Easter, and Beyond: Ten Sermons for Seniors

By Chad Hager

We know people whose eyesight limits them to reading only text written in large print or who may be completely dependent on caregivers to read aloud to them yet they cling faithfully to Gods Word as their life and their light. This book is for them. Thank God for so great a cloud of witnesses.
A preview of whats inside:
Sermon 1 Easter is known for a single event: the resurrection of Jesus Christ. But did any other events take place on that day? Lots!
Sermon 3 After the resurrection, did Jesus just go into retirement? Did he just decide to sit back and watch how events would unfold? Not hardly.
Sermon 5 Just add Jesus sounds like a phrase from a cookbook. Well, if it is then God is the gourmet chef who preparest a table before me.
Sermon 6 Christian perseverance: We started inspired by Jesus sacrifice on the cross. We made it this far sustained by the risen Christ. Now we need to finish strong looking forward to the home Jesus has prepared for us.
Sermon 7 Islam is not just another religion: Islam is the only religion with a holy book that specifically denies that Jesus was crucified and resurrected.
Sermon 9 I know I get joy from things like seeing a friend succeed, or watching a child open a present. But what is this thing called the joy of the Lord?
Sermon 10 Scientists take pride in giving us the history of the universe from a scientific perspective going from the big bang, to the formation of the solar system, to the final end of everything. But theologians dont often try to give the big picture of the universe from a Christian perspective. So lets fill that gap!

• Language: English
• Publisher: WestBow Press
• Release date: Mar 21, 2017
• ISBN: 9781512774252

Chad Hager

Chad Hager has for years been leading Bible studies and Sunday services at the assisted living center where his father was a resident. Residents have told him repeatedly, “You need to publish that!” so now he is doing exactly that.

Book preview

Copyright © 2015, 2017 Chad Hager.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced by any means, graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping or by any information storage retrieval system without the written permission of the author except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

WestBow Press

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Because of the dynamic nature of the Internet, any web addresses or links contained in this book may have changed since publication and may no longer be valid. The views expressed in this work are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher, and the publisher hereby disclaims any responsibility for them.

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Certain stock imagery © Thinkstock.

Revised Standard Version of the Bible, copyright ©1952 [2nd edition, 1971] by the Division of Christian Education of the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

ISBN: 978-1-5127-7424-5 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-5127-7426-9 (hc)

ISBN: 978-1-5127-7425-2 (e)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2017901755

WestBow Press rev. date: 03/21/2017

Contents

Sermon 1 Revisiting the Events of the First Easter

Sermon 2 Preparing for Easter: Lent and the Tabernacle

Sermon 3 After the Resurrection, Did Jesus Go into Retirement?

Sermon 4 Our Inheritance: What Was in Jesus’ Will and Testament?

Sermon 5 Just Add Jesus, or Easter in Our Daily Life

Sermon 6 Christian Perseverance, or What To Do when the Memory of Easter Begins To Fade

Sermon 7 600 Years after the Fact, Islam Claims that Easter Never Happened

Sermon 8 Hope for the Future, Rooted in the Present

Sermon 9 The Joy of the Lord

Sermon 10 The Big Picture, and Our Place in It

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For Maxine:

A saint and friend

whose insight and encouragement

led to this book’s creation.

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FOREWORD

In what sense are these Sermons for Seniors?

First of all, these are genuine sermons, originally preached at an assisted living center where the author’s father was a resident. The purpose of each and every sermon is to proclaim the gospel message – the opportunity for salvation by grace through faith in Jesus Christ. Each sermon depends on scripture from start to finish; taken all together, they reveal the gospel to be one single, consistent message throughout the Bible, from the beginning of Genesis to the end of Revelation.

Second, these sermons are tailored for seniors in that they incorporate suggestions and principles gleaned over years from residents and caregivers at our assisted living center. Special considerations for seniors include:

• Text is in large print. Many seniors commented that they like to be able to take a copy of the sermon with them and read it over again after the Sunday service.

