The Vault Door
Jesus is alive! We're celebrating his resurrection today, as we did yesterday on Easter Sunday. I hope that you had a special day, and that the joy of the risen Christ is with you today.
I grew up at Trinity Methodist Church in Sunward Park, and I've got all the old tapes here of the sermons that were recorded over the years. I was listening to the Easter day sermon from 2008. Derek Wilson preached - you guys have heard him here on my devotions before, and so with his permission, I want to share the sermon with you in little snatches.
Unlocking Doors: Exploring Easter and the Doors in Our Lives
The sermon was all about doors, and there was a picture of doors which I've put on the little picture that I sent on WhatsApp here as well. Easter was a time where new doors were opened for people. And so be blessed as you listen to Derek:
“We've got a collage of doors for us to work with. Let's start with the first one. Top right. That's a bank vault, if you like. Pretty sturdy. Pretty impressive, thank goodness! Thank goodness our bankers have doors like that.
Perhaps it's symbolic of the tomb that Jesus was put into and that door that was rolled across the entrance. That's a huge stone. And some of us have seen what many people claim to be the stone that was rolled over the front of the tomb that Jesus was laid in. That tomb came complete with armed guards - the establishment needed to make sure that the ‘Jesus saga’ was over. They had had enough trouble with this itinerary preacher from Nazareth! He had caused enough trouble in the eyes of the scribes and the Pharisees to last them a lifetime. And so they wanted to lock him away. They wanted to lock the whole problem away and make believe it never existed.
I wonder how many of us lock away our issues? I wonder how many of us lock away our problems, our failures, our dark side, and make believe it doesn't exist? I wonder how many of us do this. I wonder how many of us have got that stone rolled across the entrance to our hearts and our spirits? How many of us have got that vault door locked with time locks and electric locks and all the other things, hoping that they will go away?
Unlocking the Power of Resurrection: Embracing Healing and Hope at Easter
I wonder.
But the resurrection of Jesus opens that door, if you will let Him. The resurrection of Jesus opens us to the power of Jesus to work with and deal with and overcome all that stuff that we've got locked away the inside of us. The same power that raised Christ from the dead is available to us to deal with our baggage, to deal with the stuff that we've got locked away, the same power that raised Jesus from the dead.
Did you hear me? This is not wishy washy stuff, folks. This is eternal stuff. The power to help us burst out of those vaults, out of those tombs, and bring our brokenness and our stuff into the healing and cleansing light of the risen Christ into the hope of Easter. We can burst out of those tombs into the hope of Easter. The empty tomb makes that possible.”
So whatever you're hiding behind that vault, friends, bring it to God. Let him burst that door open and bring you the healing that is available for those with their faith in Christ.
