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[Music] Christus Imperator, a message by Dr. Bruce W. Thielman. [Music] Let us give reverent attention to the reading of God's words,

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as it is recorded first in Paul's letter to the Corinthians, the fifteenth chapter, beginning the reading at the verse which is numbered fifty-one. "Lo, I tell you a mystery. We shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed in a moment,

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in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet. For the trumpet will sound, and the dead will be raised imperishable, and we shall be changed. For this perishable nature must put on the imperishable,

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and this mortal nature must put on immortality. When the perishable puts on the imperishable, and the mortal puts on immortality, then shall come to pass the saying that is written, 'Death is swallowed up in victory.'

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O death, where is thy victory? O death, where is thy sting? The sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the law. But thanks be to God, who gives us the victory,

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through our Lord Jesus Christ." And again, reading from the book of Revelation, the twenty-second chapter, beginning this reading at the verse numbered one. "Then he showed me the river of the water of life, bright as crystal,

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flowing from the throne of God and of the Lamb, through the middle of the street of the city. Also on either side of the river, the tree of life, with its twelve kinds of fruit, yielding its fruit each month,

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and the leaves of the tree were for the healing of the nation. There shall no more be anything accursed, but the throne of God and of the Lamb shall be in it, and his servants shall worship him.

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They shall see his face, and his name shall be on their forehead, and night shall be no more. They need no light of lamp or sun, for the Lord God will be their light,

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and they shall reign forever and ever." And may the same God who inspired these words incline our hearts to their understanding. Will you pray with me?

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In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen. Some years ago, the Grosset and Dunlap Publishing House

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called together a distinguished panel of noted historians and educators, and they asked this panel to list for them the 100 most significant events in recorded history. And they were not only to select the 100 most significant events,

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but they were to list them in order of importance. For some months the panel labored, and at the end of their efforts they brought forth a list. They listed as the most significant event of history,

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in place number one, the discovery of America. Number two, they listed as the invention of movable type, by Johannes Gutenberg. Eleven different events tied for third place,

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and five events tied for fourth place. The five events that tied for fourth place were the writing of the Constitution of the United States, the development of ether as an anesthetic,

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the discovery of X-ray, the first airplane flight, and the life of Jesus of Nazareth. Jesus tied for fourth place with 13 events listed before him

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in places of preeminence. I would suggest to you this morning that that should not come as any surprise to us. The plain fact of the matter is that for most men, Jesus is some kind of afterthought,

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to be recalled at baptism and marriage and at funerals, but at no other times of life. But I come into this pulpit on this Easter Sunday to tell you that Jesus of Nazareth is not fourth, but first.

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Bells have never spangled the sky with sound because of the discovery of ether. Lilies have never triumphed the truth of resurrection because somebody invented X-ray. Organs have never peeled and congregations and choirs have never sung because the Wright brothers flew an airplane.

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Jesus is not tied. He is triumphant. Jesus is not to be rated. He is regnant. Jesus is not just important. He is imperial. It is recorded that when King George III of England first heard

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George Frederick Handel's masterpiece, The Messiah, that when they came to the great Hallelujah Chorus, the King stood. It is not so often recorded that George III himself said that he did not stand principally because of the majesty of the music,

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although there is no doubting the thrilling nature of that music. He stood principally because the music brought home to him fully something he had never recognized before, that Jesus Christ is the King of kings and the Lord of lords,

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that he is, in fact, imperial. Jesus is the Lord of life. There is an ancient legend which tells of a king who announced a race in his kingdom and invited all the young men to participate.

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The race course went throughout the city and then up the long hill which led to the king's castle. And as the men pursued their way along the race course, they came to the road leading up to the castle,

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and there in the middle of the road was a great pile of stones. And they climbed over the stones or ran around the stones into the courtyard of the castle where the king sat. But the king gave no indication of being ready to announce the winner.

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He ignored the one who entered the place first. He ignored those who came after. The crowd waited for the king to herald someone as the winner, but he didn't rise until, long after all the others had entered the courtyard,

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one last runner came. His hands were bloody and bruised, and he entered with words of apology on his lips. "My king," he said, "I am sorry to have held back the festivities,

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but as I came along the road I discovered a great pile of stones, and I had to stop and take the time to remove all the stones. And lo, beneath the pile of stones I found this bag of gold." And the king, rising from his throne, said,

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"The bag of gold is the reward to the winner, for he travels best who makes the way safer for others." Now if that is the definition of the most significant running of the race of life, then Jesus Christ is the victor.

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For no one who has ever moved through life's journey has ever made it safer for others to the degree that Jesus has. For only Jesus could say at the conclusion of his mortal experience, "Telestai, it is finished.

