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The following message is delivered by Reverend Dr. Bruce Wheeler-Thielman. Today's Easter service message is entitled, "Loosened." The scripture reading of the morning is taken from the book of the Acts of the Apostles, the second chapter.

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I begin the reading at the verse number 22. "Men of Israel, hear these words. Jesus of Nazareth, a man attested to you by God with mighty works and wonders and signs, which God did through him in your midst, as you yourselves know, have done.

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He has made you a man of God, and he has made you a man of God. He has made you a man of God, and he has made you a man of God. He has made you a man of God, and he has made you a man of God. Thou wilt not abandon my soul to hate, nor let thy holy ones be corrupted. Thou hast made them the ways of life. Thou wilt make them full of gladness with thy presence. May God bless thee, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost. Amen.

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I met them over the phone in Iowa. They were father, son, and daughter in law. The three men were applying to accept the job. The first man who had taken into the interview said,

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"In order to get this job, I'm going to have to do hours of observation, of seeing things." And at the time, he asked, "I hope you will perceive and tell me what you perceive."

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He gave me a book that said, "Well, the first thing I perceive is that you have the view, where possibly is behind that." Very angry. The idea is to call attention to my inserted in some way,

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you know, what anyone might be looking here, and ordered him out. The second man who had taken the job, he said, "Now, in order to get this job,

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I'm going to have to do very steps in order to perceive things. I'm going to have to be very careful of observing. And as a test of your skills in that regard,

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I'm going to have that you look at me and tell me what you observe." The man looked at him and said, "Well, the first thing I observe is that you have the leader."

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And once again, the fellow behind the desk was very indignant. "That is something of which I am embarrassed. It's not a call to my attention in such a way.

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Leave my office." Now, these two men were standing out of the office talking about what had happened when the third candidate was called in.

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And as he was about to go to the door, they said to him, "Whatever you do, don't say anything about his ears." So he went in and he sat down,

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and the man behind the desk said, "In order to get this job, you must be very sensitive. You must be able to perceive things. You must be able to observe

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what the average person would not observe. As a kind of test, I'm going to ask you to look at me and tell me what you see." The man looked at him for a moment and said, "Well,

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the first thing I observe is that you wear contact lenses." And the fellow behind the desk replied, "That's a fine perception. I really thought they were quite specific.

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How in the world did you know that I wear contact lenses?" And the man replied, "Well, you can't wear spectacles because you don't have any ears." Well, for those of you who are visiting with us this morning,

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or those of you who are not able to meet with us in the office this Friday, we hope that you perceive and observe that you are welcome here with great joy,

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regardless of how many ears you may or may not have. I offer to you this morning a great word from Scripture, a single sentence from Peter's sermon, "Praise the Tentacles."

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That sermon was won 3,000 people when Christ was born. The sentence is this, "But God raised Christ up, having loosed the cords of death, because it was not possible for him to be held by it."

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Now, in older translations of Scripture, that word "cords" is usually entered "ten" or "e." And because of a mistranslation, it comes out as "tepiglion,"

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the earliest form of the Greek Old Testament. A far better translation is the word "cord." What Peter is saying here is this, death is like a crapper,

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and he uses nets and he uses snares in order to capture his victims. But he is unable to capture Christ. Listen to the sentence again.

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"But God raised Christ up, having loosed the cords of death," the nets, the snares of death, "because it was not possible for him to be held by it." Jesus Christ is loosed from death.

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It cannot restrain him. We must be aware of the fact that great people have a new fluid that lasts long after they are gone. In a sense, they leave their fingerprints

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on all of subsequent history. Think of a personality like Jeremiah, or George Washington, or Botticelli, or Castor. Those individuals still have a kind of life with us

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because of what they contributed to the human experience. Just this year, for example, we are celebrating the 100th anniversary of the death of Moses,

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and also the 100th anniversary of the birth of the white babe, Isaac. These people you see are being remembered because of what they have done.

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But the sense in which Jesus is alive is different from that in which they still live amongst us. His is not some mere influence from the past. His is not some fingerprint left on tomorrow, yesterday.

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Jesus is alive in terms of presence and in terms of power. Nine years from now, at the turn of the millennium, no one is going to suggest in that year 2000 that we ought to have the 20th centenary

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celebrating the birth of Jesus. Why? Because Jesus lives. He said himself, "No one is able to take my life from me.

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I have power to lay it down, and I have power to pick it up again. This power my Father has given me." Christ, you see, is loose in the world.

