The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, the love of God, the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with you all. Amen. It’s still Easter. Last week we celebrated Easter Sunday, sometimes called the day of the resurrection of Jesus Christ. But Easter is not a one-day festival, unlike the festivals of, for example, Christmas. It might come as a surprise: the festivals of Christmas and Pentecost are followed by the word “after.” So when you look at the front of the worship folder, you’ll notice that there’s different words inserted: “after” or “of.” Easter is a season, right? So it’s the tenth Sunday after Pentecost, the first Sunday after Christmas. But the proclamation of Christ’s resurrection can’t be confined to one day. Rather, it runs a season, normally about seven weeks.
Add to this that every Sunday is a little Easter. Christians worship on Sunday because of the resurrection of Christ, which happened on the first day of the week. We read that this began in Acts 20:7: “On the first day of the week, when we were gathered together to break bread, Paul talked with them, intending to depart on the next day, and he prolonged his speech until midnight.” My sermons don’t last that long. Be happy. They get long, but they’re not that long. So during Easter season, Sundays are even more Easter. That today is the second Sunday of Easter is evident by the assigned readings. The Gospel lesson for today is the normal assigned lesson for the second Sunday of Easter, and that is doubting Thomas, or the disciples locked behind doors for fear of the Jews. The Gospel lesson is doubting Thomas. The Epistle contains John’s testimony to the Word of life, that is, to the resurrection. Thomas proclaims the risen Christ when he says, after he sees his Lord, “My Lord and my God.” And in the Epistle, John describes the testimony and proclamation of the eternal life which was with the Father and was manifested for us. Both lessons bear witness to what the first reading this morning, Acts 4:32 through 35, refers to. It tells us: “With great power the apostles were giving their testimony to the resurrection of the Lord Jesus.”
Easter even crowds out the Old Testament readings from Sunday to Sunday. From this first one until the last one, the seventh Sunday of Easter, the Old Testament is no longer read, but the book of Acts is. And particular portions of the book of Acts are read to emphasize one fundamental Christian doctrine of the Christian faith: namely, the resurrection of Christ. These readings have replaced the Old Testament, in the book of Acts, by showing the importance and the necessity of the Lord’s resurrection in the lives of those first Christians and in the lives of the first Christian congregation.
In seminary, I took a class on the book of Acts. This class was about how the New Testament grew and spread during the time of the apostles. Our first assignment was to read the whole book of Acts and to find each and every sermon or conversation, discussion, and to outline that discussion, and then to find in it the common theme. Well, it didn’t take long at all to find out what the common theme was of every preached sermon in the book of Acts: that is, the resurrection of Jesus Christ. Every single sermon included the proclamation that Christ has risen from the dead, that our sin killed Him, but God the Father raised Him back to life. For those first Christians, and rightly so, the fact that Jesus the Nazarene rose from the dead on the third day after being crucified on Good Friday was literally earth-shaking to them. It meant Jesus was indeed the Messiah, the Son of God incarnate, and that His sacrificial death had atoned for their sins and opened up a new life here in this time and place, and there in eternity.
Throughout the book of Acts, Jesus’ resurrection, Easter, is central to the Gospel proclamation, and it’s central to the mission of the church. Peter’s Pentecost sermon was the first sermon in which we find those traits. Acts 2:14 through 36 is the whole sermon, but I’m just reading the very beginning: “You crucified and killed by the hands of lawless men. This Jesus God raised up, loosing the pangs of death, because it was not possible for him,” that is Jesus, “to be held by it.” Others followed. Peter before Cornelius said, “They put him to death by hanging him on a tree, but God raised him on the third day.” Paul’s address to the philosophers on Mars Hill: “He has fixed a day on which he will judge the world in righteousness by a man whom he has appointed; of this he has given assurance to all by raising him from the dead.” Every time there’s a mention of the crucifixion and death of Christ in the book of Acts, there is the proclamation of the resurrection of Christ.
