Sermon 2019.04.21
The Most Important Sermon Ever
(Acts 10:34-47; Easter Sunday year C)

1. Resurrection witness.  If you want to know how Jesus rose from the dead on Easter morning, you could read the Gospel accounts. The confirmation students read John 20 at the sunrise service, but Ben Geister also shared bits from Matthew 28, Mark 16, & Luke 24.

Or… you could just go ask a bunch of kids, which is what Southland Christian Church did. Let’s hear about Easter, according to the kids…

	[play video “Easter according to kids” https://youtu.be/wdn1R90kX9A]

2. He is risen – now what?  The kids did a great job, didn’t they? Although… I don’t remember the Easter bunny hopping through the gospels and leaving a money egg. Maybe that’s where Judas got the thirty pieces of silver?

But overall, the kids nailed the story of Jesus rising from the dead on Easter morning. Jesus is alive!!! They are genuinely excited, as we all should be! 

Let’s say it together… Jesus is alive! 
C’mon, let’s say it like we mean it… JESUS IS ALIVE!

Jesus is alive! … But that shout of joy is followed by the kids’ honest question: Now what?

3. Let’s go tell the news!  The last kid in the video has a great answer. Jesus is alive… now what? … Now, “let’s go tell the news!” That’s exactly what the rest of the bible after the Gospels is about: telling the Good News. The direct sequel to the gospel accounts of the life of Jesus is the book of Acts, an account of the acts and actions of the apostles who told the Good News of Jesus’ resurrection throughout the known world.

I meet every Tuesday with a group of men for breakfast and bible study. Lately we’ve been reading the book of Acts together. There are nineteen mini-sermons in Acts, and even more witness moments. The guys have noticed two things about them:

First, every sermon is about the Good News that Jesus is risen from the dead, and we have forgiveness of sins in his name. As Peter proclaims in our scripture reading, 

“God raised him on the third day and allowed him to appear… to us who were chosen by God as witnesses, and who ate and drank with him after he rose from the dead. He commanded us to preach to the people and to testify that he is the one ordained by God as judge of the living and the dead. All the prophets testify about him that everyone who believes in him receives forgiveness of sins through his name.” (Acts 10:40-43).

Second, every sermon is fine-tuned to the audience hearing it. When Philip meets an Ethiopian eunuch reading the book of Isaiah, he explains Jesus from the prophecies of Isaiah (8:26ff). When Stephen stands before the Jewish council, he places Jesus in the context of Jewish history (7:1ff). When Paul is in Athens, he quotes Greek philosophers and poets (17:22ff).

4. Most important sermon ever.  Which brings us to… [impressive voice] … “The Most Important Sermon Ever!”  [ever… ever… ever… ever…]

When Peter preaches to the Roman centurion Cornelius and his extended household in our scripture reading from Acts 10, it is literally the most important sermon ever. (Wait, did you think that title on the bulletin, “The Most Important Sermon Ever,” referred to my Easter message? I’m under no illusions…  )

To understand what is so important about this little sermon, you have to understand the context. The early Christians were Jews, and in the Jewish world-view there were two kinds of people: insiders and outsiders. The Jewish people were insiders – God’s chosen nation who were identified by a whole series of religious practices that separated them from everyone else. Faithful Jewish men were circumcised. Faithful Jews did not eat pork. Faithful Jews observed a Sabbath day of rest and worship.

The outsiders were literally everyone else in the world who did not practice Jewish religious customs, and therefore (it was thought) did not have God’s favor. These outsiders, called Gentiles, might be nice folks (or not), they might know about God (or not), but they were not part of the inside club.

But then the apostle Peter, the disciple Jesus nicknamed “The Rock” and said he would build his church upon (Matthew 16:18), has a vision of Jesus telling him to visit a Gentile family. And not just any Gentile family, but Cornelius, a captain in the Roman army of oppression and occupation. Cornelius and company were the ultimate outsiders: they were not circumcised, they ate the forbidden foods, and they did not observe any of the Jewish customs and laws.

