Tomorrow morning at 9:30 am we gather to celebrate the High Feast of the Resurrection of Our Lord Jesus Christ! This is the single most important day in the Church Year on account of it’s critical importance in the life of every believer in Christ.

Saint Paul wrote, “And if Christ has not been raised, then our preaching is in vain and your faith is in vain.” (1st Corinthians 15:14) These words testify to the fact that Jesus bodily resurrection after His death on the cross is the pivotal event of the Christian faith. If it is not true, then Christianity is just another myth. But if it is true, then it is the truth and the answer to our greatest desire which is to live!

Tomorrow, I am going to explain why we must retain this desire (yes, God wants us to desire) and recognize it’s fulfillment in the Risen Christ. I will also present the reality-based truth of the resurrection event itself. That is, not only will you receive the saving Gospel of Christ’s resurrection for your life, but you will also be further equipped to witness to the historic, reality-based foundation of the saving faith.

There will be inspirational music, exceptional decor, focused liturgy of the Word of the new and eternal life that is yours in Christ, a message for the children, and a sermon that will be faithful to the Law and Gospel of God’s Holy Word. After worship, there will be a light Easter brunch and egg-hunt for the children.

I look forward to seeing you and serving you with the powerful Word and Sacrament of the Lord Jesus Christ. Please invite your friends and family!

Here is an excerpt from tomorrow’s sermon:

Sermon

“He Is Not Here, But Has Risen”

(Luke 24:6a)

Rev. Dr. Alfonso O. Espinosa

Grace to you and peace from God our Father and from our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. Amen. Buddhism teaches that all desire leads to suffering. Thus a basic goal of this worldview is to learn to eliminate all desire. If desire is gone, then you won’t feel loss, sadness, or suffering when something bad happens. If something is taken away like your health or someone you love, then you won’t suffer if you’ve managed to eliminate your desire for health or the loved one. With all desire wiped out, you will arrive to the Buddhist version of peace. So goes the hypothesis and I pray that this view never seeps into your soul. The evil one, however, uses this popular idea to distract people from a very important biblical teaching: God wants you to desire. God has designed you to be desirous, but all which stands against God seeks to ruin the way you’ve been created!

 

But if the misleading path of deadening one’s desire doesn’t work, the evil one has another approach. He says, “Well, if you’re going to desire, let’s make your desiring all wrong.” Thanks to the ramifications of full-blown Darwinian Evolution, not only is it perfectly natural to desire, it is also perfectly natural to desire without any moral restraint. The reason for this is simple: if philosophical naturalism is true then the material realm is all there is, and if there is nothing beyond the material realm, then there is no God and morals become non-binding constructs invented by the religious fanatics of the world. If materialism is true then people should pursue whatever they desire (regardless of anyone’s standard of morality). May the Lord protect you from this deception as well as the other: May we never seek to kill our desire; may we never poison it either.

 

In the meantime, it may not sound like a very religious thing to say, but it is 100% biblical and gives glory to Jesus Christ: God has designed you for desire. Psalm 145:16 says, “You open your hand; you satisfy the desire of every living thing.” Verse 19 of the same Psalm records, “He fulfills the desire of those who fear him; he also hears their cry and saves them.” The only qualification to this rule is that we cut off the desires that are evil and contrary to the will of God. Saint Paul puts it simply, “Put to death therefore…evil desire…” (Colossians 3:5).

 

So what is the greatest God-given and God-sanctioned desire? It is simple, powerful, and holy: it is life. God has designed you to desire life more than anything else. And you know what? Everyone – no matter how hardened they are against God and life knows that this is true at the core of their being: we desire to live. This is why we respond to tragedy the way we do. What destroys life causes us to flinch and feel a certain dissonance and discomfort because what is an affront to life is an affront to our greatest desire and the gift of God so that it is good to hate that which is evil and that which belongs to death.

 

At the same time, the Christian knows that their greatest desire to live has been already been met by the resurrection of Jesus. Death is now something we may stare down! St. Athanasius wrote, “A very strong proof of this destruction of death…is [that Christians] despise death; they take the offensive against it and, instead of fearing it…[they]trample on it as on something dead.” (On The Incarnation, SVS Press, 57) But St. Paul said it better in Philippians: “For to me to live is Christ, and to die is gain.” (Philippians 1:21)

In Your Service and To Christ’s Glory,

Pastor Espinosa