The message of Christ’s atonement and glorious resurrection changed the lives of his hearers, and that too was a feature in the book of Acts, as we see, for example, in the martyrdom of Stephen, one who was converted by the Law, the Good Friday message, and by the Gospel, the resurrection. The conversion of many happened in Acts 2:41, 4:4, 11:21, and so on. And then there’s a little-known episode where they come to a village and they proclaim the resurrection of Jesus Christ, and guess what the population did? They brought out their books of sorcery and magic and burned them before the apostles, as they came to Christ Jesus. A fundamental change in how they thought and lived in this world.
That Jesus was raised from the dead is the foundation of the entire book of Acts, and is consistent with every single thing that the apostles themselves have written and preached. It’s an article of faith, the denial of which puts a person outside the covenant of the Christian faith. And quite frankly, higher critics, liberal scholars and churchmen, they deny the physical resurrection of Jesus Christ, and in so doing they deny ultimately the true Christian faith. You can’t deny the resurrection and still be a Christian. The resurrection is the evidence that validates the identity of Jesus. Romans 1:4: He, Jesus, “was declared to be the Son of God in power according to the Spirit of holiness by his resurrection from the dead, Jesus Christ our Lord.”
You see, Easter still matters significantly in the life of the church, especially particularly in the church calendar, and it should matter to us. It should make a difference in our lives. It should make a difference in the message and in the ministry of each and every Christian congregation. It does seem to have a short-term effect, but it should be a lasting effect. I mean, on Easter Sunday we have to admit that there’s a bit of an emotional and spiritual high, elevation because of Easter, and there’s nothing wrong with that. I mean, Easter’s given birth to some of the greatest hymns and some of the greatest liturgy in the history of the church. The resurrection and the events of that first Easter Sunday, why, it makes for great sermon material and storytelling. And then there’s the cultural things, traditions connected with the celebration of Easter. Even people who don’t go to church still observe family gatherings and great feasts. People go to church in greater numbers on Easter Sunday more than any other time during the year. That includes, by the way, these days, both the candlelight service and the Christmas Day service. So it’s pretty easy to be happy and engaged on happy Easter. But what about this Sunday, the second Sunday, or next Sunday, or the Sunday after that, or all the little Sundays, the normal Sundays that are celebrating each and every Sunday? It doesn’t take long before we’re back to the same old same old again.
This morning’s reading shows what difference Easter made in the lives of those first Christians. Those first Christians did things we’d never consider doing. They’d be foolish. They sold all their property and gave the money to the apostles so they could help distribute it among the congregation. That’s rather hard to believe, at least I find it hard to believe. But nonetheless, the text is very clear about what they did. The people were so moved by the love of God the Father in Jesus Christ, by His suffering, by His death, and by His rising, that they themselves sacrificed, sold, gave up personal property to make sure their neighbors were helped.
One of the worst things that happened in Western countries, as I’ve said before, was the shift away from the church providing for basic needs and education and all manner of assistance, to the government doing the same, having government bureaucracies taking, transferring wealth from one class of people to another. Don’t be confused, like many of my former professors and fellow students were: this is not communism in Acts chapter 2. It is not forced by the government. It is a sharing of property and money to make sure that widows are taken care of, orphans are fathered in some way, shape, form, or another, the sick are cared for, the illiterate are taught. That’s why the Bible became the chief book to teach how to read and how to spell. The church used to provide services and created institutions that were meant to help the poor, the sick, the widow, and the orphan, to improve their own life and their own standing. The church not only gave food and clothing to the poor, but they met their basic spiritual and educational needs. It was their daily bread. The church used to help people improve their lives. And it should be obvious that the government isn’t very good at that.
On one side of a generation, we have now, we have people who think they’re entitled to all kinds of things and money they themselves did not earn. On the other side, we have a generation who think they have no moral obligation to help those in need, because the government’s supposed to do that. What’s mine is mine, after all. We all have bills to pay, things to buy, retirement to save for, and lots of other stuff. We shouldn’t expect to be responsible for the lives of other people, when the government takes our taxes and transfers it to others with no expectation of improvement or of education or of anything else, for that matter. And we think this way all the time. People get a little hostile about the taxes they pay to go to somebody else in need. Let the government pay for it. Why should we? But that wasn’t the way that those first congregations of the New Testament thought.