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We all understand that love is stronger than hatred. We know, for example, that you can motivate people much more effectively by acts of affection and love than by acts of command and cruelty.

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Hatred, you see, has a way of breeding nothing but distress and anger and hostility. But love has the capacity to add to the beauty of life, to multiply the happiness of life,

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to divide itself so that it can reach more and more people, it subtracts from life some of the hardness of death. Any sane person would prefer to be loved than to be hated. The Bible says, "And now abide at peace, free,

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faith, hope, and love." But the greatest of these is love. Love outlasts hatred, and Jesus is called, you will remember, the King of Love.

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We also know that life is stronger than death. I've always been much touched by the story of F.G. Meyer, the great English preacher, who wrote a note to a friend of his, and in that note he said, and I quote him directly,

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"I have just this prized cover that I have but a few days to live." Indeed, before you get this message, I may have already entered the palace. Do not bother to write me back.

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I shall see you in the morning. His life, you see, was organized and empowered about the truth that life is stronger than death. The singing song of the Christian faith is not thanks for the memory,

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but Jesus Christ is risen today. He is loose in the world. You know, on the south rim of the Grand Canyon, on Easter sunrise, they had a great service morning.

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And when they come to that place of service, where the reader of Scripture quotes these words, "And an angel of the Lord descended from heaven and rolled back the stones," and just that moment, they push over the edge of the canyon a huge bolt,

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which goes rolling and bouncing and crashing all the way down the sides of the canyon to the Colorado River, far, far below. Now, you may say that's a bit overdramatic. But I would suggest to you that it's not overdramatic at all.

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You see, when you add to the tale that when that stone rolls, a choir of 2,000 people begins to sing the Hallelujah Chorus. They're announcing, you see, that this is an Easter world, that winter is always followed by spring,

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that hatred is always finally defeated by love, and that death is triumphed over by life. And that is true, because Christ is risen. The Lord is loose in the world.

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Now, as the poor to death cannot see Christ, so they cannot see the Church of Christ. But I thought of a difference between power and control. The woman who lives down in the town of Mason, Tennessee, whose name is Louise Negrophinley,

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and she was quite surprised one morning when she wakened to discover that an escaped convict had broken into her home, and he held her at gunpoint. He said, "You don't need that gun. Just put it down on the table. I'll fix you some breakfast. What would you like?"

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And he told her, and so she fixed his breakfast. And then while he was eating it, she talked to him about her faith in Jesus Christ, and as a result of her witness, Louise Negrophinley led that young man to call the police, to turn himself in,

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and he had just this year finished his term in prison. Now, one may say that that man, because he had the gun, was in control. But who had the power? Not that man, but rather, who he is.

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The vast difference, you see, between control and power. How many times have you heard someone say, "How is it that we have so much hardship, such tragic accidents, such brutal crimes, wars, and things of that nature in the world?" The answer to that question is really very simple.

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It is because God has power, but he does not have control. And the reason he does not have control is because in an act of great love, he gave to humankind total freedom. He put us in charge of controlling what happens on this mud pie on which we're spinning through space.

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He gave to us all of the prerogatives that come with that control. He laid that aside, but he retained the power for himself, and power is always greater than control. Power always outlasts control.

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Think of a thing. When a little child is growing up, the parents control the life of the child. They put it to bed, and they put it to bed to get it up when it should get up, and they make sure that the meals are balanced.

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They see which side of the street the child stays, and they control the movement of that child. But as that child grows older and moves into junior high and into teen and college days, that control must disappear, and in its place comes power. What is that power?

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It's the power of love. It's the power of a parent's trust. It's the power of children and parents' mutual respect and mutual confidence. Any people who make the mistake of trying to control their children when their children are old enough to begin to know

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the power of mutual respect is going to decelerate that relationship. This is true with parents and children or employers and employees or teachers and students. Power always wins in the end. Jesus exercised very little control over the events of his life.

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Look at his death, how they arrested him, how they tried him, how they beat him, humiliated him, and finally crucified him. But in spite of the fact that they had control, he had the power. The scriptures say, "The word of the cross is holy to the unbeliever, but to believers it is the power of God." And Jesus rose from death by that power.

