In this sermon, the preacher emphasizes the message of Easter, which is that by uniting with Jesus Christ, believers will miss out on nothing. He encourages the congregation to relax, sacrifice, and give themselves to others, following the example of Jesus who sacrificed himself and served others. The preacher references C.S. Lewis' sermon, "The Weight of Glory," to illustrate that the physical pleasures we experience in this world are only a faint reflection of the incredible joy and fulfillment that awaits believers in the presence of God. The sermon concludes by highlighting the passage in Luke 24:37-43, where Jesus appears to his disciples after his resurrection, proving that he is not a ghost but a physical being, and even asks for something to eat to further demonstrate his physicality.

The passage on which the teaching is based this morning is written in your bulletin, Luke chapter 24, verse 37 to 43. They were startled and frightened, thinking they saw a ghost. He said to them, Why are you troubled, and why do doubts rise in your minds? Look at my hands and my feet. It is I myself. Touch me and see. A ghost does not have flesh and bones, as you see I have. When he had said this, he showed them his hands and feet. And while they still did not believe it because of joy and amazement, he asked them, Do you have anything here to eat? And they gave him a piece of broiled fish, and he took it and ate it in their presence. This is God's word. Now, I believe that this little text, this little story, is written especially for the average New Yorker today. Because the average New Yorker is actually comfortable with Easter. Comfortable with the message of Easter. You see, the disciples, when they heard the real message of Easter, they were, look at all the words, startled, terrified, see, that's how you translate them, troubled, filled with doubts, amazement, disbelief, joy. None of them. The average New Yorker experiences none of them. The average New Yorker says this. He says, Well, look, first of all, I love the Easter story. I think it's a wonderful thing. It's inspiring. First of all, it means that there can be a new beginning after disaster. That there's hope after darkness. I also believe many would say that after death there is life. We go into the light. So, I just love the Easter story. Well, they would say also, I don't believe it literally. I don't believe there was a real physical resurrection. I think that these stories morphed over the years. The Christians had wonderful experiences of how Jesus Christ, their teacher, his spirit lives on and his teaching lives on. And eventually, over the years, these stories came down of a physical resurrection. I don't believe that, but I love the Easter story. Now, I'm here to show you that it's almost like Luke who gives us this passage. It's almost like Luke anticipated that. Because this passage actually comes right out, essentially, and says, if you spiritualize the resurrection, if you say Jesus is just living on in spirit, you'll have comfort, but you won't have the truth. Because here's Jesus showing up and saying, I am not spiritually living on. I am not a ghost. I am not a spirit. A spirit has not got flesh and bones like I do. Touch me. Give me a fish. Let me eat. Spirits don't eat like this. The whole point of this passage is to come right up against the popular approach and say, if you are comfortable with Easter, if you're not terrified by it and just rapturously lifted into joy by it, if you're just comfortable, neither terrified nor filled with incredible joy, it's because you have either spiritualized the message of Easter or you haven't thought out the message of Easter. The message of Easter is Jesus has his flesh and bones. Jesus right now has his flesh and bones. And Jesus says, if you understand it the way the disciples understand it, you'll be moved from absolute terror to incredible joy, but you won't just be comfortable. Let me just show you three things. If Jesus has his flesh and bones, three things it teaches us. What difference does it make? These three things. One thing for the mind, it changes your thinking. One thing for the life, the will, it changes the way you live. One thing for the heart, it changes your feeling. First of all, for the mind, if Jesus still has his flesh and bones, that means he's Lord. This is the terrifying part. It means he's Lord. Paul went to Athens and he began to preach, we're told in Acts chapter 17. St. Paul went to Athens and he went up on the Mars hill, the Areopagus, and he began, that's what Areopagus means, the hill of Aries. And up there was a council of philosophers. And he began to speak to them, he began to lecture them. And they loved it for a good while. Because he came along and he said, you know that I believe in one God and I believe in a God who cannot live in temples and I believe we all need this God. And they loved it. They said, this is great. Why? Because, you know, we're all searching for God and we're all, through all the different religions we're searching and every religion tells us something about it and gives us clues to how to find life and how to deal with our struggles. And this is wonderful. But then all of a sudden, Paul gets to the, to verse 30 and 31 of that chapter and he says this, in his lecture, he says, the times