Easter with Luke: New Sermon Series Starts April 16th.

Dear Redeemer Family,

Happy Easter! Alongside a greater Paul, I deliver to you as of first importance what I also received: that Christ died for our sins in accordance with the Scriptures, that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day in accordance with the Scriptures, and that he appeared to Cephas, then to the twelve. Then he appeared to more than five hundred…. (I Corinthians 15:3-6)

This Sunday, April 16^th, we will begin a new sermon series, “Easter with Luke.” With Easter Sunday behind us, this may sound like an odd title. Thirty years ago, when newly planting a church in Austin, I stumbled across the practice of the church to celebrate Easter not so much as a day, but as a season, a fifty-day festival of the Risen Lord. The joy, confidence, hope and peace his resurrection brings to our lives can be our focus in church life not just for a day, but from Easter Sunday all the way through our remembrances of his Ascension into glory and the outpouring of the Holy Spirit on his people at Pentecost. 

This practice has been transformative in my own life. I am naturally more of a glass half-empty person than a glass half-full person. No, that’s not accurate — more like a glass four-fifths-empty person! In my personal wiring and in my brokenness, I tend to see way more readily what is not, rather than what is, or is possible.

As others get to know me, they are often surprised to hear me say this. Many friends experience me as positive and hopeful, alive to the promises present and future in the gospel of Jesus. To the extent that this perception is true, it comes by way of the deep work of God’s grace in me. And part of what he has used to change me, to re-wire my soul, to fill the crevices of doubt and despair with hope and joy, is training me to actively live inside the gospel of Easter, the new birth to a living hope in Jesus that Easter brings. As Peter writes to the early Christians, scattered across Asia with persecution often looming: Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! According to his great mercy, he has caused us to be born again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead…. (I Peter 1:3)

We often say that every Sunday is a celebration of Christ’s resurrection. And that is right and good. Yet it has been the wisdom of the church from early days to focus our attention for an extended space on the resurrection of Jesus and all that it brings into our lives. This season of Easter infuses our lives with gospel hope, confidence, and joy in a world that can get very dark and rock us very hard.

Geerhardus Vos, preaching during Easter at Princeton Seminary a century ago, describes the gospel of the resurrection and all its benefits as a fresh sea-breeze from the shores of heaven, filling the lungs of our souls. I love that! I love going over the causeway to our favorite family beach get-away in South Carolina and rolling down the windows to get the first gust of sea-breeze in my face. I love how alive, hopeful, refreshed I feel with those breezes blowing over me. This is what celebrating Easter does for you. And you can stay longer than a day!

We will spend our Easter season this year with Luke, with stories from Easter morning, Easter afternoon, and Easter evening, as well as other accounts that highlight the reality of Jesus’ resurrection power and the new world he begins with his resurrection. As we sit with Luke’s inspired accounts of Easter, may our lives be changed by the Spirit, filled in new ways with gospel hope and joy, with new energy and motivation to engage his mission in the world.

Please make plans to join us for these Sundays in Easter! I leave you with the encouragement of this beautiful hymn from George Ratcliffe Woodward:

This joyful Eastertide
Away with sin and sorrow!
My love, the Crucified,
Has sprung to life this morrow.

Had Christ, who once was slain,
Not burst his three-day prison,
Our faith had been in vain:
But now is Christ arisen, arisen, arisen;
But now is Christ arisen!

“This Joyful Eastertide”, George Ratcliffe Woodward

Much love in Christ,

Rev. Paul Hahn

Lead Pastor