Easter, we do indeed have the wrong feeling that Easter has already passed! That it was Easter! That Easter is over! Our Word reminds us that it is not! Easter is still going on today! Easter is not a finished past time, but an unfinished present time. Finished, completed is the work of Jesus on Calvary, the work He did on the cross, the atonement for sin, the payment of our debt. But what was done at Easter is not finished, it is only the beginning, which has a continuation! Paul says that: Christ is the first to rise from the dead, is precisely to show that the past fact of Christ's resurrection does not settle the matter, that the resurrection is a work of Jesus which is still in progress, not yet complete, not finished, still lacking something, the resurrection of his own! Jesus is now at work to bring us into His resurrection, to bring us into the power of His resurrection, to make His resurrection our resurrection!And do you know why the resurrection is relevant for us now? Because there is no reality more relevant in this world than death! Because there is nothing more certain in this life full of uncertainty than death. Even if we know nothing about the future, we know one thing for sure: that we will die, that at the end of any life, whether unhappy or happy, whether long or short, there will be a big question mark, a terrible riddle: death! We do not see it, but we know with certainty that at every moment the great reaper is behind us, right beside us. Sometimes it comes upon us suddenly, sometimes it grinds at us for years, devouring life. For the healthy, the strong, the young, it is always there, always at their heels, carrying them 24 hours closer to the grave every day. Wherever he steps forward and appears, he leaves tears, misery and often despair in his wake. This earthly world is full of such tears, misery and despair, caused by death, even though the whole of humanity is engaged in a great, desperate struggle against it. But in vain! It cannot conquer it! Man instinctively feels that this terrifying, mysterious monster, death, is his eternal enemy, which will one day catch up with him, seize him and conquer him. To which he will inevitably fall a victim! There is no more natural feeling than the fear of death! And this fear is quite different in nature from the fear of, for example, a wild bull, because there I know what I am afraid of, but in the case of death one does not know what one is afraid of, one is only afraid! Of something! Perhaps it is precisely the great uncertainty, the great darkness, the great elusiveness that this word death means! We just feel that death is something like a dark curtain, a deep, invisible chasm that separates us from something... But - from what?! That's the problem with it! What is it separating us from, what is it covering? The nothing? The other world? Heaven, heaven? Or is it hell? Damnation? At any moment, darkness could fall upon us, so it would be good to know something for sure: what lies beyond?! The moment will come when nothing will matter but this! What is beyond?! It would be a terrible thing to rush into the darkness without knowing where you are. That is the real problem of death! And now, in this world fearing death, suddenly a strange message is heard: "But Christ is risen, and is become the Son of those who have fallen asleep."
I can't explain this miracle, but simply pass it on as some great good news, that Jesus has solved the problem of death, has broken through the dark, mysterious curtain, has torn a hole in it, like the germ of a seed that sprouts from the crust of the earth, the first to split and crack the hard clod above it... Thus Jesus rose from the dead, and by his resurrection opened the way, the opportunity, through death to eternal life! However we explain this mysterious message, one thing is certain: that the ultimate reality of our life is not death, but resurrection! And that the person of Jesus, who died and rose again, is the vital link between life and death. Nor is there an end to all things for us in death, but beyond it awaits the same risen Jesus who died here on Calvary. The same Jesus will be waiting beyond in all His glory, Whom here on the other side you have accepted or rejected, served or betrayed, confessed or denied, Whose name your life has glorified or mocked.
Jesus once said to a woman weeping for her dead, "I am the resurrection and the life, if anyone believes in me, even if he dies, he lives!" Let it be well remembered, he says so: I am! Our faith in the resurrection is centred and built on an I, a living person. Not just on an event that happened then or there, on that first Easter. But on that event, on the doer of that fact, on the living person himself, risen from the dead. And how great is that! Because that event cannot come here. That event remains in the past, in the garden of Joseph of Arimathea, where it happened 1900 or so years ago. But the living person, the one who rose from the dead then, penetrates the many centuries that have passed since then, up to the present day: 19 April 1959. He comes into this church and says: I am the resurrection! And with this, he makes the great, happy, triumphant fact of the resurrection a reality of today! Here and now I am the resurrection for you! The centre of the resurrection-power that conquers death! The resurrection from the dead with My resurrection from the dead, which took place nearly 2000 years ago, is not finished, but has just begun! It was only the first germ-leaf to sprout, the germ of those who have fallen asleep!
