Ryan update, day 287, just because I know you’re dying to know: Our little girl Ryan… is this close to saying “Dada,” which means “Mama” is just around the corner, then “more,” then “mine,” then “Take Me to Disney World!” Do you know that Disney World recently overtook Washington, D.C. as America’s number one tourist destination? I guess we shouldn’t be surprised. Do you know what Disney World’s mission statement is? “Provide People Happiness.” That’s it! Three Words. To meet its three-word goal, Disney focuses all of its energy on creating fantasy—a mindnumbing, anesthetizing, dream-inducing world of makebelieve epitomized by that castle. You know the castle I am talking about—the one with graceful soaring towers and turrets presiding over the park below. People come from all over the world for that castle. A friend of mine who grew up in South Africa said that when she was a little girl her number one goal in life was to one day make it to that castle!

I find it so fascinating and telling that when you finally get there, fork over your inheritance at the ticket counter, walk through the gate, up Main Street USA and over that bridge into the castle, what do you find inside? Do you remember? Nothing! Nothing! It’s a hollow shell, a giant fiberglass façade. You finally arrive at the inner sanctum of what just might be the most sought after place in the world, and you realize that it’s empty! Which, to be fair to Disney, is kind of the whole point, the reason they are there in the first place; to empty us of the harsh realities of life, to render us unconscious to the real world, at least for a little while, to move us from consciousness to a dream-like trance as we walk through that shell so appropriately named Beauty’s Magic Castle.

There are those who would say that this place has not become America’s most sacred space without a reason. My old professor, Tony Campolo, used tell our class that most people are sleep walking through life; that the problem with our world today isn’t so much that we’re immoral or evil, but that we’re dead. We’ve stopped hoping or dreaming or expecting much from life. Just over a hundred years ago, Soren Kirkegaard said, “This age will not die from sin, but from a lack of passion.” There is an emptiness, a shallowness, a mundane apathy in our society, right now, that we try to anesthetize a lot of different ways. Life is meant to be lived out passionately but today even the divorces aren’t primarily because of affairs but simply because people are bored with themselves, bored with each other, bored with life. Campolo used to say that we teach our children to pray, “If I should die before I wake.” When what we ought to be teaching them is, “God, if I could just wake up before I die!”

I recently heard about a little boy who was walking through a graveyard with his grand mom looking at all the tombstones. She explained to him what the various symbols mean, the abbreviations like R.I.P., and how the first date on the stone showed when a person had been born and the second, when they had died. At one point the boy asked, “Grandma, why do some of the stones only have one date?” She explained it was because those people hadn’t died yet. Well, that night, back at home, the little boy couldn’t stop talking about his visit to the cemetery, telling his parents every last detail. At one point his eyes got as big as saucers, his voice lowered and he whispered, “And did you know that some ofthe people buried in that cemetery aren’t even dead yet?”

That may not be as silly as it sounds. For there are certainly more ways to die than just a physical death. Indeed, the worst kind of death would be to be dead while you’re still alive and never even know it; to just quit growing or hoping or dreaming; to be the exact same person today as you were this time last year. I realize that it is Easter morning. We are all here dressed up, looking our best, and putting on our best face, but I have to ask, “Deep down inside, is there something dead in you that longs to be brought back to life today?”

Perhaps you’ve experienced loss in you life; a relationship or a loved one, a job or a dream or your sense of security. Maybe it’s a loss of innocence or dignity to abuse, the loss of health to illness or age or the loss of faith itself. Perhaps somewhere along the way God became a stranger to you, and now, He could be sitting right next to you, walking beside you and you would never even know it because you’ve simply stopped expecting anything more. Is there something in you that longs to be brought back to life today?

If so, here is my question for you this morning: “What is it going to take?” What’s it going to take for you to wake up from your slumber and see the risen Christ standing in front of you? To bring you back to life so you can see and feel and experience the power of the Risen Christ, in this room, at work in this world, right here inside of your life?

Now, please understand, this is not a new problem. In fact, it is a prominent theme that we see again and again throughout all four resurrection narratives—this idea that Jesus could be standing right next to you, walking beside you, talking to you, and yet, you could be in such a trance, so wrapped up in your own little world, so lost in your own lack of expectation, that you could totally miss it. In John’s account, Mary comes down to the tomb, and even though the stone is rolled to the side and the tomb is empty, she is so numbed by her loss that she doesn’t even entertain the possibility that Jesus could be alive. He ends up standing right next to her, and she still doesn’t see Him. And it’s not just Mary. The exact same thing happens to two unnamed disciples walking along the road to Emmaus. Jesus comes right up to them and walks beside them, but they have no idea who He is. It’s almost comical. They actually tell the entire story of what had happened to Jesus… to Jesus! They go so far as to say that the women found the empty tomb and said He is alive, but it really didn’t make much sense to them. Even after Jesus opens the scriptures and shows them all the passages that talk about His suffering and how He is going to be raised from the dead, they still don’t get it. It’s not just Mary and it’s not just the two disciples. This keeps happening—to Thomas, to the eleven while they’re eating, again at the sea of Tiberius.