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My mission is accomplished. We cannot say that when we come to the end of our course. Robert Louis Stevenson, the great author, wrote in his last week's suggestion for his own epitaph,

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it was, "Here lies one who meant well, tried a little, failed much." That would suit most of us, wouldn't it? Or Cecil Rhodes, the great entrepreneur and explorer, the financial genius, he said at the end of his days, "So little done, so much to do."

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All of us have that kind of feeling as we come to the end of our course. Our heritage is one of wingless victories and armless demilos and unfinished symphonies. But Jesus could say at the end of his course, "The victory is won, the goal is attained, it is finished."

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And by finishing life as magnificently and triumphantly as he did, he made the way safer for all those who will go through life following him. I'm not going to stand in this pulpit this morning and perpetrate any fiction that life is easy. I'm not saying or arguing or advancing the position that Jesus makes life easy.

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We may have a volunteer draft, but there's nothing voluntary about being drafted into the experience of life. And it's a battle, it's a war, it's searing and it bruises and it hurts. There are some in this room this morning so young that their uniforms are still unstained.

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All they know is the manual of arms. They've not really been into the fight yet. There are others here whose banners are tattered and torn and whose swords are bent and scarred, and they bear upon themselves the wounds of the conflict. But in this war, unlike other wars, no matter how wounded you are, you have to keep on fighting.

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Yes, there are some here who are very close to hearing the trumpet that will call them at the end of the battle. But we're all in it, and nothing can help us to escape from it. Yet, in the midst of the battle, we can be followers of that one who, by the pattern he set and the power he gives,

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makes the running of the race, the fighting of the conflict, easier. I think this morning of a story told to me by my friend Bob Shuler, who's the minister of the Garden Grove Church in Southern California. There was a lady at his acquaintance who went into a severe emotional depression,

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so severe that she was institutionalized. She was in a sanatorium. And this depression and despair became so intense that she cut herself off from others. She would sit huddled up in a chair, all bent over with her eyes closed, ignoring all conversation, not eating as she should have eaten. She had to be force-fed.

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She was completely withdrawn from life. One day, a new doctor came to the sanatorium, one who had never encountered her and knew nothing of her case. And as he walked down the hall, he saw her sitting there, and he went over to her, and he said, "Hello, how are you?" And there was, as usual, absolutely no response.

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And then he said, "My name is Dr. Heaven." Now, that was his name. He spelled it H-E-V-E-N. He said, "My name is Dr. Heaven. What is yours?" And she opened one eye and looked up at him and said, "What did you say your name was?" And he said, "I'm Dr. Heaven. Who are you?"

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And she closed her eye and resumed the same posture again and did not answer him. And he walked off. But somehow or other, by some strange alchemy of the Spirit of God, that word "heaven," misunderstood by her, drifted down into the center of her soul.

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And she began to think, "If heaven is here, then Jesus is here." And she began to focus on the person of Jesus, so much so that the next day, she walked up and down the halls of the sanatorium, repeating over and over again words which she had learned decades before in church school,

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but words which were now dredged up out of the center of her by the Spirit. She went about saying, "I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me." And she kept on repeating those words again and again. And as she repeated them, it was visibly observed that a new power came into her.

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That was the beginning of her healing. Within months she was released. She's been teaching in the public schools of San Diego, California, quite successfully now for the last 14 years.

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Jesus Christ, you see, is the Lord of life. Following him as pattern, experiencing him as power, makes life into victory. He is imperial. And Jesus is not only the Lord of life, he is also the Lord of death.

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Now, there are some who would be willing to affirm everything I have said in this pulpit this morning until this moment. They are willing to acknowledge that Jesus is the great example and that his Spirit can be mediated to us by the Holy Spirit of God.

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But they stop short when it comes to the announcement that Jesus Christ rose from the dead. Or they're willing to acknowledge that something happened 2,000 years ago which changed the course of history. Something had to have happened to have changed disciples that were cowards

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into disciples that were troubadours of the truth. Something had to have happened to have brought the whole New Testament into existence. Something had to have happened to have moved so many from worship on the Saturday of the Jews to the Sunday of the Christians.

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But they do not acknowledge that this thing that happened, whatever it was, was Jesus rising from the dead. And when I say to such ones, "How then do you explain the empty tomb?" Well, they bring up arguments.

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It is a problem to explain that empty tomb, you know. There's no questioning of the fact that the tomb was empty. The New Testament is full of that truth, and there is no reason to doubt its testimony. The New Testament has been more tested than anything else that's ever been written.

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We know far more of the events that are recorded there than we do of any other events in ancient history. Historically and archaeologically and linguistically, it's been examined again and again and again.

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And it is to be observed that these disciples who went about talking about that empty tomb didn't do it off on a corner somewhere. They did it right in Jerusalem where the events transpired. So if there were going to be any who could contest the fact that the tomb was empty,

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the opportunity was there for them to make announcement of that fact, yet no such announcement is recorded on any ancient page. So how do you handle the empty tomb? Those who deny the resurrection of Jesus will say something like this.

