Sermon:
March 31, 2002
Easter Sunday Night Alive!  

Scripture:
Ephesians 2:1-8

"And you were dead...in your trespasses and sins."

On his television show, Alfred Hitchcock told the story long ago of a woman who was in prison for life. She had become angry and resentful about her situation and thought she would rather die than live another year in prison.

Over the years she had become good friends with one of the prison caretakers. His job, among others, was to bury the prisoners who died in a graveyard just outside the prison walls. When a prisoner died, the caretaker rang a bell, which was heard by everyone. The caretaker then got the body and put it in a casket. Next, he entered his office to fill out the death certificate before returning to the casket to nail the lid shut. Finally, he put the casket on a wagon to take it to the graveyard and bury it.

Knowing the routine, the woman devised an escape plan and shared it with the caretaker. They devised the plan that when the next prisoner died, she would slip out of her cell and into the dark room, climb into the casket, and be buried with the body. Then, under the cover of darkness, the caretaker would come back out and uncover the grave, so the woman could escape to freedom.

Well, she had to wait several weeks before the bell rang again. When she heard the bell, she waited until all was quiet. Then she crept out of her cell, tiptoed down the hallway (nearly getting caught once), quietly stepped into the dark room where the casket was, and slipped into the casket with the body. She soon heard footsteps and the pounding of the hammer and nails.  She could feel them moving the casket from the room. Being in the casket with a dead body repulsed her, but for her freedom she would endure it. She could feel them lowering her down into the grave, and when they began to throw the dirt on the casket she was almost giddy. She began to laugh. She was almost free! Each shovel-full of dirt brought her one step closer to her freedom. Finally, she couldn’t hear anything, and she knew it was just a matter of time. She waited a several minutes. Then, she became curious about who it was who had died.  So she lit a match, and then she screamed. There, lying right next to her, was the face of her friend the caretaker. The final scene faded to black with the sound of her screaming, screaming that no one else would ever hear.

Like this woman, you and I might think we can cheat death, our sentence. You and I might think we can play around with sin and not get burned. You and I might like to think we can escape it, or explain our way out of it. We’re good at doing that to get ourselves out of trouble, but as Deuteronomy suggests, “in due time their foot shall slide” (32:35). Our wisdom, our influence, and our power in this world mean nothing when we’re dead. We may be able to impress a lot of people, but we can never impress God. Ecclesiastes 2:16 states: “The wise man dies just like the fool.”

Like this woman, we take pains in thinking of how we will escape death. But when you’re dead, you don’t think. We plan how we will escape the consequences of our trespasses and sin. But when you’re dead, you don’t plan. We flatter ourselves with what good people we’ve been and what we’ve done to make the world a better place. But when you’re dead, you don’t impress anyone. We design in our imaginations how we’ll escape judgment. But when you’re dead, you’re stuck. You can’t escape your coffin, let alone anything else.

They say that “dead men don’t lie.” But neither do they live. Neither do they love. Neither do they do anything. A group of people touring Europe were visiting the purported site of Mozart’s grave. There was very strange, eerie music that seemed to be coming from below their feet.  When one of the tourists asked the tour guide what the sound was, he simply replied, “That’s the master de-composing.” Truly Easter is a matter of life and death.

Chuck Swindoll (in a Bible study on Ephesians 2:1-10) notes:

Life is made up of a lot of contrasts. And in the scriptures there are numerous contrasts. Light and dark; heaven and hell; accept and reject; love, hate; faith, works; grace, law; spirit, flesh; freedom, bondage; life, death. And in almost every one of those contrasts, God alone makes the difference. Think of that.  Between light and dark stands God. Between heaven and hell stands God. Between freedom and bondage. Certainly between life and death. But, God…

We may think of this series of contrasts as polar opposites, but I assert to you that each pair is so close, that sometimes a breath is all that divides them. A thought, a decision, a brief act is all that separates us, one from the other.

When Paul writes to the church in Ephesus, he doesn’t mince words. He states a very offensive message. “You were dead (writing to the Gentiles). We were dead (speaking for himself and for the Jews)…but God…” Paul, in a very direct way, basically says that deadness was our life. We were dead. We were hopeless, helpless, entrenched, addicted, and distant. We were inescapably removed from any hope of life. Remember, dead people don’t hope. Dead people don’t receive help. Dead people don’t climb. Dead people don’t move. Dead people don’t seek God. And without God standing in the gap between life and death for us, we are like zombies—walking dead people. 