of ignorance got overlooked. But now he commands all men everywhere to repent. Because the world will be judged by the man he appointed to which he has given all assurance when he raised him from the dead. And at that point, the lecture's over. The philosophers got up, they stopped it, everything was over. And here's the reason why. Because they realized that at this point, suddenly they got very uncomfortable. Because Paul was saying the search is over. If Jesus Christ was raised from the dead, search was wonderful. The times of ignorance, everybody was looking, everybody was groping, everybody was looking around and hoping that they could find life and God in some way, but the search is over. He's here. Time for decision. The philosophers knew that the resurrection meant that Christianity was claiming something for its founder that no other religion ever even came close comparably to claim. Now, somebody says, why? The resurrection, that makes Jesus unique? Why would it do that? Don't other, don't other religions have stories of heroes being resurrected? Doesn't the Bible have other people who are resurrected? Didn't Elisha raise the widow's son in the Old Testament? Didn't, didn't Lazarus rise from the dead? So, why would Jesus' resurrection suddenly make him unique and his religion unique? And the answer is this. Nobody was ever raised like Jesus. Look at Lazarus. They had to roll the stone away so he could get out. They had to untangle him. They had to, remember, they had to take off his grave clothes so he could speak, so he could move. But Jesus' grave clothes are lying there in the tomb, completely wrapped and folded because the body had just passed through. And one of the reasons why the disciples are so terrified right here in verse 37, it says they were terrified not just because they saw Jesus, but because the doors were locked. He came through the wall. And they began, see, the reason that the stone was rolled away on Jesus' tomb on Easter Sunday morning was not so Jesus could get out. Did you ever thought, did you think that's what it was? You did. You thought that's what it was? No, it was so we could get in. It's so Mary and the disciples could get in. He didn't need, why? Because Jesus was not raised like anyone else. Lazarus, death lost its grip on Lazarus, okay? Death lost its grip. But Lazarus rose to die again. But Jesus Christ broke the hands and the teeth of death. He broke the bars of death. He destroyed death, the death of death, in the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. That's what the Bible teaches. And therefore, now what we see is Jesus coming through a wall. What's that mean? It means that Jesus Christ now lives in a whole new realm, a realm beyond decay, a realm beyond decay and disintegration and death and time and space even. Jesus is showing us that he is not like any other founder. He is the firstborn from the dead. He is the son of God. And he has broken through death. And that's the reason why Saint John, when he meets Jesus near the end of his life, he writes the account of it in Revelation chapter 1. And there John says this, I fell at his feet as though dead. And then he placed his right hand on me. And he said, do not be afraid. I am the living one. I was dead. And behold, I am alive forevermore. And I hold the keys of death. You see, Jesus Christ was not just resuscitated. He didn't die to rise again. He didn't rise to die again, excuse me. He died and he rose triumphant over the grave. He broke the bands of death. He broke death in half. And as a result, he says, I'm the living one. I hold the keys to life. Now, what does that mean for the philosophers? What does that mean for you and me? It means the search is over. The day of repentance is here. Because every other religion and every other philosopher and every other religious leader was pointing this is the way to life. But Jesus Christ shows up and says, I am the life. I am not another teacher pointing with clues that you can use on your search for life. I am the life to which all the clues point. That's the reason why when Martha comes up to Jesus and says, Lord, if you had been here, my brother Lazarus would not have died. Why couldn't you have been here? Now we have to wait to see him for the resurrection at the end of time. And Jesus looks at her and says, I am the resurrection and the life. Wherever I am, there's resurrection. I'm not a teacher pointing to the resurrection. I am the resurrection to which all teachers point. And therefore, don't search. Repent. This is the reason why the resurrection is so in your face. This is the reason why it is such an outrage today. And this is the reason why people like to spiritualize it away. Because if it happened physically, that's where we are. See, I find one of the most, one great irony is that the people who most hate pat answers live in the most pat answer of all. The average person says, well, everybody's got their own religion. Everybody's searching out for God. Everybody's trying. Everybody's got part of the truth. And who knows who's got the truth? You know why that's a pat answer? Because as long as we're all searching and who knows who could possibly be right and everybody's got their different religion or philosophy, what that means is I can sort of say I'm still a spiritual seeker, but