Introduction: "Early Sunday morning, while it was still dark, Mary Magdalene came to the tomb and found that the stone had been rolled away from the entrance. She ran and found Simon Peter and the other disciple, the one whom Jesus loved. She said, ‘They have taken the Lord’s body out of the tomb, and I don’t know where they have put him!’

"Peter and the other disciple ran to the tomb to see. The other disciple outran Peter and got there first. He stooped and looked in and saw the linen cloth lying there, but he didn’t go in. Then Simon Peter arrived and went inside. He also noticed the linen wrappings lying there, while the cloth that had covered Jesus’ head was folded up and lying to the side. Then the other disciple also went in, and he saw and believed-—for until then they hadn’t realized that the Scriptures said he would rise from the dead. Then they went home.

"Mary was standing outside the tomb crying, and as she wept, she stooped and looked in. She saw two white-robed angels sitting at the head and foot of the place where the body of Jesus had been lying. ‘Why are you crying?’ the angels asked her. ‘Because they have taken away my Lord,’ she replied, ‘and I don’t know where they have put him.’ She glanced over her shoulder and saw someone standing behind her. It was Jesus, but she didn’t recognize him. ‘Why are you crying?’ Jesus asked her. ‘Who are you looking for?’

"She thought he was the gardener. ‘Sir,’ she said, ‘if you have taken him away, tell me where you have put him, and I will go and get him.’

"’Mary!’ Jesus said. She turned toward him and exclaimed, ‘Teacher!’ ‘Don’t cling to me,’ Jesus said, ‘for I haven’t yet ascended to the Father. But go find my brothers and tell them that I am ascending to my Father and your Father, my God and your God.’

"Mary Magdalene found the disciples and told them, ‘I have seen the Lord!’ Then she gave them his message.

"That evening, on the first day of the week, the disciples were meeting behind locked doors because they were afraid of the Jewish leaders. Suddenly, Jesus was standing there among them! ‘Peace be with you,’ he said. As he spoke, he held out his hands for them to see, and he showed them his side. They were filled with joy when they saw their Lord! He spoke to them again and said, ‘Peace be with you. As the Father has sent me, so I send you.’ Then he breathed on them and said to them, ‘Receive the Holy Spirit.’"

Don’t you love a good resurrection story? I know I do. You see it is this story and the truth it reveals that changes everything. The story of Easter is in its essence that after Jesus had died on Friday, was placed in a tomb, that God resurrected Him on Sunday from death and rolled away the stone so that it could be witnessed by Jesus’ followers. The story of that resurrection is that Jesus is alive today. The story of the resurrection is not the perpetuation of an idea of good winning over evil created by the disciples to somehow explain away the death of Jesus. It is not the creation of the early church of the first century to define why they existed. It is not the development of a theological idea that Christ’s spirit or soul is resurrected but His body was not. It is not the result of mistaken identity on the part of the women mentioned in the gospels, going to the wrong tomb then everyone for the last 2000 years believing the story they used to cover their tracks.

The story of the resurrection of Jesus is that story that Paul would declare as the gospel in I Corinthians 15:1,3-4. He said: "Now let me remind you, dear brothers and sisters, of the Good News I preached to you before…I passed on to you what was most important and what had also been passed on to me—that Christ died for our sins, just as the Scriptures said. He was buried, and he was raised from the dead on the third day, as the Scriptures said."

The story of the resurrection is as Megan McKenna writes: "Resurrection! It happens in the dark with no witnesses, just the Father bending over the Son and breathing the Spirit back into His flesh. And everything is shattered…It is the new creation, and it is just dawning…Resurrection sends Jesus back into the world, and it sends us back into the world, unafraid now, still seeking the crucified One who is now raised up in glory and hidden in our midst."

The reality is, though, that every time that One "hidden in our midst" is discovered by you and me a new resurrection story is written. And don’t you love a good resurrection story!

What is a good resurrection story? A good resurrection story is an encounter that a person has with the living, real, presence of the Lord Jesus Christ. The first and most important resurrection story that is written is the one when a person who is lost or dead to a personal relationship with Jesus Christ becomes themselves spiritually rescued, saved, born again or resurrected. Their sins are forgiven and they are given the gift of eternal life. Until that story is written for us personally there is no other story to be written.