Chuck Swindoll writes:

Had you and I lived in our dead state in the first century, we would’ve taken up a nail to drive into Jesus’ hands. We would have put him up on the cross. We would have said, “Release Barabbus, crucify him!” Because dead people talk like that and think like that. Don’t convince yourself otherwise, or else you’ll miss the whole point of verse four: “But God…”

Which D. Martin Lloyd Jones says is really the Gospel in two words. “But God.”

This passage can be broken down in four sections:

            Verses 1-3:      “What was life like?”

            Verse 4:         “What did God do?”

            Verse 4-7:      “Why did he do it?”

            Verse 8-9:      “How can that be?”

Let’s look at verses 1-3. “What was life like?” And you were dead in your trespasses and sin. (The result of human powerlessness and human corruption. The human condition without Christ.) You may disagree with Paul. You may be alive in human terms, holding a job, laughing, crying, learning and growing; you may feel very much alive. But ask yourself, is this about human terms? In human terms, dead is dead. You’ve given us your condition, humanly speaking, but God isn’t limited to that perspective. That’s why humanism makes such great sense. We love human accomplishments! We put humans on pedestals. We give them awards. We give them plaques. But without Christ, they are dead people on a pedestal. Dead people have no refuge.  Dead people have nothing to hold onto.

“In which you formerly walked according to the course of this world system.” How do you walk?  Like the dead people? Who’s telling you what to do? What to think? What to wear? Apart from Christ, you have no choice but to walk in the way of the world.

Psalm 1:1 “How blessed is the one who does not walk in the counsel of the wicked, nor stand in the path of sinners, nor sit in the seat of scoffers!” They say the path to life is a journey. Do you see the “slowing down” of the one who gives up the blessing? First they walk (listening to the message of the wicked), then they are found not moving forward but standing (with the sinners), then finally they just stop and sit (with the scoffers).

The lost think alike, because the lost think like the world thinks. They take their cues from their favorite newspapers, magazines and media. They shape their opinions based on a world-controlled system (body piercing, tattoos, gothic black). Did you ever notice that all the “alternative” people look alike? That people, in order to prove their individuality from this world system, all do the same things, wear the same things, carry the same attitude about things?  They’re really united in their individuality, aren’t they? In my years of youth ministry, there has been one kid who was truly alternative. He attended Seaholm High School. I’d see him when I taught there. He had cornflower blue hair, and it matched the cornflower blue terrycloth bathrobe he wore to school every day. Now that was alternative. But he’s his own man! He’s thinking for himself! Nevertheless, it was a sad way to show the world your originality. And if you think I’m talking about just the youth, you haven’t walked around Birmingham lately. Dead people come in all ages. It’s in the business world. It’s on the road to the world’s view of success, in whatever arena we find ourselves. 

“According to the prince of the power of the air, of the spirit of the sons of disobedience.” Now a prince is someone you think you’d want to follow. But look at what he’s a prince of: the power of the air. Air is like nothing. The air being the lower things in creation. The Bible talks a lot about Satan and his demons. No, we cannot see them. Yes, we sense their influence. Nothing is too outrageous for them. No lie is too brash to announce as truth. It’s all about manipulation.  They say: “Truth is a lie. Lies are truth.” And you hear it enough in enough different ways, from talk shows to lifestyles of the rich and famous. It’s there. Eat it up.            

“Among them we too (Paul includes himself) all formerly lived in the lusts of our flesh, indulging the desires of the flesh and of the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, even as the rest.” “Living in the lusts of our flesh,” means living by our feelings. Paul has named the three enemies of a Christian: the flesh, the world and Satan. Remember the song “You Light Up My Life”?  It’s a good song, but remember the line: “It can’t be wrong, if it feels so right.” What a lie! Think of how many times it feels right to attack someone who just bugs you a little. Who says something at just the wrong time. Repeatedly. Just think of your children. (You can’t do all the things you feel and call it right!) Of course it’s wrong.