I can live any way I want today. Because who knows who's got the truth? But if Jesus Christ says I'm not the pointer to the truth, I am the truth. I'm not the pointer to the life, I am the life. I hold the keys to death. I have destroyed death and the only way you will ever get past it is through me. That means the search is done. The day of decision is now. That's the reason why Paul says the resurrection means God overlooks the times of ignorance and today he calls everyone everywhere to repent. Come to me. Come to him. Bow down. Let me tell you this. I believe Luke knew exactly what he was doing here. What's this little thing about the fish? What the heck does that mean? If Luke was writing us a legend, if Luke was sort of taking stories and what was, what does this mean? The only possible meaning of this story is not that after death there might be life. The only possible meaning of this story is not that after winter there comes spring, after disaster there comes new beginnings. The only possible reason for this story is to say that Jesus literally stood there, people watched him eating a fish, not just, look it didn't say fried. Do you notice that? It said broiled. Why would it say broiled? Because this isn't a legend, this is reporting. This is reporting. These are unnecessary details. You don't write legends like this. You read this and you say this is a claim. This is not a legend. This is not a beautiful story. This is not a myth that helps us get out, you know, look beyond and see. This is a claim and here's what Luke is doing and here's what John is doing. You know, the gospel writer John says, that which we've seen with our eyes, which we've heard with our ears, what we've handled with our hands, the word of life Jesus Christ, him we declare to you. What Luke and John are doing, especially Luke in this story right here, is they're saying this. They're saying we know this is an outrageous claim that he's risen from the dead. We know this is a pluralistic society in which everybody says we've all got our own religions. We know that nobody else makes a claim like this. We know that our claim is trust this man or die forever. We know this is outrageous but what can we do? We saw him. We with our real eyes. We heard him with our real ears. We felt him with our real hands. He says touch me. What can we do says Luke? Well that's such a narrow-minded claim. I can't help it he says. I saw it and so Luke and John and the gospel writers are saying you can call us liars. Oh yes, you certainly might. It could be a lie. Of course it is. I haven't proved it's not a lie. He says call us liars or believe us and get into a whole new world but don't you dare dumb down what we're saying. Don't you dare do a frontal lobotomy on this. Don't you dare say these are nice wonderful spiritual stories. You can tell by reading it this is not a spiritual story. This is a claim. This is reporting. You can either say we're lying or you can believe us and go into a whole new world but don't you dare say that Jesus just rose in spirit and lives on. That Christianity is one religion among many. It is not. We will not give you that option. You can believe us or you can say these guys are liars but don't say anything else. We have seen the living one he says. The one who has the keys of death. That's the first thing. Don't you see why it's terrifying? Don't you see why Easter is not comforting? At least not to start with. It's terrifying. Secondly, the second thing that we learn from this, the second implication that Jesus has his flesh and blood. We said if he has his flesh and bones he was Lord. Spiritually he's not but if he's literally physically raised to death with his flesh and bones he's Lord. Secondly, it means you have a whole new way of relating to the world and here's what I mean. Easter, the eating of the fish, means that your future is a physical future. That Jesus Christ does not say I'm going to redeem you away from the world. If you trust in me you can have a wonderful nether netherland world in the future. When you die you'll leave all this awful world of suffering and you'll live on and be very happy. That's not what he's saying. What Jesus is saying in the resurrection is this world, this material world, is so important to you, to me, says Jesus, that I have come into the world to redeem it and your future is what you see in me. You're going to have a body. We're going to redeem this world. This world, it makes a difference. This world matters. Now this, what this means, I'm going to, I would like to read you two quotes because this creates a tremendous balance in the Christian life that I don't think any other philosophy can even come close to. First of all, on the other one hand, if you believe in Easter, if you believe in the physical resurrection, we're not just talking about eternal life, some kind of spiritual nether world that you go to after you die. We're talking about resurrection. We're talking about redeemed new heaven and new earth, a place where you live in a body where you eat and you drink and you love and you dance and you hug one another. If you believe that, first of all, on the one hand, you can live this life without any regrets. I think there's people in New York that are frantic because they're afraid they're going to miss out. They're