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In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, Amen. I would like to share with you this morning one of the most astonishing understatements I have ever heard. I was standing at the edge of the Grand Canyon, and a gentleman walked up beside me, stood

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about six feet away. He surveyed the scene as far as his eye could see, first to the west and then to the east. And then he delivered himself of the following announcement. Something must have happened here.

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You bet it did. That canyon is 217 miles long, from four to 18 miles wide, and at many places more than a mile deep. Something must have happened here.

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Mighty effects have mighty causes. Suppose this morning, when you opened your Easter morning newspaper, the headline had read "Pope becomes Presbyterian," or "Mondale agrees to run for Vice President with Reagan," or "Menoch and Bagan turns Arab."

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What would you think? You would want to know why such a remarkable end must have had an astounding beginning, because great effects come from great causes. Now I want to share something with you this morning which is just as amazing as those

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headlines I've just suggested. Paul became a Christian. That was a remarkable thing. Don't let the dusty centuries cloud your amazement.

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He was the most brilliant Jew of his day. He had studied at the feet of the finest teachers. He had a magnificent mind. His writing is superb.

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If Paul had never written a word about the gospel, if he had given himself to some other area of endeavor altogether, I am still far within the mark when I would say that we would know of his writing today. So splendidly did he put pen to paper.

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And he had a great zeal in the pursuit of his Judaism. He pursued Christians, men, women, and children, and stood by while they were stoned to death. This man was a Pharisee of the Pharisees, the most devout of the most devout. And then one morning, people picked up the Jerusalem Gazette, and there was the headline,

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"Paul becomes a Christian." And I'm sure they said, "Something must have happened here, because such a great effect must have had a great cause." And Paul tells us what that cause is.

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He says, "Jesus is risen from the dead." He appeared first of all to some disciples, then to some women, then to 500 on one occasion, and finally, he says, "He appeared to me. I saw him, and I believed."

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This is what led Paul to become one of the Easter people. He could not doubt the reality of his own experience. This Jesus, who was dead, and who was placed behind a rock, whose body was cold and stiff and unresponsive, with eyes that did not see and ears that did not hear, and a pulse that

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did not beat, and lungs that held no breath at all, this Jesus suddenly became warm with new life. And there was movement, and the eyes saw, and the heart beat with a pulse that set the whole world on its ear, and color came.

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Those within rainbows. No one can explain the how of it, but the reality cannot be denied. And this is what led Paul, and has led thousands and millions after him, to become Easter people. Paul puts it this way, "Once the spirit of him who raised Christ from the dead lives

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in you, he will, by that same spirit, bring to your whole being new strength and vitality." In other words, when Paul encountered the resurrected Christ, he was resurrected himself. There was a new joy in God for him. There was a new happiness in man for him.

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There was a new victory in life for him. He became an Easter person. Great effects have great causes. And Paul says the cause was this, "Once the spirit of him who raised Christ from the dead

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lives in you, he will, by that same spirit, bring to your whole being new strength and new vitality." To be an Easter person, you see, is to recognize that you cannot lose. Oh, I know there are times when it looks like Christians have lost.

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Jesus looked like a loser, certainly on his knees, sweating in agony in the Garden of Gethsemane, certainly on the cross at a place called Calvary, certainly when they laid him away in the tomb, but he is alive. And the resurrection gospel was given to his disciples, and they too became Easter people.

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And they carried that news out into all the world. You know, if you go to Jerusalem, they will show you two tombs, both of which claim to be the tomb from which Jesus rose. First they will show you what is called the Garden Tomb, located behind St. George's Cathedral.

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It's a beautiful tomb in a shaded garden where roses and geraniums are abloom. It looks like those pictures of the tomb that we used to see in old-fashioned Sunday school posters. It's a very, very lovely spot.

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And then other guides will show you the tomb of Jesus that is in the Church of the Holy Sepulcher. And this, according to the best archaeological studies that we have, is the most authenticated site in the history of early Christianity.