Chuck Swindoll tells of Kent Hughes, who tells a story:

I have in my files a photograph of the philosopher Jeremy Bentham, the father of Utilitarianism. The photo shows his body sitting in a chair, dressed in early 19^th Century gentleman’s wear. The whole thing is a result of his dark humor. For when he died, he gave orders that his entire estate be given to the University Hospital in London, on the condition that his body be placed in attendance at all the hospital board meetings. This is duly carried out. And every year, to this day, Bentham is wheeled up, and the chairman says, “Jeremy Bentham, present, but not voting.” This, of course, is a great joke on his utilitarianism. Bentham will never raise his hand in response. He will never submit a motion, because he has been dead for nearly 160 years. And I will tell you every board meeting where the table is filled with unregenerates is filled with Jeremy Benthams, but you can’t tell by looking, because they’re still talking, and voting, and deciding, and even sharing their wisdom according to this world. They are mesmerized by group think, captivated by this culture, driven from desire that knows no boundaries, even to the point of having affairs one after another, knowing that it will be to the detriment of family and home, driven because it feels so right. The dead live on, thinking it will get them past the jaws of physical death, and there the awful reality hits.

“But God.” What a line. The Gospel in two words. Jesus was dead. The movement was over.  The disciples were lost. “But God.” God’s message this Easter and every Easter. God’s message every day. “But God, being rich in mercy, because of his great love with which he loved us even when we were dead in our transgressions, made us alive together with Christ.” Alive! Do you hear? Alive! We can’t breathe our next breath, physically or spiritually, and yet he loves us to life again! He has “made us alive together with Christ by his grace!” Why do you think we called this service Sunday Night Alive?

Get your Bible and draw a line: “But God…made us alive…raised us up…and seated us.” And in each case it is with Christ, with him. God made us alive with Christ, raised us up with Christ, and seated us with Christ in the heavenly places. And there you find the core of our position as believers in Christ. 

Sadly, most of us have never heard of our position with Christ. We live as though we’re still zombies. We are still dominated by our enemies: Satan, our flesh, and the world systems. We fall for the lies, we follow our cravings and measure ourselves and others to this world’s standards.  We ignore God’s design. We ignore God’s desire. “But God” brought us to life.

“Even when we were dead in our transgressions, made us alive together with Christ (by grace you have been saved).” Charles Wesley describes what happened in the fourth stanza of the famous “1000 tongues” hymn: “He breaks the power of cancelled sin, he sets the prisoner free. His blood can make the foulest clean, his blood availed for me.” For me, and for you, and you, and you.  But God, though we were dead, we’ve been made alive, together with Christ, by his blood.

Why would God ever do that? Not because there was anything in us to love. Dead people are not loveable. Remember when Adam and Eve sinned against God, they didn’t go looking for God.  They hid! In our sin, we hide. In our death, we hide. We try to hide from God. John 3:19: “People loved the darkness rather than the light, because their deeds were evil.” Everything about us was unattracted to God, and unattractive to God. 

“But, God being rich in mercy” loved us. It was because of his great love for us. Not because of our love for him. “In order that in the ages to come He might show the surpassing riches of his grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus. For by grace you have been saved through faith; and that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God.” 

That gift of God, that love, that grace, that unmerited favor comes to us before we are even aware, even when we’re running from him. Remember when Jesus was crucified, the disciples ran. They weren’t seeking him. They were hiding. They missed it. But it came. God’s grace came, not as a reward, but as a gift. 

Jesus came. Even death could not hold him back. God raised Jesus from the dead. And the Good News is this: Jesus wasn’t the last one. Jesus wasn’t the only one. Jesus was the first one. You and I were dead, too. “But God”…do you remember your position? “But God…made us alive together with Christ…raised us up with him and seated us with him in the heavenly places.”  We deserved darkness; by grace he made us light. We deserved hell; by grace he gave us heaven.  We deserved rejection; by grace he gave us acceptance. We deserved hate; by grace he gave us love. We were dead; by grace he gave us life. Grace is a gift. Salvation is a gift. This transformed way of thinking, our new position in Christ, is a gift from God.

Dead people can’t take any gifts like that. We just have to lie there and accept it. And when you do, you become alive! On that first Easter, life truly began for those disciples, beginning with Mary Magdalene, and the world has never been the same. What was dead can be made alive, through Christ! Hallelujah!

Let us pray: What a joy it is, O Lord, to celebrate this Easter. To celebrate your new life. To celebrate our new life. Thank you that though we were dead, you made us alive. Lord, that’s such good news, we simply ask that you would go before us in each of our lives and help us share it. Shine through us that we may be for the world the light of salvation, always remembering the position that you have given us through your Son, our resurrected Lord, Jesus Christ. Amen.