the basic message #E26
Mark 15:32
“Let this Christ, this King of Israel, come down now from the cross that we may see and believe.” Those crucified with him also heaped insults on him.
It might seem like I’m a week late with this message, but it’s valid all 52 weeks of the year. As things worked out last week, I was out of town on a job-related issue, so I had my family join me in Nashville for a little vacation. In the process of checking my email Saturday, my friend Heather from the UK sent me an instant message. I told her I was in Nashville and she asked why I wouldn’t be in my church for Easter. It was a good question, and I thought about it all Easter day. I don’t have an accurate number of the Sundays I was in church this past year, but I’ll venture a guess: about 45 weeks out of 52. I’ll bet that some of you went all 52 weeks, but some of you may not have been once. The point?
2 Peter 2:20-21
If they have escaped the corruption of the world by knowing our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ and are again entangled in it and overcome, they are worse off at the end than they were at the beginning. It would have been better for them not to have known the way of righteousness, than to have known it and then to turn their backs on the sacred command that was passed on to them.
The point is to pose a question: “Why are churches filled on Easter morning”. Could anyone be so naïve as to believe that sitting in a pew on Easter morning is going to count for anything with God? Another question: “Do you know of anyone in recent years who was saved in church on Easter morning?” I would suppose that most churches are so busy with all of the “stuff” going on Easter Sunday, that bringing a person to Jesus is somewhat of an inconvenience. Heck, my church didn’t even have an Easter sermon. We did an Easter Contada (a musical service). It seems to me like Easter Sunday demands the best possible sermon the pastor can roll out. Isn’t our entire faith based on the events of Easter?