This Week's Sermons

Sermons for the Month
"First Rock from the Son"
How to Repair Damaged Relationships
DATE: April 12, 1998
TEXT: Acts 10:34-43

"To all of you Saints here this morning, grace and peace to you from God our Father, from His Son, Jesus Christ and His Holy Spirit. AMEN

This year, as last year, one of the hit television shows of the season has been the pseudo-sci-fi sitcom, Third Rock from the Sun. In it, actor John Lithgow, as the leader of an alien expedition, assumes the human body and identity of Dick, the patriarch of the Solomon family and a professor of physics at an Ohio university. The name of the show is derived from the planet Earth's third position from the sun. It is the "third rock from the sun." Kids love watching this outrageous show in which aliens take on human form on this boring third rock from the sun to see what human life is all about. Inevitably, the family gets into trouble but somehow each week they come out of it OK by the end of the half hour.

Do not read this as in any way an attempt to suggest a parallel between Jesus and John Lithgow! But you have to admit, there is a parallel of circumstances. The difference, of course, is one of purpose. Dick Solomon and his family are here to react and entertain. Jesus is here to interact and save. Jesus took on our human form and nature to visit our third rock from the sun in order to bring it back to life, to heal its brokenness. On Good Friday, however, it appeared that his visit to our little rock of a planet had ended in failure. Indeed, Mary and Peter and John, on that great resurrection morning, were all wondering how they would deal with that big rock in front of the tomb. How were they going to get by this last rock blocking them from paying their final respects to their dead friend and loved one? Even though they did not know how they would accomplish it, they wanted to complete the burial ritual that lack of time and circumstances had not permitted them to finish on Good Friday. But what to do about that huge stone in place over the tomb.? Even before coming that first Easter morning, these three had already stumbled through a field of rocks on their spiritual pilgrimage to the tomb:

the rock of unbelief

the rock of misplaced enthusiasm

the rock of worldly possessions

the rock of little faith

the rock of clouded understanding

the rock of confusion

the rock of disappointment...

until finally, this last rock, the rock that covered his tomb.

However, when they arrived, they found this last rock separating them from the Son not where it was supposed to be! When they arrived at the tomb that morning, they discovered the last rock they somehow had to get around had become the first rock the Son had rolled away. This last rock was not removed, however, to enable a revivified Jesus to walk through a gaping hole. Indeed, the glorified Jesus that morning had already become a morphing, molecular restructuring beyond our comprehension, a being no longer limited by closed doors, thick walls or stone-sealed sepulchers. No! God rolled that stone aside as the first of many in order to witness to the resurrection power of God. After all, our God has always been in the rock removal business.

In the close of our decade euphoria, our millennium mania, it is easy to let various rocks roll in front of tombs of our own making. It is easy for our lives to be sealed off to the evidence of resurrection and new life. It is easy to let a rock settle with a thud, barring us from enjoying the visible evidence of God's presence in our lives. Those rocks could be any one or more of many. It might be:

-- the rock of anger-- the rock of arrogance.-- the rock of indifference.-- the rock of limiting habits.-- the rock of guilt.-- the rock of compulsive behavior.-- the rock of insecurity.-- the rock of misunderstanding. -- the rock of an unforgiving spirit. -- the rock of jealousy.
My friends, we are all standing this morning in front of the first rock the Son rolled back.
You stand before an empty tomb. You may feel, however, that you're not quite there yet. Even though this first rock separating you from the Son has been rolled away, you may feel your own rock separating you from Jesus. You may feel you have yet to experience the resurrection power of the Risen Christ!

You're in good company. The apostle Peter once upon a time felt the same way. Having denied Jesus not once but three times, he wept bitterly wondering at the same time if his guilt would become so heavy, it could never be rolled back. But then came that Easter morning and Peter knew not only that Christ was alive but also that his sin had been forgiven. It was this conviction that enabled Peter to share his faith with, for example, Cornelius, a Roman centurion and as such an oppressor of kinsmen. If Jesus could forgive him, Peter reasoned, what should prevent him from proclaiming that same promise of forgiveness and gift of eternal life through Christ to an alien, a centurion, to all who believed, regardless of race, creed, or politics.

Bob Buford, CEO of Buford Television, Inc., and founder of Leadership Network, talks about his journey to the Son (although he expresses it in a different way) in his book Halftime (Zondervan, 1994). For him, the first rock from the Son, the final impediment between him and a meaningful spiritual life, was the tremendous success he was experiencing in his life. But while he had success, something was missing. His book is his story of his journey from a life of success to a life of significance. He compares his life to a football game. In the first half he had been preoccupied with achieving the material goals he had in life. This quest required that he relegate to second place, if not third, fourth and fifth, other components of his life: family, friends, church and God. As he approached mid-life, he took some time off, and during a reflective period of self-assessment, asked himself a lot of questions. What emerged from his halftime was a different strategy for the second half of life. We all need to take some time off, to observe a halftime. Perhaps today, Easter Sunday, is your time to start. If you have not done so before, I invite you this morning to pledge to yourself that you will allow Jesus to roll back from your heart whatever is your stone separating you from Him. The rock that had rolled across Peter's heart was his fear and guilt; for Paul it was his cultural and religious bigotry; for Buford, his phenomenal success. Perhaps, you, too, have had it all. Perhaps success has been, after all is said and done, too much of a good thing.

For whatever reason, your spiritual journey has brought you here this morning in front of the first rock from the Son to be rolled away. When we stand at an impasse as this first rock from the Son, so close to Son Significance, we realize that meaning cannot be found in the self. Augustine said once that we should seek not Self as the True Good, but the True Good of Self which, he said, is God. What rock do you want rolled? If you don't know, perhaps like Buford, you need to take some post-resurrection time out and clarify what it is that God is saying to you. What is your second half plan? Where do you go from here? What is your vision statement? Your spirituality statement? The apostle Peter's to whom Jesus said, "Follow me?" his vision statement was "I'm following on. "For the Apostle Paul it was "I'm pressing on!" Yours, in the midst of incredible crises might be "I'm Carrying on." In the midst of doubt and fear? It might be "I'm believing on." When you're at the bottom of depression? "I'm Praising on." Easter tell us as we Press on, Follow on, Carry on, Believe on, Praise on, there is no force that can resist the resurrection power that can start rolling away the rocks in our life. You're standing at the first rock from the Son he has rolled away. Let him roll away whatever rocks stand between you and Him as well. See the empty tomb and experience a filled and fulfilled life.

Let us pray. We gather, O God in your presence to rejoice in the light of the empty tomb. The stone has been rolled away broth from the mouth of the tomb and from the depths of our hearts. We have learned to live in the power of the risen Christ. We have grown daily in the presence of our risen Savior. Some of us, however, have joined us today after a long winter of the soul. We have struggled to breathe in the chill wind of adversity. We have been unable to grow anything in the barren fields of doubt and fear. We have trembled and shivered as we have struggled to sense the warmth of your love. We come to the empty tomb with an expectant hope in our hearts and the prayer of faith on our lips. We are confident that you are about to do a new thing, O God. We believe that the stone which we struggle to move ourselves is about to be blown out of its ruts. We look for an encounter with the risen Christ, and to that end we bow in worship, and worship in wonder, and wonder in faith, and have faith in you.

AMEN