Jesus calls them “Foolish” and “Slow to believe,” but are we really any different? Two weeks ago I was at the National Pastor’s Conference in San Diego and I was walking out of a Jim Wallace seminar when I saw this guy I knew I recognized from somewhere. I walked up to him and, with this obvious confused look in my face, said, “I know we know each other.” His face lit up, and he said, “Dave Carpenter! Oh Dave, I can’t believe you don’t remember me! I’m hurt! We were best friends in seminary! We used to stay up all night studying for finals together! We went on vacations together! My wife and I named our first child after you!” I almost threw up right there and then. I was literally shaking and my voice quivered as I said, “I am so sorry!” Then he said, “Just Kidding! Tom Stephen. I was a freshman at seminary when you were a senior. We met a couple of times. I dated a friend of yours, Virginia Starky? I think we played basketball against each other a few times down at the gym.” Man! I know that you know exactly why I was so freaked out. What he was saying could have been true. Perhaps we shouldn’t be so hard on the disciples. It’s tough to see things, even things right in front of your face, when you aren’t expecting them. Which is why I ask you again, “What is it going to take for you to see and recognize the resurrected Christ this morning?”

Some would say proof. The cold hard facts. That’s what Thomas wanted. Remember? In preparation for this morning I read a lot of sermons by a lot of pastors all overthe country, and it struck me how many of them zeroed in on all the different arguments out there for proving the resurrection; some are very convincing. But may I be bold and suggest that I don’t think that’s what we’re really after this morning? Eugene Peterson, Presbyterian pastor and the author of The Message, recalls a time when he was a child, and the pastor of his church used Easter morning to launch into an exhaustive explanation of 13 incontrovertible proofs that Jesus rose from the dead. He says that mostly what he remembers is that it took an hour and a half, and that by the time it was done, nobody really cared anymore whether Jesus had been raised from the dead or not.

Now, please don’t get me wrong. I believe in the resurrection with all my heart; but I think an even more important question than did it happen is does it make any difference? Does this resurrection really have the power to do anything in my life? Will it bring back to life this dead marriage, this dead career, this dead friendship or faith or this plodding, boring, anesthetized life? To be honest with you, I don’t think we care anywhere near as much about proving the resurrection as we do participating in it. When we look at Mary, ultimately it wasn’t the stone, or the cloths, or even the angels that got to her. It wasn’t until she heard Jesus call her name, “Mary,” that she woke up and realized that He was right there in front of her. It was the same thing on the road to Emmaus. Don’t you see? It wasn’t the rational explanations or the Biblical proof that finally woke them up. It was the breaking of the bread and the experience of communion and fellowship with the risen Christ.

After we’ve finished making all our slick arguments and the skeptics have finished shooting all their holes in them, the one thing that cannot be denied, that no one will ever try to refute, is that a very real, unexplainable power was released into this world on that first Easter morning that has been radically healing and transforming people’s lives ever since; millions upon millions upon millions of them. It’s a power that has woken people up from the deepest slumbers, brought passion back into the deadest of lives and given a new joy and hope and sweetness of spirit. It is a power that has moved people to head out in totally new directions, to do some of the most amazing and unlikely things with their lives. After following Mother Teresa around for just one week, one CNN reporter told her, “Mother Teresa, I wouldn’t do what you do for all the money in the world.” With a big smile on her face she said, “Neither would I.” I’m telling you, they will question everything—if Jesus really died on the cross or if He was just in a coma from which He woke up in the tomb, or whether His disciples stole His body to stage a big hoax, or even if the entire story was a big fabrication, made up 40 years later by His followers to prove His deity. They will question everything, but they will never dare to question the changed lives.

So, what is it going to take to wake you up this morning and make you part of this? And if so, what would this awakening look like for you? Maybe for someone stuck in a well-paying, but life-draining job, it might mean a decision to quit and do something else; something that doesn’t pay as well but is much more life-giving. For the person with only a few months to live, maybe it means making the most of every day left, using the days to connect with old friends, spend time with the grandchildren, and tell them about the part of the family’s history that nobody else knows. For the high school or college student, maybe it means not asking, “What can I do to make the most money?” but rather “What can I do to make the most difference?” Or for the person who has been estranged from a parent or a sibling, an old friend or a colleague, it might mean sitting down and writing a letter aimed at reconciliation. I don’t know. Only you know what it would look like in your life if you were to wake up to God’s resurrection power this morning; to let Him bring that dead part of you back to life.

This morning is not just about His resurrection but about our resurrection as well. When Jesus said, “Behold I am making all things new,” that includes you and me, here and now! The real proof is not a rolled away stone but a transformed life, a passionate life. If there is incontrovertible proof for Easter, you are it. So, what is it going to take?

HE IS RISEN!

HE IS RISEN INDEED!

AMEN