afraid they're going to miss out on a great family. They're afraid they're going to miss out on great sex. They're afraid they're going to miss out on great travel. They see all these experiences and they want them. They want sexual ecstasy. They want warmth and love. They want physical beauty. They want terrific food. They want to see the sights. They want all these things. And as a result, because you feel like, I don't want to miss out. You know what? Remember the old beer commercial for franticness? You only go around once in life and you've got to grab for all the gusto you can. See, a lot of you aren't laughing because you're not old enough. You don't remember that beer commercial. You only go around once in life, so you've got to grab for all your gusto you can. Easter says, don't be ridiculous. Easter says, if you unite with Jesus Christ, you will miss out on nothing. Therefore, relax. Sacrifice. Give your money away. See, give yourself to other people. Let people impose on you. You're not going to miss out on anything by following in the steps of the one who gave himself and who sacrificed himself and who served others and put the needs of others ahead of your own. And you can sit back and relax and you don't have to work 100-hour weeks. Why? Because you're not going to miss out on anything. C.S. Lewis puts it this way in his great, his great sermon, The Weight of Glory. Now, listen carefully. He says, the faint, far-off results of those energies which God's creative rapture has implanted in physical matter when he made the world are what we now call physical pleasures. I wish I could spend time on that. That is so pregnant. He says, the faint, far-off results of those energies which God's creative rapture implanted in physical matter when he made the world are what we call physical pleasures. He's talking about the fact, we know this in the Bible, that when the Father and the Son created the world, they were in rapture. We're told in Proverbs 8, they frolicked, they delighted in everything that they were creating. And Lewis is fascinating. What he says here is, when you eat something that's so good, when you embrace someone who is so wonderful, when you hear some music that is unbelievably sublime, he says, the physical energies that we call physical pleasures are just the faint, far-off results of the incredible rapture that God put into the creative world when he made it. And he says, these physical pleasures, now this is great, he goes on and he says, he says, these physical pleasures are so strong that even they are too much for our present management, even filtered, faint, and far-off. But what would it be like to taste at the fountainhead that stream of which even these lower reaches prove so intoxicating, yet that is what lies ahead? What is he trying to say? He's trying to say, the greatest sex here is nothing like the incredible closure we're going to experience with one another in Jesus Christ. He says, the best wine at the best restaurant in New York is nothing compared to the wedding feast of the Lamb. He says, when you see those dancers dancing, and you say, I'm too klutzy, I'm too fat, and I would love to dance like that, but even the dancers aren't able to dance. By the time they're 40, they've been defying gravity for so long, and their ankles are hurting, and they're filled with aches and pains. But the Bible says, when Jesus Christ comes back, when he comes to rule the earth, Psalms 96, even the trees are going to dance. What are we going to be able to be like? You're going to miss out on nothing. Don't worry about taking photographs on your last trip. This is nothing compared to what you're going to have. We will run and not be weary, we'll walk and not faint. You don't look back on anything and say, oh, I wish I was young when I was beautiful again. You're nothing compared. You are nothing compared to what you're going to be like. Compared to what you're going to be in the future, you're a vegetable. Listen, no regrets, no fears, no problem with sacrifice. Why? Because our future is a physical future. Our future is not to be some kind of disembodied intelligence, sort of like in some kind of Star Wars, Star Trek kind of highly evolved being that just sort of floats around and mental telepathy, and that's about all we have. Oh, my word, no. Your feet are going to touch the ground in the kingdom of God. They're not going to float over the pavement. You will march, you will dance, you will eat, you will drink, you will hug, you will love. So you don't have anything to be afraid of. You have no regrets. You can relax, because Easter means this world is not all there is. But, on the other hand, Easter also means this world is incredibly important. This world is worth fighting for. You would never see Easter is not at all. Easter gives you a whole different view. It's not at all the same philosophy as Eastern philosophy that says, oh, this world is an illusion, or even old Greek philosophy that says, oh, you know, matter and the physical drag us down. No, on the one hand, the world is not all it is. On the other hand, Easter says this world is extremely important. Extremely. That when I see a child suffering, when I see a poor person living in squalor, I'm going to do something about it. Because Easter means that God is not abandoning