A Dutch writer has a strange short story in which he describes a pastor meeting Death at the deathbed of a believing parishioner. The pastor recalls his old high school studies and asks Death in wonder: "Are you the same Kharon who takes souls across the dark river Styx in your boat? "Do you not know?" replied Death. I am Charon, the first convert of Jesus. I, Death, was the first to bow the knee to Christ when I had to release Him from my bonds, though I had never released anyone from my grasp before. Then, there in Joseph's garden, when He stepped out of the tomb, I fell down and worshipped Him. I, in Charon, the first of the Gentiles. And I have been His servant ever since." A strange story, but what it expresses is true. For in our good old Easter hymn we say, "Jesus conquered the king of those fears." When Jesus conquered death as an enemy, a new death was born for His redeemed: death as a friend. Death also entered into the service of Jesus as a lackey to escort us to the throne of kingship. As the doorkeeper of heaven. But let no one outside of Christ try to make friends with death, only death is a friend to him, this ancient enemy, who is a friend of Christ, who himself has bowed down to the risen Lord! This is what it says: "But Christ is risen from the dead, and they that slept are become asleep."
Well, Jesus has conquered death! Correct! And that will surely be a great consolation for the time when we ourselves will be lying in one of those graves. But what are we to do with him until then? What about the resurrection? What are young people to do with a gospel that proclaims the conquest of death? This is news that will obviously be welcomed by those who already have one foot in the grave. The resurrection is for people who are already writing their wills... But what does it have to do with people who are writing love letters, or tax returns, or diaries, or Hungarian literature essays, or anything else - in other words, people whose problem is not death, but life?! Well, one can be dead even if one is alive, one can be dead without even noticing it. Moving, talking, acting, rejoicing, consoling, working... There is happiness dead, and a heart dead, and a family life dead, and a world dead! Even more terrible than dead death is living death, or dead life. The death that looks out through one's cold, unfeeling eyes; the death that sits on one's blushing, indifferent face, that emanates through one's hateful or fornicating heart.
Well, Jesus is not only the resurrection of the dead lying in the grave, but of the living dead: the resurrection of the dead lives, the dead souls, walking in the house, in society, in the church, in the world! Eternal life is not some other kingdom beyond the horizon of earthly life beckoning to us from somewhere beyond the grave of uncertainty, but eternal life can begin for you today, even this very moment - and it begins in reality... What did Jesus once say? "Verily, verily, I say unto you, He that heareth my word, and believeth on him that sent me, hath everlasting life, and shall not come into condemnation, but shall pass from death unto life." (Jn 5,24) So no matter how dead you are, Jesus can make you today a person who has already been raised from the dead, who by the power of His resurrection lives, loves, serves among other people for the benefit of other people. And he who truly lives in this way, who is alive by the power of Christ's resurrection, even if he dies, he never dies.
In conclusion, I would like to draw your attention to a very practical point. When I decided that I wanted to speak today on the question of the resurrection, I found out a few days later that the Christian Peace Conference is meeting today in Prague, the purpose of which is for Christianity to take a united, clear and unequivocal stand on the nuclear issue. Perhaps it is precisely at this hour that the representatives of the various Christian denominations are offering each other their fraternal right hand to help to curb this deadly threat to the world.
In every age there are great and crucial questions, the answers to which almost define our Christian identity. Now it is a question of humanity's life or death: a question of unforeseeable rich development or a question of terrible mass murder. Christianity, which proclaims resurrection even in the face of an open tomb, which believes in life even in the face of death, has no other task than to offer the hope of life to a world threatened by death, to a humanity terrified. Quite apart from any political considerations, we simply must not get used to the idea that there is nothing for it but war! I am convinced, my brethren, that in the present state of technological development, war would not help to solve the problems, but would make all solutions impossible! I began this sermon by saying that the resurrection of Christ is not a finished fact, but a process that has begun. That is why we can pray with all good hope that the Lord will include in the process of His resurrection the well-meaning human endeavour to avert the threat to humanity's life. For our part, we can best contribute to this if we can pray in this way with sincerity:
Jesus, help me in this,
That my life may flow more holy,
And that I may not come to judgment,
Raise me up to new life.
The power of your soul
The fountain of new life;
So that I may be a living person:
By thy spirit live in me.
(Canto 347, verse 5)
Amen
Date: 19 April 1959.