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The early church was not in control of the events of its days. It was tormented and persecuted and ridiculed by the world of which it was taught. It was not in control, but it had power, so much power, that it turned the world upside down, that it brought the Roman Empire, the greatest empire the world had known to its knees,

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and started an instant spread of the greatest empire that history has ever seen, the Empire of Jesus Christ. Empowered to see by the truth, "If God be for us, then who can be against us?" A loose Christ sets his church free also. The poor cannot contain it.

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It has been persecuted, it has been plagued, it has been lied about, it has suffered from the weak discipleship of some of its members, it has confronted scientific claims, it argues that they have made faith unnecessary, but it rises above each and every one of these things.

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Why? Not because it is old. Because it has power. Lord and I, the great men of the Pennsylvania Catholic Church, tell you what we have mentioned earlier about the prime candidate to the throne, Sparrow Hawkins.

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He had gone into an eave on a barn, and he slipped up and reached in to grab the two birds. He got the one, but the other bird, the mate, grabbed at his eave and laughed and sunk his feet deep into the eave. He had the luck of the bird. The bird that he had, he took and put it in his pocket.

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His intention was to use it for his cage the next day. The next day he went out and he opened the box, and there was this beautiful sparrow hawk at the bottom of the box. It was absolutely ridiculous, and it still is.

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He picked it up in his hand, and he could feel his little heart trembling, and all the time it was looking straight up into the air. On an impulse, he put the bird out on the grass, and it never moved, but still it kept its eyes looking directly toward the sky and the sun.

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It was so still it looked as if it had died, or as if it did not realize that it was now free and could fly away into the distance. All the time it had its eyes looking forward. And suddenly there was a cry from high above,

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and in a flash that bird took up from the earth and headed straight up into the sky. When Isaac turned to look, it was right in the distance. The sun was up, and he couldn't see for a moment, but as he filled in his eyes, he could see high up the mate of that hawk.

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It had cried down, and in response to that call, the bird had immediately risen. It had been trapped, but now it was soaring to meet its father. Writing on a clear eye, he said,

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"When that cry fell from the sky, echoing from every summit about it, it was, again, a song of honor, an honorable and ecstatic joy." The earth still today sometimes trembles, and sometimes quakes, and sometimes flies so still that one can't even imagine it is off to fly high,

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and it keeps its eyes looking toward the sun. And when the cry comes, "Because I live, you too shall live," it flies higher, it flies farther, and it flies higher than any institution or organization in the history of mankind.

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Jesus Christ, and so did the Church. Missed God finally. Christ and His Church, and His people, who are in Christ, are also separated. Two years ago, I was on the class summit that you talked with,

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and I was giving lectures and also preaching. And on the program that year, Dr. Christian Barnard, you will remember him, he was the brilliant South African surgeon who performed the first heart transplant operation.

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And he told this story on his own. I have no other evidence to corroborate it, but his own testimony. It seems that shortly after his world-changing operation, he began a tour of Europe to see these very medical societies.

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He hired a limousine with a very fine 35-year-old driver, and this driver was taking him from city to city, so he wouldn't be bothered with all the press and trains and planes at the same time. And they went from place to place, and everybody wanted to hear what Barnard had to say.

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And he became very, very tired. He had completed a major address at the--he was another major address-- he was another city in northern Italy that night at 8 o'clock. And he was exhausted.

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Well, it was 4 o'clock between these two major addresses. He had, in a moment of weakness, agreed to stop off in a small northern Italian town to address a small medical society that heard what was coming through, and wanted him to stop. Barnard said, "No, no, no.

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You've been in and you've listened to every one of my lectures, and you've read all of my books, particularly the ones I've brought in. I think you know almost as much about the subject as I do." "How about our changing clothes?

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I'll put on your coat and your uniform, and you put on my coat. And when we get to this small town, I'll just sit in the back of the room like you do, and you get the rest, and you do what I do." And he said, "Well, that's all right.

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Maybe I can come. I give the same talk everywhere I go, and you know exactly what that talk is. But you do it. Please, I've got to get the rest before nightfall."

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So they agreed to it. Barnard drove to town, and he told me a small group of doctors, and they got together, and the chauffeur stood up front, and he delivered the lecture quality, word for word.

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It sounded like he was the endosurgeon that Barnard was. Then at the end of the lecture period came time for questions. And the questions became all these things. And so as the questions were thrown, the chauffeur had heard all the answers Barnard had given.

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So one after another, he gave those answers, and everyone was very impressed. And then one doctor said, "You have to accept the truth. Barnard is in fact the most prominent doctor in the field, and he's been pleased to write his own book. So this doctor is one of the greatest leading cardiologists."

