Acts 9:1-6 (7-20); John 21:1-19

A Sermon for the Third Sunday of Easter

One of the important world events they used to teach you about in school happened in 49 B.C. when Caesar crossed the Rubicon. It was what we call “burning your bridges.” You can’t go back. You’re committed for better or worse. We still use that expression. And it is understood that this is one of those “facts of history.”

That’s what we’re really asking when we look at resurrection appearances of Jesus: What are facts? What is historical proof? How do we sort that out?

The same thing is true with other historical figures. There’s a lot of debunking today about historical figures. As the saying goes: No man is a hero to his valet.

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Colossians 3:1-4; John 20:1-18

A Sermon for Easter Sunday

In order to understand the resurrection, we need to think about the time people lived and what was happening. Their situation was similar to the Curds in Iraq today, who are held under oppression. Or like the people in Burma (Myanmar) where the Buddhists are repressed and persecuted.

What did the Romans do? First of all, the Romans collected heavy taxes. But on top of that they had curfews, restricted the right of assembly, restricted the religious practices. It was like living in a prison camp.

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Luke 19:28-40; 23:21

Everybody loves a parade and a party. There’s Macy’s parade on Thanksgiving. The Rose Bowl Parade on New Year’s Day, and many other local and national parades throughout the year. It’s festive to see the flowers, bands, and floats, but there is something very different about the parade on Palm Sunday.

It is said by the experts who know the First Century AD that a six-year-old girl could carry a sack of gold from Athens to Rome and not be robbed or injured in any way. That’s several hundred miles. That’s terrible because it means it was like North Korea is today. A very harsh military situation. The roads that the Romans built were not like the roads we have. They were not roads for trade and commerce. They were roads for moving soldiers around. It was soldiers everywhere. An Occupied Zone.

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John 19:34

A Sermon for the Season of Lent

This hymn, “Come to Calvary’s Holy Mountain,” presents us with an unusual picture.

Calvary’s holy mountain is obviously Golgotha, the place of the cross. It starts: “Come to Calvary’s holy mountain, Sinners, ruined by the fall.” Then it says: “Here a pure and healing fountain Flows to you, to me, to all, In a full perpetual tide, Opened when our savior died.”

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Psalm 90, 1 Corinthians 1:30

A Sermon for the Season of Lent

Isaac Watts (1674-1748) wrote this hymn about the brevity of life, based on Psalm 90. There it says in the fifth stanza: “Time, like an ever-rolling stream, soon bears us all away; We fly forgotten, as a dream dies at the op’ing day.” All our works pass away.

Time is an ever-rolling stream, and you can’t step into the same stream twice. Everything changes. At the same time, we affirm the Lord is “our shelter from the stormy blast, and our eternal home.” As the Psalmist says: “Thou hast been our dwelling place in all generations” (Psalm 90:1).

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