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And this tomb is all covered over with marble and silver and gold until it's almost gaudy. And there are priests in many costumes and vestments moving about, and the smell of candles and incense is heavy on the air. Now, I have visited both of those places, and you know I couldn't pray in either one

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of them. I couldn't pray in either one of them for the simple reason that the only reason the tomb is important in Christianity is that the tomb is not important. Jesus Christ left the tomb.

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He erupted into the middle of life. He appeared first to the disciples, then to some women, then to 500 at one time, and last of all to Paul. And to every one of them, he said no.

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He said no to Pilate. He said no to Herod. He said no to those who tried to cross him out on a hill. He said no to those who carried him to the tomb.

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Early in the morning on the first day of the week, he said no to death. To death itself. No to losing. And ever since that time, he and his have won.

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Oh, I know. As I look back over my life, I see all kinds of spotty anecdotes which testify to my moments of apparent failure and defeat. But I remember that God brought Christmas out of a manger, brought the Son of God out

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of a dusty Palestinian town, and brought Christianity marching forth out of a tomb. And I know from that that God is in charge. And that means he can move in every circumstance of my life, even the ones that look like failures, and turn them into victories.

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There was a woman working in a bookstore in New York City, and a young man came in whistling and smiling. And she said, you're very happy. That's obvious.

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He said, I certainly am. I'm just back from Vietnam. And I was for two years in prison by the Viet Cong, a prisoner of war. And he said, you have a lot to be happy about.

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He said, I do. But it's more than what I've just said. Well, you see, while I was in that prison having nothing to do, I looked about for something to read.

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And I found a dog eared paperback book and I read it. And it was a collection of stories about people who had become Christians and how their lives had been transformed with a new power and a new peace. So there in the midst of that circumstance, I gave myself to Christ.

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And believe it or not, my spirit became free, even while I was still a prisoner of the Viet Cong. And now I'm home and I'm home to my wonderful wife. And she's lovely and beautiful.

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And she's all the world to me. But you know, she doesn't know this freedom I'm talking about. She doesn't know this joy. She doesn't know this excitement.

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She doesn't know this peace and this power. And what I've come here for is to get that same book so that I can introduce her to Jesus. This is the testimony of a Jesus person. And what he's saying is this.

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Once the spirit of him who raised Christ from the dead lives in you, he will, by that same spirit, bring to your whole being new vitality and strength. The Easter people you see are those who finally cannot be discouraged. Well, they bottled Jesus up in a tomb and they tried to strangle him with a shroud,

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but he didn't stay bottled. He didn't say strangled. He moved out with power, like some butterfly that breaks open its chrysalis and ascends in magnificent color.

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And he says to all those who follow after him and to all those who bear his name in the world, you're going to have discouragement, but be of good cheer, for I have overcome the world. I remember once standing at the on the tarmac at the Kavlevic airport in Iceland, and it

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was very early in the morning and very dark and very cold and empty. There was a man standing with me who I've met only a few minutes before we had no conversation. It was such an empty night. Nobody felt like talking.

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And then and then the light of the morning came. It comes very suddenly that far north and suddenly the splendor of the sun was there. And this man standing beside me said in a low, firm voice, you can't hold back the dawn. Sure, sometimes it seems like night, but you can't hold back the dawn.

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Sometimes we are grounded with discouragement, but you can't hold back the freedom of the Holy Spirit moving in you. I spoke a minute ago about that church of the Holy Sepulcher in Jerusalem. You know, Christians have long argued over which group of Christians, which denomination,

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if you will, should control that church. And they've argued over it so long that way back in the seventh century, Omar Khalif, who was at that time the ruler, the Muslim ruler of that area, gave the keys of that church into the hands of a Muslim family, the Nusibah family.

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And he said, you and you alone will be open, able to open the door to that church or to lock the door to that church. And as long as these Christians behave, leave it open. But if they do not, then lock it up.

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And for thirteen hundred years, the Nusibah family has been going and opening the door to that church every day. And you know, it astonishes me. Why is it that we rejoice in having the keys to something that leads us to the place where

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Jesus isn't anymore? But we do that, you know, we lock ourselves into our discouragements. We chain ourselves to our disheartenment. We bind ourselves to those things that weigh us down in life.