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So after this, the patient became very curious, and he heard Barnard's wonderful teachings of how society is human and how it is. And Barnard knew that the questions he had come from this lecture were not typical of the other questions he had.

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And so once again, after the lecture, the doctor asked very, very confidently, "Is this really true?" And Barnard sat there with his mouth open and watched the question go to his head. The student was never saddened or not.

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He simply looked at the doctor and he said, "Doctor, it amazes me that a person who has seen this method you have in the doctor could ask such a stupid question." "That question is so stupid that I believe even my chauffeur could answer it."

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"As a matter of fact, I'm going to call him back forward and have him do it right now." Jesus Christ has given freedom even to chauffeurs. He's given freedom to all. The availability of the things in the kingdom are given not only to the prominent,

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but also to the poor and the spirit. When we talk about sin, Christ's love is greater than sin. The Bible says, "We have escaped as a bird from the snare of the fowl." The snare is open and we have escaped.

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When we talk about temptation or talk about defeat or depression, listen to what the scripture says. "We know that the afflictions of the righteous will be taken from us by the Lord, who will deliver us from them all."

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When we talk about death, will any be cracked by the tomb? Listen to what the Bible has to say. "We are born anew through a living hope with his death in heaven for us." What he said is that Jesus comes to everyone with this loosing power.

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You know, he wants to say to himself, "I am the light of the world." And Fern Clow, a Christian and a great microbiologist, said the principal attribute of light, the most astonishing aspect of light, is the speed of its coming.

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So that when we need Christ in times of sin or in times of sadness or in times of death, our own or of those that we love, he comes. He comes with incredible speed. He comes to loose and to set.

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I'm here to show that there's a need for a lecture in the past few weeks. But when he was done, he said, "If anyone here in the audience would like to attend to this, what I said I invited Dan to stay for a few minutes." And an old gentleman brought up, and he walked down the street where I went up on the platform,

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and he said, "Did Parker make a good lecture?" And he said, "Did Parker make a good lecture?" "He thought it was nice, and he can't do it anymore." And the agent said, "I thought you were going to present an argument designed to refuse my contention."

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And the old man just kept giving me the orange. And when he was done, he took out the orange and he said, "Are you going to present no argument at all?" And the old gentleman said, "How can you argue with me?" And he said, "How can I know how it tastes? I can see the beauty of it."

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And the old man said, "That's just the way I see my argument. I just showed you why I agree with you. I am a big fan of your argument, and you have proven it. You have done great things, and therefore you know nothing about it."

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My friend, as you have heard my testimony, the sacred testimony, that Jesus is lucid, that he uses the Church, and he uses all those who are part of the Church, and he uses all those who are saints, be honest, you cannot deny anything I have said. You cannot deny my claims of the sweetness and the power of Jesus until you have tasted him.

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There is not a single syllable in any sentence that I have uttered that you can brand as a lie or as a dream or as an error until you have tasted him. I will never repeat that statement, nor will I ever repeat it again. Then you will have the experience of life and it's dawn, and you will know the true meaning of the word.

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You will have the experience of life and it's dawn, and you will know the true meaning of the word. But not before the words of this verse have been leashed by Christ and set down for all to hear. This is what this young man has to say. Oh, I have been a servant of the Lord, and I have seen the skies on waxers' shoulders.

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Sunward I have climbed, and joined with tumbling earth of sun-spitting clouds, and done a hundred things. I have climbed rafts down those footless halls of old. I have topped the long delirious burning blue. I have topped the wind-swept heights with easy grace where never lark or even eagle flew.

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And while with silent, lifting mind I trod the high, untrespassed sanctity of space, I put out my hand and touched the face of God. I have been a servant of the Lord, and you shall know the truth, and the truth will set you free. Claim the truth, experience the truth, and the winds of the Spirit will send you spiraling.

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You will be loosed, you will be set free, and you will know that magnificent liberty which belongs alone to the children of God. Whether the testimony is that of old men and women, or a young liar hurling his health sunward through somebody's legs, whether his son's heart aches with grief, or mumbled by older ladies saying to his innocent guests, "I want you to go home." Oh Lord, thy word comes to me, and thy word is the truth, and that truth sets us free,

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so that we are loosed from death, loosed from everything, and free indeed, with life in the Spirit. Thanks be to God for his unspeakable goodness, for Christ is risen, the Lord is risen, loosed, free indeed. Praise the Lord.