A man and his five-year-old son were driving past a cemetery on a beautiful spring afternoon. As they passed, the boy looked and saw a freshly dug grave with dirt piled up next to it. He pointed it out to his dad and exclaimed, “Look, Dad! One got out!” Now, obviously, we know the truth there. We know that no one had in fact “got out” of that grave, but that someone was preparing to go into it. But the surprise and excitement of the boy’s exclamation is what strikes me as we think about Jesus, who truly did “get out” of the grave. The story of the resurrection is shocking. It is unusual and in many ways difficult to believe. Yet it is a story foundational to our faith. It is the story of Easter. And though we celebrated Easter Sunday two weeks ago now, did you know that Easter is not over? Easter Sunday is actually the first day of the 50 days of Eastertide. So, buckle up, cause Easter is not over yet.

Theologian and author, N.T. Wright once wrote, “Here, then, is the message of Easter, or at least the beginning of that message. The resurrection of Jesus doesn’t mean, ‘It’s all right. We’re going to heaven now.’ No, the life of heaven has been born on this earth. It doesn’t mean, ‘So there is a life after death.’ Well, there is, but Easter says much, much more than that. It speaks of a life that is neither ghostly nor unreal, but solid and definite and practical.

The Easter stories come at the end of the four gospels, but they are not about an ‘end.’ They are about a beginning. The beginning of God’s new world. The beginning of the kingdom. God is now in charge, on earth as in heaven. And God’s ‘being-in-charge’ is focused on Jesus himself being king and Lord. The title on the cross was true after all. The resurrection proves it.” So, the resurrection is not the end of the story but actually the beginning of a new story, the beginning of a new reality. The resurrection represents God’s kingdom coming to earth in a very real and incredible way. And because of the resurrection, everything was changed. And we see that in the reading for this morning from Acts 3.

Now the context of this sermon from Peter in Acts 3 is important, so let’s look back just a bit in the story. Right before the passage we read, Peter is entering the temple with John and they encounter a man lame from birth being carried into the temple. The man asks them for alms. Peter tells the man that he doesn’t have any silver or gold, but what he has he will give the man. And then he tells the man to stand up and walk. And he takes the man by the hand and lifts him to his feet. And the man is healed. And he started walking and leaping and praising God. And the people in the temple saw him and they recognized who he was. They knew that he had been lame his whole life, yet there he was leaping and walking all around. The act left people all over the temple court astonished. These were the people gathered around when Peter began his sermon.

The people seem to think that Peter and John were responsible for the man’s healing. But Peter quickly dismisses that possibility and directs the credit to God. He says to them, “You Israelites, why do you wonder at this, or why do you stare at us, as though by our own power or piety we had made him walk? The God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob, the God of our ancestors has glorified his servant Jesus, whom you handed over and rejected in the presence of Pilate, though he had decided to release him. But you rejected the Holy and Righteous One and asked to have a murderer given to you, and you killed the Author of life, whom God raised from the dead. To this we are witnesses. And by faith in his name, his name itself has made this man strong, whom you see and know; and the faith that is through Jesus has given him this perfect health in the presence of all of you.” In other words, Peter is saying, this healing came from Jesus, not from him and John. I get the sense from Peter’s words that he is a bit shocked that they seem to think the power came from him or from John. Maybe, since they had usually been with Jesus when they came to the Temple for the previous three years and it was Jesus who drew all the attention, Peter and John were not expecting to have the attention turned to them now that Jesus was gone. Because of the resurrection, everything was changed. Instead of just followers of Jesus, Peter and John were now witnesses for Jesus.

So, the question then is, “How has the resurrection changed things for us?” This morning I want to suggest two ways the resurrection has changed us. First, it has given us a purpose. Peter talks about God raising Jesus from the dead and then says, “to this we are witnesses.” Though we did not directly witness the resurrected Jesus. We have been tasked as witnesses to the story as it has been passed down to us. We do this both with our words and with our actions. Without the resurrection, all we’d have to witness to would be a dead rabbi. Jesus lived an extraordinary life, but the resurrection makes Jesus something truly special. And we have been called to be witnesses to that. We see that clearly earlier in Acts, when Jesus is preparing to ascend and he says to the disciples, “But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you; and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.” We continue that call to witness to Jesus and his resurrection from the dead.

Also, the resurrection gives us hope. Peter says to those in the temple, “Repent therefore, and turn to God so that your sins may be wiped out.” Even the Jews who had called for Jesus’ crucifixion have the hope of forgiveness. And not only that, Jesus’ resurrection was the firstfruits of our own resurrection. In Paul’s first letter to the church in Corinth, he writes, “Christ has been raised from the dead, the first fruits of those who have died. For since death came through a human being, the resurrection of the dead has also come through a human being; for as all die in Adam, so all will be made alive in Christ. But each in his own order: Christ the first fruits, then at his coming those who belong to Christ.” Because of Christ’s resurrection, we too will be resurrected to eternal life. That is an amazing hope for us! Christ has obtained for us eternal life. And with that comes freedom from pain and sickness and weakness and death. Revelation talks about what the kingdom of God will look like after the resurrection from the dead. It says, “See, the home of God is among mortals. He will dwell with them; they will be his peoples, and God himself will be with them; he will wipe every tear from their eyes. Death will be no more; mourning and crying and pain will be no more, for the first things have passed away.” That is the hope promised to us in the resurrection of Christ!

So, Easter is not over. In fact, no matter how long we have been Christ followers, Easter is just beginning to make its impact on our hearts and minds and lives. So how do we live out the hope and purpose we’ve been given through the resurrection? In an article from Huffington Post entitled “What Happens After Easter,” Grace Ji-Sun Kim and the Rev. Jesse Jackson wrote, “The Easter message of hope and love needs to prevail and continue long after we celebrate Easter.  The message of working for social justice and equality needs to be proclaimed and lived.  Long after the colored eggs are eaten, and the Easter bonnets stored away, the message remains that, as followers of Jesus, we are freed to work for liberation and freedom, do justice and seek peace and wholeness in his name.”

What can we do to spread the hope of Jesus’ resurrection to our family, friends, and neighbors? What would our community look like if that hope spread? Perhaps we’d find more people living with goodwill toward others. Perhaps we’d find more people stepping up to help in times of need. Perhaps we’d find less anger, less violence, more love, more peace. In fact, there are real health benefits to hope. According to Psychology Today, there are three important health benefits that come from hope. (1) Hope can reduce physical pain. When we don’t have hope we tend to assume the worst with our pain, which can make the pain worse. When we have hope, we may view the pain as less debilitating. (2) Hope may boost circulation and respiration. This is often because people with hope tend to engage in behaviors that lead to better overall health. They exercise more, eat better, and take better care of themselves. This can lead to less stress and therefore better circulation and respiration. And (3) hope improves cardiovascular health. Optimism has been proven to lead to improved heart health. And it has positive effects on blood pressure as well, which can lead to better heart health as well as a reduced risk of stroke.

All of that is to say that hope is deeply important. And as followers of Christ, hope is the greatest thing we have going for us because the center of our faith, the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, is a story all about hope. And our story from Acts about the healing of the lame man and Peter’s subsequent sermon to the people in the temple point us directly to that hope we have in Jesus’ resurrection. Let me conclude with the final words of the Huffington Post article I quoted earlier: “The Easter message does not end with the resurrection, but continues on as his followers, as we, live with the hope found in the message and life of Jesus. The message that lingers long after Easter is that we are called and invited to follow Jesus. We are freed to live the life of hope. May we do so the day after Easter and every day.” Amen!