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Well, what happened on the cross was that Jesus fainted. He appeared to be dead, but in fact was not dead. And then in the coolness of the tomb, with an extended period of rest, he regained his strength, then pushed the stone away and escaped, hence the empty tomb.

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Now all you have to do in order to believe that is to believe, first of all, that somehow the Romans, who were experts of crucifixion, forgot what they were doing. When the Romans killed somebody, he was dead. When they came to the body of Jesus hanging on that cross,

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they didn't even find it necessary to break his legs, thus to complete the process of dying through suffocation. No, they knew he was dead already, and he was buried as one dead. And mind you, he'd been hanging on that cross for nine hours.

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And this one who had been so hanging, to believe for even a fraction of a moment that he could be placed into a tomb and lie there without any medical ministrations, whatever, for three days, and then get up, and with crushed, wounded hands, push away a stone, a stone so large that three women were worried on Sunday morning

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lest they together would not be able to move it. And I would remind you in those days that women were the beasts of burden of the time. These gals were afraid they wouldn't be able to move this thing. Incidentally, the other stones from that period which we have today in our museums

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average in weight over 1,500 pounds. To believe that this wounded Jesus got up after three days and pushed this stone away alone and then overcame the troop of Roman soldiers placed there to guard the tomb, I submit to you, I find it much harder to believe that than that he rose from the dead.

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Well, they say, then his body was stolen away by, well, by his friends. They wanted to claim that he'd risen from the dead, and so they took the body and hid it. Well, if you're going to accept that theory, then you have to be willing to think up some story that explains how these friends were able to overcome those Roman soldiers,

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how disciples untrained in things military could defeat the elites of the Roman army. And even more impossible than that, you have to believe that these disciples were then ready to go out and be skinned, sawn asunder, lighted as torches, crucified, thrown into the arena with wild beasts, and all for the sake of what they knew was a lie.

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It is hard enough to get people to be willing to die for what is true, let alone to get them to lay down their lives for what they know is patently false. Now, I cannot believe that his body was stolen by his friends. Well, then they say, his body was stolen by his enemies.

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The Jews came and took the body away so that the Christians could make no claim for it. And this story falls faster than all the others. For if the Jews or the Romans had his body, why, when the resurrection was heralded, did they not produce the corpse? All that they would have done to have stopped Christianity at that very moment

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was to have brought forth that rotting thing and said, "The one whom you claim to be alive is here and is dead." They didn't bring forth the body because they didn't have it. I have visited some of the world's great tombs.

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I have crawled on my hands and knees in the dark corridors beneath pyramids, raised as majestic tombstones over the heads of moldering pharaohs. I stood on the marble balcony and looked down at the tomb of the little Corsican, Napoleon, his body sealed there within seven different caskets.

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I stood in the quiet solemnity of the Lincoln Tomb in Springfield, Illinois, ringed round with flags, where the body of the assassinated president lies beneath tons and tons of concrete, buried there in such a way so that no one could steal the body away. I've walked in the crypt of St. Peter's in Rome

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and stood before the marble white purity and simplicity of that gentle and saintly man, John XXIII. I've scrambled up the hill on the tired old city of Tandee on the island of Sri Lanka and stood with saffron-robed priests before the tomb of the tooth, where one portion of Buddha lies forever to be venerated,

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other portions of him being in other parts of the world. I've been to many, many tombs, but the center of our faith is not a tomb, because the tomb is empty. The tomb is not important because the stone is rolled away. Jesus is risen from the dead. Jesus is the Lord of death.

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Death, where is your victory? Grave, where is your triumph? Thanks be to God, we have the victory because Christ is risen. He is alive forevermore, imperial in life and imperial in death. And Jesus is also the Lord of life after death.

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I wish that I could show you this morning some photographs of heaven. I don't have any. Yet I know it's real. I'm quite convinced that the creative genius of God was not exhausted when he got done thinking of earth. If God hath made this world so fair where sin and death abound,

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how beautiful beyond compare must paradise be found. We're not able to imagine what it is like. I always think of Walter Covert's story of the little grubs at the bottom of a swamp. And every once in a while one of these grubs would feel an urge to climb up a stem to the surface

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and none of them would ever return. And the grubs got together and talked one day about why none of them ever came back down to tell what he found up there. So they agreed amongst themselves that if any of them were ever called up

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that they would return and tell the others. And sure enough, one day one of them felt the call. And slowly but surely he crawled up the stem and when he broke through the surface he stretched himself out on a lily pad and the sun to rest.