When that story is written then there are a lifetime of others that wait to be penned. The best ones, the really good ones, are the ones that occur when our resources, humanly speaking, are depleted and exhausted. It is a story that involves you as a child of God encountering suddenly or continually in a time of crisis or need the living presence of Jesus. Your response to that encounter will defy human logic. In other words, you will act in such a way that others can’t believe: You believe when others doubt. You hope when hope seems gone, you pray when others can’t, you bless when others curse, you love when others hate, you trust when others won’t. The resurrection stories you write are the ones when you let Jesus, the Risen Jesus, the Living Jesus do through you what you alone would never and could never do. And don’t you love a good resurrection story!

Here’s a good one. It’s about Mat, Cindy, Rainey, Lacey and Jesse Anne Lipscomb. Rainey and Lacey Lipscomb wanted to spend the night on the train with their hometown friends, the ones who had joined them on a spring break trip to Chicago. The last time Cindy Lipscomb saw her two oldest daughters was when they kissed her goodnight Monday, March 15, and headed to the front sleeper car of Amtrak’s City of New Orleans train to join some friends from Memphis.. Less than an hour later, the train plowed into a tractor-trailer loaded with steel and derailed. Leaking diesel fuel erupted in flames. Dazed but unhurt, Ms. Lipscomb searched frantically for 10-year-old Rainey and 8-year old Lacey. The two girls from a suburb of Memphis, Tennessee, were dead. "I wanted to die when I saw the flames because I knew," Ms. Lipscomb told The Commercial Appeal of Memphis. "It was either lay down and die or pray, and I just sat down and prayed. It just felt like my heart was ripped out of my chest." Ms. Lipscomb’s youngest daughter, Jesse Anne, 5, was unhurt.

Mat and Cindy Lipscomb’s resurrection story began being written that horrible night. What makes it a resurrection story? Mat and Cindy are believers in the resurrection. They are members of Christ Methodist Church in Memphis where they met and married. Christ Methodist is their life because they know the Risen Christ. How does a family deal with such a tragedy—with anger, bitterness, hatred? The Lipscombs will spend the rest of their lives dealing with their loss that defies reason. Yet somehow in the first few weeks in their journey they let God begin writing a resurrection story. Over and over in interview after interview Mat and Cindy talked about their faith. They expressed their sorrow and their pain but they did it from love.

In a worship service after the crash Mat Lipscomb told the congregation how his girls’ lives may have been cut short in time but were not cut short in purpose, that had they lived many years and become evangelists that they would not have reached as many people for Christ as they have in the five days since their deaths. Mat asked the congregation to take the opportunity to tell anyone who will listen that he and Cindy get their strength and comfort from a personal relationship with Jesus, and that if that doesn’t make sense you would be glad to spend some time with that person explaining it.

Now that response doesn’t make sense to some but for them neither does Easter. Resurrection stories are not ones we intend to write; they are the ones written through us by the hand, the nail-pierced hand, of another. A response like that is only one that can be traced to the pen of the Risen Jesus.

As soon as the tragedy became known one of the ministers of Christ Methodist went to Illinois to be with the family. He recalled at Rainey and Lacey’s memorial service a conversation he had with Jesse Anne as they took a ride in a rental car. They talked about their faith. Loftin wanted to make sure Jesse knew that her faith is her strength, that her faith says her sisters will enjoy an everlasting life in heaven. Then Loftin asked her, "How much do you think God loves Rainey and Lacey and you?" Jesse shrugged. "A lot." How much is a lot?" Loftin asked her. "How big is a lot?" "As big," Jesse said, "as the sky."

Only a Risen Christ could write a story like that. Don’t you love a good resurrection story!

On Tuesday of this week I went out to Beverly Rehabilitation, as I regularly do, to visit Melba Bowen. We had a wonderful conversation that I want to tell you. It is a good resurrection story. (Before I do, Paul told me I could tell their story on one condition and that is that I tell you as a congregation how grateful they are for your continual love and attention through Melba’s illness. I told him I would be glad to do that.)

Paul and Melba moved back to Arkansas from St. Louis after retiring several years ago. They have been a vital part of this church family, serving at the Care Center, South Caraway Chapel, contributing in Sunday School, worship, and Wednesday nights. Their gentle, love, laughter and positive spirit are a gift to any church and pastor.

Late in August of 1998 Melba was diagnosed with a type of cancer called Lymphoma. Devastated by the news, yet firm in their faith, they sought to apply every medical treatment available. You as a church began praying and continue to do so to this day. In October Melba’s condition worsened to the point that she was placed on a ventilator. Days turned into a week or more and her recovery seemed in peril. Finally, when she was removed from the ventilator, I recall our first conversation. I told her through my own tears that I felt as though I was talking with someone risen from the dead. Through that Paul was always at her side. And with hair and vanity long gone, Melba never lost her sense of humor.

