Is God Dead? The Power of the Resurrection

“Is God Dead?” This startling question that stares out from the cover of the current issue of Time magazine. In our day, this is not an academic question. In fact, it is a question loaded with more emotion than any other that may be asked. Time magazine says:

It is a question that tantalizes both believers, who perhaps secretly fear that he is, and atheists, who possibly suspect that the answer is no.

The interesting thing is, that as you read the books and articles being written on the subject of the death of God, you would almost think that we were the first generation to ask this question. Actually this question is as old as man himself. In fact, one of the most exciting stories in the Old Testament is centered on the question: “Is God dead?”

It is the story of Elijah and the contest of the Gods on Mount Carmel. You remember, Israel was living as though their God was dead. They were worshipping Baal of the Canaanite. Elijah threw a challenge at the people of Israel. We will go up on Mount Carmel. I will represent God. The prophets of Baal will represent Baal. I will build an altar. We will put wood on the altar, then we will slay a bull and put it on the altar. We will pray. I will pray to God. You men pray to your Baal. The God who puts fire under the slain bull — let him be God.

The story ends, when the prophets of Baal prayed and shouted and cut themselves for half a day with no effect. Before Elijah prayed, he had his servant saturate the altar with water. If God was going to put fire under the sacrifice, he would have to kindle his fire with wet wood. There would be no room for trickery. Elijah prayed, and suddenly the fire of God came down and consumed the wood and the bull. It did not stop there. The fire lit up the stone altar for good measure. All the people began shouting: “God is God. God is alive. Hallelujah!” Then, Elijah said: “All right, if God is alive, lets get rid of all of this mess in the name of religion, and worship and serve him.”

The fact is however, that the question “Is God dead?” was perhaps most forcefully asked by the disciples of our Lord between the night of the Crucifixion and the morn of the Resurrection of Christ. At that moment of the Crucifixion, God had literally died for them. They had proclaimed him God. He was really all they knew about God that meant anything to them. Now, he was crucified. All Hell had broken loose in their lives, drawing the black shroud of doubt and despair across the shining ray of hope and faith that had been theirs. Their God was verily dead!

In fact, there is also the glimmer of this question “Is God dead?” In the awful words from the Cross, dramatized so effectively by our choir and the reader last Friday night:

My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?

Or, as the sonnet on Friday night put it so forcefully:

Your face does not look at me
The clouds gather darkly here….
My God, my God, the blood runs cold
In water mixed with vinegar stirred.
The Shades have grown gray and bold
And in my dripping breast is spurred
A last shred of love? Some faint old breath
of you inhaled before my life unfurled.

In fact: the question that follows our first one: “Is God dead?” on good Friday is this?

“God, if you are alive in heaven, why did you let us kill your son?”

This question was posed by Harold Bosley recently in the Christian Century magazine. “God, why did you let us kill him?”  Who can bear the answer God might make?

I knew of no other way to do it. I did not want him to suffer and die as he did. I did not want you to neglect, misunderstand, and finally kill him. But, I knew of no other way to let you know the full meaning of my love for you except to send one whose life was the full and perfect embodiment of it. I hoped you would receive him with rejoicing and follow him with adoration. I created you so you might do that. You are free moral agents: free to believe or to doubt, to affirm or deny, to follow or to refuse, to love or to hate, to preserve or to kill. Such freedom is necessary to you, to your life as I want it to be. It is the greatest danger too. You can misuse it—and in the misuse of it, someone always gets hurt. You could not truly obey my son, unless you were free to disobey him. You could not truly love him, unless you were free to hate him. You could not really follow him, unless you were free to kill him. I knew the risk of it all, when I made you that way. I never knew how dangerous it was until I heard him cry out to me: “My God, My God, why hast thou forsaken me?” Then, I knew, as never before, the inescapable tragedy, yet the glorious necessity of your freedom. And when his heart broke, so did mine—and so must yours if you are to ever understand my love for you. You see, you not only killed him in AD 29 on Calvary outside the city wall in Jerusalem—you have done it many times since. Every high hill in the world is a candidate for Calvary. And, you—even as you put the question to me—know you would do it again if he were to come to you as he did among them.

To which, there can be only one response—God be merciful to me a sinner.

But, the wonder is that God did not let the drama end there. Today is Easter. We celebrate this day because of the event which occurred on the first Easter. That was the day that the disciples had their question: “Is God dead?” answered. The answer came in no uncertain terms. In Easter, we witness no mere human experience, but the mighty God engaged in his victorious act over death, magnifying and multiplying the presence of his redeeming son whom the world killed. Graciously renewing the gift that had been spurned, and writing his “FINISHED” over death.

What an impact that first Easter made on those disciples! They were all discouraged men and women. Some had left Jerusalem already. They were going home for good, discouraged and feeling God-forsaken, just like their master. The risen Christ fell in step with them on the road home, and before they were through, he broke bread with them. Then, the Gospel writer wrote those wonderful words: “They knew him in the breaking of the bread.” You know I don’t believe there was a person who broke the bread of Communion in this church last Friday night, who did not know the risen Christ better—in the breaking of the bread with him, and then listening to the drama of his last hours unfold.