But when Cornelius and his family heard the Good News of Jesus’ resurrection and the forgiveness of sins, they are moved by the Holy Spirit to believe. And Peter recognizes that God has moved the boundary lines. Those who had been outsiders were now insiders. “Can anyone withhold the water for baptizing these people who have received the Holy Spirit just as we have?,” Peter asks. “So he ordered them to be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ” (Acts 10:47-48).

And just like that, the outsiders became insiders, wrapped in the warm embrace of God’s love and enjoying the promise of forgiveness and salvation in Jesus Christ. God’s promise was extended to everyone, not just a small group. God’s promise was extended to everyone – including you and me. Like I said… Most. Important. Sermon. Ever.

5. Outsiders become insiders.  God moved the boundary. But, God has a bad habit of doing this. Humans like to draw lines. We like to divide the world into us and them, right and wrong, insiders and outsiders. We know we are inside God’s grace. But every time we think we know who is outside the boundary lines of divine love, God moves the line on us.

Humans have drawn a lot of lines over the years. We keep trying to put people outside the boundaries of God’s love and grace – people of different color, people of different languages, people who eat different foods, people who worship differently, people of different genders or sexualities, people of different nations, people of different economic status.

Friends, the truth is that we were all outsiders, until Jesus made us insiders. We are all sinful. We have all fallen from grace. We have all crossed the line. But thanks be to God in Jesus Christ that we are forgiven and loved and promised eternal life. And that promise is for all…

6. Crossing the line.  Let me share a personal story. In 2009, I was on a tour of Israel and Syria with other seminary students. It was a diverse group of Methodists, Presbyterians, Lutherans, and Baptists. We had several women who were being called into ministry… and some Southern Baptists who thought God had drawn a line and women couldn’t be pastors. After all, it says right there in in the Bible: “Women should be silent in church,” and “I don’t permit women to teach in the church” (1 Corithians 14:34 and 1 Timothy 2:12).

I sat next to one of these young Baptist men on a long bus ride, and he was complaining about the women pastors. So I asked him what the job of a pastor is. “To proclaim the Good News,” he said. And what is the Good News, I asked him? “That Jesus Christ is risen from the dead and we have forgiveness of sins in his name.” And who, I asked, was the first person Jesus commissioned to share this message? “Uh…” He was stuck – because the very first evangelist, the very first messenger of Good News, commissioned by Jesus himself on Easter morning, was Mary Magdalene! It says so, right there in the Bible! (John 20:17-18)

If we’re going to fulfill our mission to “go tell the Good News,” then we’ve got to cross the imaginary lines that we draw around God and go to the folks we consider outsiders. And every time we do, we will find that God got there first, and the outsiders are actually insiders. Every. Single. Time.

The Apostle Paul got this. He was willing to cross all the boundaries of the world. Paul writes that he has “become all things to all people, that I might by all means save some!” (1 Cor. 9:22)

7. Love everyone.  Part of the vision statement of this church is that we LOVE all people unconditionally. Because we also have a witness to bear and Good News to tell: “For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him may not perish but may have eternal life” (John 3:16). 

Everyone who believes in him may have eternal life. Everyone. Everyone. Jews and Gentiles, Romans and Americans and Mexicans. Everyone. White people and black people and brown people. Rich people and poor people. Gay people and straight people. Young people and old people. 

As Peter preaches, “I truly understand that God shows no partiality, but in every nation anyone who fears him and does what is right is acceptable to him” (Acts 10:34). Everyone. Even lowly sinners like you and me, sisters and brothers. Everyone.

This is the Easter message: As Jesus broke the line between death and life, Jesus breaks the line between us and God, so that everyone can hear the good news that Jesus is alive. 

Can I get one more glad shout? … JESUS IS ALIVE!

Now, let’s go tell someone the news that Jesus loves them.

Amen.