the world, and he's going to save us into some kind of paradise in the future. It means he's coming into the world. He's going to heal the world. Jesus is the first fruit from the dead. He's the beginning of the new creation, and he's going to heal everybody. New bodies, new souls, new heavens, new earth, new world. And we fight now. We care. And that's the reason why. Here's one more great quote by a guy named Tom Wright. When you listen to this, you say, this is amazing. If Easter means that Jesus Christ is only raised in a spiritual sense, then Easter is only about me and finding a new dimension in my personal spiritual life. But if Jesus Christ is truly risen from the dead, Christianity becomes good news for the whole world, not just for me. News which warms our hearts precisely because it isn't just about warming hearts. Easter means that in a world where injustice, violence, degradation are endemic, that God is not prepared to tolerate any such thing. And that we will work and plan with all the energy of God to implement the victory of Jesus over them all. Take away Easter and Karl Marx's right to accuse Christianity of ignoring the problems of the material world. Take away Easter and Freud was right to say Christianity is wish fulfillment. Take away Easter and Nietzsche was right to say it was for wimps. But have Easter. Stop spiritualizing it away. You've got all the courage. You've got all the joy. You've got all the sense of the importance of this world. If Jesus has flesh and bones, you on the one hand can relax, on the other hand you can fight in this world. This world matters. So not only does Easter and the flesh and boneness of Jesus mean the terrifying challenge that he's Lord, and not only means a challenging new lifestyle, but lastly, if Jesus has flesh and bones, that means we can have him. Now what do I mean by that? Jesus keeps coming and saying, touch me. What is that about? If you look carefully, when we read the passage today from Matthew 28, the women touch him. They clasp him. And he says, great. Here he says, touch me. He's great. But when Mary Magdalene grabs hold of him in the garden in John chapter 20, he says, don't touch me. What is this all about? Let me tell you what it's all about. All this touching. Touch me, don't touch me. Touch me, don't touch me. What's it about? If you take a look, here's what it's about. If you stand back and read the whole gospel, if you read all of Mark or all of John or all of Luke or all of Matthew, that's something, that's an experience that everybody here needs to have occasionally. I bet you a lot of you have been Christians a long time and have never done it. I mean, read a gospel through at a sitting or two or three, you know, but at least read it through. And what happens is some things begin to become clear that were never clear before to me. And that is, in the early stages, the gospel writer is trying to get you to just fall in love with Jesus. I think most of us have had this experience that when we were younger, we fell in love with some character. Somebody in a but we got crushes. We got crushes. And one of the, it's a bittersweet experience because not only does the actor or actress, you know, not only do they live far away and you can never meet them, but if you actually meet them, you know that they're not really the character, you know. And so you kind of, there's almost nothing you can do about it. It's very bittersweet to fall in love with a character and to wish you would be part of it, but how can you do it? You know, the closest that anybody ever did was Dorothy Sayers wrote a character in her mystery novels, Lord Peter Whimsey, and she fell in love with him, so she wrote herself in as Harriet Vane. But you know what? Even that falls short. And here you start to read the gospels and it happens all over again. Because as you read the gospels, you come up with, you're shown again and again, the unpredictable beauty of a wise, absolutely great, absolutely humble, absolutely loving. In Jesus Christ, you have the protagonist, all the protagonists, all the heroes, all the heroines you've ever had crushes on, and they're all wrapped up and rolled into him. He's the beauty that can, whose kiss can transform any beast. He's the knight that can slay any dragon. So he's the hero dying for his brigade. He is the beauty of beauties, the knight of all knights, the hero of all heroes. And you find your heart going on out to him, and when you get to the end of the story, every one of the gospel writers says something that you can't say at the end of any other story. They say, but guess what? You can have this person. You can touch him. When Mary grabbed hold of Jesus, the reason she's told, why does she grab hold of Jesus? She grabs him because she's saying to him, from Friday night to Sunday morning, you were only an example to me. From Friday night to Sunday morning, you were an inspiring example. I believed in you in general. I was inspired by your example, but that's not enough. It's not enough. She said, I want to have you. I want to embrace you. I want to feel your presence. I want your love on my heart. I want you in my arms. It's not good enough for you to just be in something inspiring, something vaguely uplifting. I don't want to be uplifted. I want you. I want to have you. And