On the Sunday before Thanksgiving this past year Melba’s lung collapsed, along with multiple other problems, and she was placed back on the ventilator. Her situation was extremely grave and to all it seemed that Melba would soon be with her Savior. Except Paul, Paul believed. He believed when all the rest of us doubted, lost hope and wanted to give up. Thanksgiving, Christmas, New Year’s and Valentine’s Day all passed and Melba was just, well, just there. Tubes, wires, monitors, machines and Paul day in and day out, no one day any different from the next.

In late February Melba’s body was strong enough to be removed from the ventilator and the risk was on as to whether she could survive on her own. Gradually she began to awaken from an almost four-month sleep. Conversations were uncertain as she slowly began to return to reality. I wondered if she would even know me. One day after speaking to her without much response, I turned to go and she said, "Bye, Bruce." (I felt a little like Mary who met our Lord in the garden and He called her name.) The tears welled up in my eyes because I knew that a resurrection story was being written.

In early March Melba was able to leave the hospital for the first time in over five and one half months. She is now at Beverly Health & Rehabilitation Center working hard to regain her mobility. While Melba has lost physically, she and Paul never lost hope. As Melba and I talked on Tuesday I asked her what Easter means to her. We began to talk about that. She told me that to her it means everything. She talked about the car accident in the 80’s that took the life of their daughter-in-law, then the illness that took the life of their son and the challenge of raising a grandson without parents, but certainly not without family. She told me how much she believed. She told how she wished she had the voice to sing at the top of her lungs, "Because He lives I can face tomorrow. Because He lives all fear is gone. Because I know who hold the future and life is worth the living just because He lives."

Now picture this: You’ve been in the hospital for almost six months, on a ventilator twice, still battling the same disease that put you there, you are thrilled when you can walk from your bed to the door and your Easter outfit will be a pair of pajamas (a nifty little floral print jersey knit number), and you want to tell everyone – "He lives!" Jesus is alive! Because He lives you can face whatever the future holds—rehabilitation, treatments, cancer or death—because He lives." Now, don’t you love a good resurrection story!

There are more—like the faith of one of our church family whose adult child has been given a critical diagnosis as they face a life-threatening disease. Their words to me through their tears were, "God has been so good to us." No one but a living Savior could write a resurrection story like this. Don’t you love a good resurrection story!

Now here’s what you need to put in your own Easter basket today: Where do you need a good resurrection story written in your life?

What needs the power of the resurrected Jesus in your life may not be physical but what He overcomes in us physically is often a parable for other needs in our lives. Your resurrection story may need to be written spiritually where your passion for faith is on life support. Perhaps in your emotional life where you feel as if you were standing on the edge of the abyss and there’s no way out. It could be a resurrection story needs writing where you have no control over addictions that are tearing your life apart. The resurrection stories that need writing are endless—marriage, children, jobs, future, being a teenager, careers and on and on.

I have always found it both comforting and convicting that those first disciples didn’t believe in the resurrection. Comforting in that I sometimes wonder myself and convicting that I am so blind. In spite of their unbelief, on the evening of that first day when the door was shut, hiding from their hopelessness and locked in their fear, He came and "stood there among them" and spoke peace to them. That’s when their resurrection story began to be written. It’s the same place yours needs to be written, locked in your fear, doubt and struggle. That’s where you need a resurrection story written in your life.

Last year Jan Morrison went to Memphis after the doctors discovered an aneurysm in her brain. It was removed and she’s doing great. On Thursday I found this letter on my desk: "Dear Bro. Bruce, Today is the anniversary of my surgery for the aneurysm…I have never shared with you what happened to me on that day you came over and hesitantly asked if you could place your hands on my head while we prayed. During and after that prayer, I felt the most wonderful inner peace I have ever experienced and I knew from that moment on that I would be safe. I was not the least bit afraid from that moment on and worked hard at convincing my family that I knew it was going to be okay. God has blessed me in so many ways and using you as His instrument to convey peace to me was so clear. Jan Morrison." Don’t you love a good resurrection story!

He’s ready to write some more – now, today, here, in your life. That’s the truth!

Only a Risen Christ could write a story like that. Don’t you love a good resurrection story!

Easter Sunday, April 4, 1999

Dr. Bruce Tippit, Pastor

First Baptist Church

Jonesboro, Arkansas

 HYPERLINK mailto:btippit@fbcjonesboro.org
btippit@fbcjonesboro.org