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And while he rested beneath the sun, the heat of the sun warmed him so that his back broke open and there emerged from within this crawling grub a magnificent dragonfly with glorious wings painted with all the colors of the rainbow. And he looked at his wings and he began to fly over the surface of the pond

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and then he remembered his promise that he would go back and tell the others. But hard as he tried, he could not bring himself down into the water. And as he despaired over this, he suddenly recognized that even if he were able to get down there no one would recognize him and no one would believe what he had to say.

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It's not difficult for me to understand why it is that those who go on to the kingdom of heaven do not come back to tell us what it is like. We would not recognize them because of all the magnificence and the glory which is theirs. I have not seen nor ear heard what it must be like.

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The Bible uses figurative language to describe it. It says the streets are made of gold because gold does not rust and heaven never passes away. We're told of harpers harping on their hearts because music, more than any of the arts, takes us beyond ourselves and there we shall be beyond ourselves.

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It speaks of gates of pearl because the pearl is the fruit of the agony of the oyster and it is after we go through the hardness of life that we enter in to the joys of eternal life. But the greatest promise that scripture gives us concerning heaven is this, that when we are there, we will be with Christ.

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That's what he said to the thief. You remember, "This day thou shalt be with me in paradise." That's what he said to the disciples. "In my Father's house are many mansions. If it were not so, I would have told you. I go to prepare a place for you. And if I go, I will come again and receive you unto myself, that where I am, there you may be also."

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The great glory of heaven is to be with Christ. The Lord of life after death. The guarantor of our faith. The surety of our salvation. Please turn your cassette to the other side. On December 23rd of last year...

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[Audio is cut off] On December 23rd of last year... [Audio is cut off] I underwent open heart surgery.

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[Audio is cut off] On December 23rd of last year, I underwent open heart surgery. Now, when you do this, you don't remember much about it. I don't have any recollection of the morning preceding the ten-hour-and-a-half operation.

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Naturally, I don't remember anything about the operation itself. And I have virtually no memories of four or five days thereafter. And I have been told by no less a master of medicine than Bob Kleinschmidt that this is not unusual. And that no one remembers. I do, however, have a few isolated memories.

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And one of those is from the intensive care unit. Because I teach philosophy, I was intrigued by something that happened there. And it's very vivid to me. There is one branch of philosophy that talks about what it would be like to be pure mind without senses.

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And that's the way I felt at that particular moment in recuperation. You see, I couldn't open my eyes because of the anesthetic. It was too effective still, so I couldn't see. I couldn't hear. I was not conscious of any sound.

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I could smell nothing. And you know, hospitals always had that smell, but I was not aware of it. I couldn't feel anything. I had some tingling in my fingers, but I had no other sensations of feeling at all.

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I couldn't speak because there was a tube down my throat which separated my vocal cords, and of course if your vocal cords cannot touch, you cannot speak. I could not swallow. There was a machine doing that for me. I could not breathe. There was a machine doing that for me.

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There I was, conscious of myself, but out of touch with everything around me in terms of being able to see it or feel it or smell it. It was like being only mind. Yet at that moment, I somehow got the notion that I was dying.

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I wasn't. The doctors told me later that my recuperation was excellent. There was no moment when I was in danger. But there in that isolated state, I somehow got the idea,

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never have had it any other time in my life, but at that moment I believed I was dying. None of this amazes me. What does amaze me is that at that moment, when I thought I was dying,

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I had no fear at all. And I know why. Because I was utterly overwhelmed with this truth, that the same Christ who ruled life was victor over death

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and emperor of heaven. That the same one I've known in life, I would know always. "For which I have seen and heard declare I unto you, how do you see him in heaven?

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I see him as the book of Revelation sees him, seated on a white horse with the name that is above every name written on his forehead, on his vesture, and on his thigh. And behind him come in chains all those he has defeated,

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sin, death, the principalities and powers, hell itself. And then, marching afterwards in rank after rank, come hosts that are his. Moses and the multitudes that marched across the silent width of the Reed Sea.

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Joshua and the myriads with which he took the land of promise. Gideon and his 300. Elijah and his 7,000. Peter and all those who responded to his great Pentecost sermon.

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Paul and all those who accepted Christ because of the ministry of the prince of the apostles and because of reading his words across the century. And then behind them, the lame and the halt and the blind. But they're no longer lame. They're no longer halt. They're no longer blind.

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All of those things have passed away. And then come the old and the young and the rich and the poor and the informed and the uninformed. And they're all together, all one.

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And then the great missioners of the cross. Behind them, all tribes and nations of people. The king, army after army, legion after legion, wheeling before the presence of this Christ,

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who is the King of life, who is the Lord of death, and who is the Master of heaven itself. So let the bells ring out their song. Let the lilies trumpet their truth.

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Let the organs peel. Let choirs and congregations sing it out. It's Easter. Jesus reigns. Christ is victor. Christ is imperial.

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Christus victor. Christus imperator. Amen and amen. [BLANK_AUDIO]