To me, this is the greatest miracle of Easter. It is not that death was vanquished once for all, and each of us has a hope of heaven, indeed this is wonderful. The real message that comes through is one that is much more wonderful. The disciples saw the Resurrection as the consummation of the Cross. They were now forgiven sinners. Christ had destroyed sin on the Cross. Guilt that had plagued and drove them into the deep anxiety of depression and hopelessness—was now destroyed. God had atoned in his son for human sin. In the Resurrection, he had vanquished not only physical but spiritual death. They were now forgiven sinners. They could now go out and live the lives of free people—free from guilt. They were now ready to go out free to live lives of meaning and importance—to fulfill their lives doing the will of God, as they had seen their Master do before their very eyes. This is the big message of Easter for you and me today.

There is an interesting episode in Alice in Wonderland that illustrates best what I mean. You remember how the gardener went around painting white roses with a red brush. In response to an inquiry, he breathlessly replies that he had been requested to plant red roses. By an unfortunate error, he planted white roses. Therefore, he had to rush about and cover his mistakes.

The gardener’s anxiety to hide his blunders seems like the description of modern life, where people are not so much worried about living after death as they are about dying before they have lived. The mounting burden of half-living, and half-serving God is intolerable. Internal frustration and disappointment reveal themselves in critical attitudes and the constant complaining. The inward irritation of a secret “Hair Shirt” reveals itself in the tension and hostility of restless lives. What men and women need most is a realized sense of forgiveness of sin, based on the validation of Christ’s resurrection. Easter confirms the promise of wholeness and salvation, which he promised those who trust him.

On that morning when Christ was resurrected, the disciples became resurrected too. For them too, the bonds of death were broken. They were no longer slaves to sin—they were free men. The thing that had enslaved them was anxiety about God and themselves. They were never sure that God was really alive. This was true for all of them up until the Cross. This anxiety began with Adam. He said to himself: “God is not really the loving God he makes himself out to be. He has held out on me. If I disobey him and eat the forbidden fruit, I will be like him. I will be like God.” You see he felt something was missing from his life—he was not good enough—he was guilty as sin—and sin bought more guilt.

But now in the Resurrection, the disciples knew that God was really alive. More than that, they were really alive by the power of his resurrection. The risen Christ had taken away their guilt through the Cross. They who were estranged from God by guilt, and their own anxiety. They were now reconciled to God, and walked as new, free people, free from anxiety and guilt, free to be whole—freed by the power of the Resurrection.

I don’t want to be misunderstood this morning. Death is vanquished in the Resurrection. Paul could say: “Because he lives, I too shall live.” This was so real to the Apostle Paul that he almost wished he could be martyred sooner than he was. Because, he said: “To be absent from the body meant to be present with his Lord.” It is a wonderful thing to stand by the grave of a Saint, as I have done so many times, and to know that this is really not the last requiem or the last word about this person. Christ is risen! This is the beginning of fullness of life.

However, there is an even greater truth to me. Christ is risen! The disciples partook immediately of the risen life of Christ. They were forgiven, set free, and went out from the empty tomb changed. The spirit of the risen Christ possessed them—soon they went out into their world. They were no longer painting white roses red, motivated by guilt, trying to change their lives—always driven by anxiety. They were now new people in Christ.

The old had passed away—the new had come. They had partaken of the forgiveness and the new life of his Resurrection. No longer did they care who would be seated on the Master’s right hand or his left. No longer did Peter want to build a temple on a mountain and sit there forever as Jesus did on the Mount of Transfiguration. These disciples became new people—made alive by the Resurrection. Now was the time for them to live as Christ—to follow in the Master’s train in dedication was now the great dynamic of their lives.

I see some of you this morning are beginning to feel this power too. I see the new glint in your eye. One of the new members who joined the Church last Sunday dropped me a note. She said she was tingling from head to foot with the new life of Christ. I received a very beautiful Easter card from another who said:  “Thanks for bringing our family into this wonderful pilgrimage of faith.”

“Christ is risen. God is not dead.” He is alive—he is very much alive in Christ. He wants to become alive in you, too. All you need to do is put yourself under the power of the risen Christ—accept his forgiveness—and your life will begin to tingle too. You will begin to feel the thrill of the pilgrimage—and your family well too. Here then is the challenge of Easter as the Apostle Paul puts it:

That I might know him and the power of his Resurrection!

Now, Christ risen from the dead—for as in Adam all die, even so in Christ shall we all be made alive. The first Adam became a living being. The last became a life-giving spirit.The first man was from the earth, a man of dust. The second man is from heaven. Just as we have borne the image of the man of dust, we shall bear the image of the man of heaven. Therefore my beloved brethren, be steadfast, movable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, knowing that in the Lord your labor is not in vain.

Are you torn by anxiety and guilt? Do you feel the emptiness and the brevity of your life crowding in on you? Tune in on the Resurrected Christ. Accept his forgiveness made possible on that first Easter. Join the hosts of men who call themselves followers, and your life too will tingle with the glory of the new life and the excitement of the new commitment to a new Pilgrimage!