Chapter 4:32: “Now the full number of those who believed were of one heart and soul, and no one said that any of the things that belonged to him was his own, but they had everything in common.” First, note the two words: heart, kardia, and soul, psyche, in Greek. Both words have a similar meaning. They’re kind of referring to the same sort of thing: the inner spiritual life and realities only known by God Himself. The heart, the soul, is the source of one’s inner being. The soul is the animating force. It’s the thing that moves somebody to act. Together they’re responsible for thoughts and desires and feelings and deeds. Next: they had everything in common. Here’s where the Greek expresses in absolute terms, without exception: not even one of the believers claimed that anything was his or her own, but everything was theirs in common. They shared it gladly, willingly, no one taking more than they needed. It isn’t communism, where the government forces everyone to relinquish private property by force. The principle is: they share in love, for Christ and God the Father had given them all things.
But in addition to holding material things in common, they also held this in common: they were sinners for whom Christ died and rose again to a new life. They were all dependent on God for daily bread, for the forgiveness of sins, and looked forward to the resurrection on the last day. We are told that the congregation in Acts chapter 2 numbered 5,000 men, plus women and children. The fact that they saw themselves as being one unit, one congregation, one, in Greek mia, the holy Christian Church, is a miracle brought about by the grace of God which was bestowed upon them. That’s verse 33: “And with great power the apostles were giving their testimony to the resurrection of the Lord Jesus, and great grace was upon them all.” All this brought about by the preaching of the forgiveness of sins, won in the crucifixion and in the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead.
Those first Christians understood that the new life in Christ had already begun for them in the waters of their Baptism, in the gift of faith. They understood the old was passing away and the new had come. See, the old sinful nature has a tendency to make gods out of ourselves and out of our possessions. I earned it. I bought it. I’m going to do what I want with it. It’s mine. And of course, my granddaughter will soon learn that word, “mine,” meaning not yours. It’s one of the first words. There even comes a point when possessions begin to own us, rather than we own them. But all we have in this life depends on the goodness and the gifts of God. Our talents are from Him. Our opportunities are from Him. Our success, all the result of what God has made us to be and what God has done for us. Moreover, what Paul said to Timothy is true, and you hear it in the funeral services: “We brought nothing into this world, and we cannot take anything out of the world,” 1 Timothy 6:7. See, we think we’re in charge, up until the moment we’re not. We think it all ends in the grave. But thankfully for us, it does not.
All the things that seem to matter most to us disappear when we disappear into the grave. For the Christian, what really remains is what really matters. The first New Testament Christians understood that. For Christ is alive. He is risen from the dead. So while the wages of sin is death, the free gift of God is eternal life in Jesus Christ. That’s the difference that Easter makes. It makes all sins, mistakes, illnesses, weaknesses, all other things in this temporal world, temporary. Our Lord’s resurrection overcame sin and death. He took the sin upon all of us and put it on Himself, starting with Eve and Adam, all of their descendants, including those yet to be born, and including you and me. Jesus is alive. Even the disciple who doubted, doubted no longer. He confessed, “My Lord and my God.” Everything is different because of Easter. We know Christ’s teaching is true because of Easter. We were dead in our trespasses and in our sins, but He did the redeeming. He who did not spare His Son but gave Him up for us, how will He also not with Him graciously give us all things? There is no such thing as a self-made man or woman. If they’re self-made, God was with them too.
That’s why those first Christians could respond as they did to the needs of others. Christ had freed them from their own self-interest. “There was not a needy person among them,” verse 34 tells us. Now look, we live in different times. Physical needs aren’t quite as pressing as they were in the ancient world. But in addition to the basics that people need to live, people still need things like respect, companionship, purpose, security, family, friends, people they can trust, people who will love them almost no matter what. These things and more we should share, since God takes care of us, we should take care of one another, giving not only money but also time and energy and talent, and more fundamentally, our love to a person, in response to what God has given to us. And all of that changes lives, especially ours.
And for those of us who increasingly find ourselves mourning the passing of a loved one, we do not grieve as others who have no hope. For if we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so, through Jesus, God will bring with Him those who have fallen asleep. Easter means something. It changes lives. It changed their lives. It changes our lives. It is still Easter. So I say: Jesus Christ is risen! Amen.
May the peace that surpasses all understanding keep your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus. Amen.