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But Jesus, you see, is the giver of the keys. I give to you the keys of the kingdom, he said. I remember about two years ago preaching on a campus in the Midwest. And when the service was over, a distinguished professor on the faculty of the school came

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forward to talk with me and he told me and he was a very timid man. His voice was very small. He spoke in a very diffident and retiring manner, so much so that I found myself being much quieter and more reserved than is my nature because I did not want to frighten

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him away. And he came up and he told me about the death of his son. He'd lost him just two months before as the result of a malignant brain tumor. And he said, "You know, when I buried my boy, I buried my own spirit."

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He said, "I'm the church organist and I play the hymns and I play the anthems, but I cannot enter into them. I'm tied tight to his grave." I said to him, "That is the one thing that we as Christians must understand above all

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other things, that we are not tied tight to any grave, whether it be the grave of a hope or the grave of a dream or the grave of a loved one. For the fact of the matter is Jesus Christ has risen and the spirit of him who raised Christ from the dead lives on in us and he will, by that same power and that same spirit,

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bring to your whole being new vitality and strength." And we talked about this and we prayed together and across the next few weeks I sent him some tapes which I thought might be helpful. And then at the beginning of the summer, I received a long letter from him.

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And the sense of the letter was this, that he and his family were going to go to Europe and that they were sad that they could not take the son, Terry, with them. But he said, "I know at last in my heart that Terry is seeing something far more wonderful than Europe.

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And so we go set free." I don't know what heaven must be like for a little boy. Does he see Jesus in blue jeans? Does he finger paint over a whole horizon?

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Do they hold the meetings for children in heaven on merry-go-rounds? And can anyone interrupt whenever they want to? Does Peter, for the children, laugh a lot? I don't know, but I know it's his.

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And when you hold fast to that promise, discouragement disappears away. It's like that fine Scottish tenor who developed a malignancy of his tongue and he had to have his tongue removed. And it was going to mean, of course, the end of any singing or speaking career for him.

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And as he was on the operating table, the surgeon said to him, "Is there anything you would like to say to us?" You see, the anesthesia was about to be administered, and after that, he would have his tongue no more.

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And without a moment's hesitation, this Christian man, one of the Easter people, sat up on the table and he began to sing. He sang the words of that great hymn by William Cooper, "There is a fountain filled with blood drawn from Emmanuel's veins, and sinners plunged beneath that blood lose all their guilty stains."

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And he went on to sing verse after verse. And as he sang, every eye in that operating room was wet with tears except his own. And then on the last verse, moving to a higher key, he sang out these words, "There is a nobler, sweeter song I'll sing by power to save when this poor, lisping, stammering tongue

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lies silent in the grave." The tongue died, but not his hope, not his confidence in Christ. Christ lives, and he too lives. Now, you've heard the testimony of an apostle, and you've heard the testimony of a prisoner

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of war, and you've heard the testimony of a college professor, and you've heard the testimony of a Scottish singer. Every one of them, Easter people. The Easter people, you see, cannot die.

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Jesus died, but he lived again, and the same spirit which brought him from the dead lives in us, and by that same spirit, he makes our whole beings new with strength and vitality. We don't finally die. Oh, each one of us owes God a death, and we will pay that debt, but when that is done,

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we will be alive forevermore. I've always loved that legend which comes from the Hebrides. According to the legend, there was a god who lived far beneath the seas who wanted to have a child, wanted so much to have a child that every time a ship would pass from one of the

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islands to another, if there was a baby on board, this sea god would try to snatch the child, and on one occasion, when a boy child was being taken from one island to another, the god almost caught up with them. The boat just got to the sand, the keel just ground on the earth in time, and they carried

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the boy out of the boat, and as they did, this sea god managed to throw a little wavelet into the heart of that child, and then sinking back to the bottom of the sea, according to the legend, the god said, "This boy will come back to me, for I have now put the sea into his heart."