when Jesus says, don't touch me because I'm ascending to my father, he can't mean I'm holy, something's going to happen to you because other places he says, touch me. What's he doing? He understands what Mary's after and he's saying, Mary, this isn't the way. I have risen and I'm ascended. I'm not just living on in some kind of spiritual never, neverland, some netherworld. I am ascended because you will be able, no matter where you are in the world, to have me by faith. What we're talking about here is Jesus is saying, Mary, you can have what you want and so can everybody else. You don't have to be here in the garden. If you want proof and if you want clarification of that fact, you just have to note the very historical point. It's a historical fact that the Christians lost the tomb. The Christians lost the tomb of Jesus. When Jesus died, it was normal for sages and holy men and wise men and prophets, when they died, their followers made their tombs a shrine, a place of veneration and a place of pilgrimage. And there were at least 50 such tombs in Palestine when Jesus died. And yet we know that 50, 100, 150 years later, basically nobody was even sure where the tomb was. I know you can go to Jerusalem today. I know that the tourists will say for $20, I'll be happy to show you the tomb of Jesus, but they don't know. And the reason they don't know is because the Christians simply basically ignored the tomb. And you say, how could that be? My wife has explained it to me, as she has many things. She says, when our children, we have sons, you know, she says, your son, when you have your son, when your son is living with you, when you really have him, there's nothing special about his room. You walk into his room, you see the shoes, you see the bed, you see the clothes, you say, gee, what's going on? Why can't he pick things up? You know, the room, the things mean nothing. But when he goes away to college or when he goes away and gets married, or worst of all, of course, we know, when a child actually dies, his room becomes very important. You walk in and you don't look at the shoes the same way. You don't say, why can't he pick them up? You say, oh, there's his shoes. Oh, there's his bed. You know, when the boy dies, you can't even touch his room. You can't bear to throw his clothes out. You can't touch a thing. You see, when you don't have somebody, you venerate the place. His things in his place become a shrine. Why is it that the Christians didn't go to the tomb? Why didn't they turn into a shrine? How could they have lost the tomb? It's very simple. They had him. They utterly had him. They had him the way Mary wanted to have him. They all did. Every one of them. Mary grabbed hold and said, I'm never going to lose you again. I want love. I don't want inspiration. I want passion. I want feeling. I want to know you're in my arms. I want your love on my heart. I don't want you to be a vague. She wanted him. And yes, guess what? They all got him. That's what the resurrection means. He doesn't live on like the other teachers. He doesn't live on in spirit and his teaching. He's real. Touch me, he says. I want you to touch me. Do you have Jesus Christ the way Mary had him? The way the early Christians had him? Or are you saying, well, wait a minute. I don't know what you're talking about. I find Jesus just a kind of inspiration. Then you don't have him. They had him. Mary had him. And so can you. But you're going to have to be willing to go through the first two points if you want to get to the third point of the sermon. You have to be willing to let Jesus be your absolute Lord. Let him be your Lord. Secondly, you have to let him change your life. You have to stop spiritualizing and admit the implications. But most of all, you know what? You really have to be like Mary. Why is it that Mary got Jesus? Why was it that Mary was the first one to see Jesus? Why was it that Mary had Jesus? She didn't just have inspiration. She didn't have chicken soup for the soul. She had him. She felt him. Why? Because she knew she was a sinner. Because she knew she was a sinner saved by grace. And if you don't see yourself as needing salvation, if you don't see yourself as sinful, self-absorbed, enslaved to idols in your life, if you don't see all that, then Jesus will just be an inspiration and you won't have him because only Marys get him. And only people who know their no better than Marys get him. Mary Magdalene, the prostitute, she was the first. And only Marys get him like that. And only Marys will, only people who know they're no different than Marys. Do you understand? Touch and see. He's Lord. He'll change your life. And you can really have him because a spirit has not flesh and bones as you see I have. Let's pray. Father, we ask that you would help us now to understand the best way to appropriate these things for our life. Everybody in this room, some of us intellectually don't believe in the resurrection. I pray that you'd break through that barrier and you'd show them the search is over. Some people haven't thought out the implications of it and even though they believe it in some way, they don't understand and they certainly don't have Jesus. I pray, Lord, that everybody in this room will be able to appropriate this great doctrine of Easter. We pray this in Jesus name. Amen.