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And years later, when the boy, now a young man, was strong, he got into a rowboat one day, and the people were amazed to see him row out to where no land was, and then to stand and to jump into the sea, following the wavelet that was in his heart. I love that legend, because the scriptures teach us that God has put into every one of

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our hearts a bit of heaven, he has put into every one of us the spark of eternity, he has made us in his own image, and that is an eternal image, and all through our lives he fans that flame, until at last we go home to him, where all his family will be gathered together.

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I don't know what it will be like, but the same spirit that animated Christ and took him there will take us there as well. I'm much touched by the testimony of Dr. A.D. Sanborn, who was a Methodist minister in Wilton, Iowa, and he was called to the home of a little

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child that was dying. When he got there, the child was already delirious, and he sat down beside her bed with the other members of the family, and the child was talking, but she did not seem to be talking to them. And she said, "Oh, look, they're coming for me now.

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They're going to open the gates. But wait, it's not for me. It's for Grandpa. Grandpa's going in ahead of me.

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Oh, but they'll come again for me." And then there was a pause and a kind of a disappointed look, and then she brightened once more. "Oh, they're coming again, and I can hear their cries, and now they're opening the gate

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for me. No, it's not for me. It's for little Mamie. Little Mamie is entering in ahead of me.

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When will it be my turn? When can I go across?" And once more, she became very quiet. And then for a third time, she brightened.

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"I see them coming," she said, "and they're waving and they're calling my name. This time it's for me. This time I'm going over." And with that, she died.

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And Dr. Sanborn was so moved with what he had seen that he asked the family, "Who's Grandpa? Who's little Mamie?" And they said, "Well, there used to be some folks in the neighborhood.

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There was an older man that everybody on the street called Grandpa because he was so old, and there was a little girl who grew up in the neighborhood that we called little Mamie, but they haven't lived here for years." The doctor was curious, and so he began to research those families and finally got in

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touch with the families and wrote to them and asked about these people. And on the same day, he received two letters. The first letter told him that the man called Grandpa had died on September the 16th. And the second letter told him that the girl called little Mamie had died on September

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the 16th. And the girl at whose bedside he had sat died on September the 16th. And wonder of wonders, they all died within the same hour. Now there is no way that we can explain that.

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Those who study parapsychology have taught us, if they've taught us nothing else, that we are much more than clay. We are the children of God. We are the heirs of the eternal.

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We are the people of his feaster. And the same spirit that lifted his son from the dead, that same spirit is set abroad in our hearts so that we will be, in all of our beings, filled with a new strength and vitality. And I have not seen, nor ear heard, nor the mind of man begun to imagine how wonderful

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heaven is going to be. My friends, mighty effects have mighty causes. And we have the power to win, the power to laugh in spite of discouragement. We have the power to live forever because that power comes to us from a risen Christ.

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That power belongs to us as the Easter people. So we must not be like the early disciples who, discovering the tomb to be empty, peeped in and then went home and missed the excitement for a while. It is ours to claim that excitement right now.

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And I tell you this, not because you may die tonight, but because you will still be living tomorrow and I want all the joy of Easter to be yours for all the rest of your days here and for all eternity. Because beloved, we are the Easter people.

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Let us pray. Let us pray. Lord, we thank Thee that Thou didst bring Thy Son from death to life and that when Thou didst bring Him, Thou didst bring promise of glory to us.

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And we pray that the same Spirit which was alive in Him might be alive in all of our beings so that we might never be defeated or discouraged or afraid even of death itself. We claim the joy that belongs to the Easter people and we claim it in the name of the risen Christ.

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Amen. I found a new Easter song. It's a great song, but it's brand new. So I've asked the choir to sing it for us this morning.

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And after they've sung it, we'll stand and we'll sing, not like Presbyterians, like Methodists. We'll stand and we'll sing because it's all about the Easter people. Choir, show us how it should be done. [Music]

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Start to hum it. You know, start to hum it. Get to feel the rhythm. [Music]

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[Music] [Music] The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ and the love of God the Father and the communion of the Holy Spirit give you Easter power now and always. Amen.

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[Music]