• Scriptures quoted and their references are printed in full (no need to trot out the old family Bible to get the meaning).

• Scriptures are quoted from the Revised Standard Version of the Bible (RSV), which is respected for its scholarship, and which uses the American English of the 1900’s (those long-ago days!). The RSV also preserves much of the poetic beauty of the King James Version in its translation of the Psalms; and we are aware that many seniors grew up with the King James Version as their Bible.

• Topics covered in the sermons aim to bring seniors into the 21st Century cultural loop. The sermons provide information about the culture wars being waged against Christians and their families, and they provide solid scriptural responses to modern culture’s attacks on Christianity. This may be especially important for those seniors who find themselves in the position of respected family patriarch or matriarch, defending values which may seem out-of-date to younger people (such as grandchildren) but which are based on God’s timeless truths as found in the Bible.

• For some seniors there is now a Sunday morning vacuum, because they are physically unable to attend a church service, or unable to read a printed sermon. Visitation ministers may pray with home- or residence-bound seniors and encourage them, but it is not the same as receiving the Sunday morning preaching of the Word. Using this book, any caregiver – regardless of training – can read aloud a sermon to a senior who is hungry for the Word.

Sermon

1

Revisiting the Events of the First Easter

Read from Psalm 2:7-8

⁷ I will tell of the decree of the LORD:

He said to me, "You are my son,

      today I have begotten you.

⁸ Ask of me, and I will make the nations your heritage,

      and the ends of the earth your possession."

Not long ago, a senior at a residence home told me, If someone asked me to tell the Easter story, I’m not sure I could do it. My memory has gotten so bad, I can’t remember these things anymore. This is a familiar situation for many of us here – our memory does not function as well as it used to. So let’s take the opportunity this morning to review the events of Easter, and why they are important. We will start with the basics and work our way up.

Easter commemorates the day when Jesus Christ, the Son of God, rose from the dead.

To repeat: Easter commemorates the day when Jesus physically rose from the dead. He came out of the tomb. Then he talked with, and even ate with a number of people, who bore testimony to his resurrection.

Here are the twelve lines of the Apostles’ Creed (which many of us seniors probably used to recite on Sunday mornings in church). Notice how it summarizes the important facts about Jesus, with the line that pertains to Easter printed in bold.

Apostles’ Creed

1. I believe in God the Father, Almighty, Maker of heaven and earth,

2. And in Jesus Christ, his only Son, our Lord;

3. Who was conceived by the Holy Spirit, born of the Virgin Mary,

4. Suffered under Pontius Pilate, was crucified, dead and buried;

5. He descended to the dead. [This line is omitted by some denominations.]

6. On the third day he rose again from the dead;

7. He ascended into heaven, and sits at the right hand of God the Father Almighty;

8. From there he shall come to judge the living and the dead.

9. I believe in the Holy Spirit,

10. The holy catholic church, the communion of saints,

11. The forgiveness of sins,

12. The resurrection of the body,

13. And the life everlasting.

The third day he rose again from the dead – that third day when he rose from the dead is the day we celebrate as Easter. Of course, the creed gives a very terse and spare summary, so let’s begin to fill in some of the details.

We would like to start at the beginning, of course, but in the case of Jesus’ story, that raises a very interesting question: When actually was the beginning? Here’s what I mean: Jesus’ resurrection did not just happen. Jesus’ resurrection was part of a plan that had been in place from the beginning of history. (A preview for readers: In our next sermon – the following chapter – we will look at a key passage in Exodus which shows how God revealed to his people not only their coming Messiah but the cross on which the Messiah would sacrifice his life for their salvation.)

After Jesus’ resurrection, he met with his amazed and stunned disciples, and essentially said to them: What’s the matter with you? Didn’t I tell you that all this must happen to me? And didn’t the scriptures written hundreds of years ago say these things must happen to me? Here is Luke’s account of Jesus speaking to his disciples after his resurrection:

⁴⁴ Then he said to them, These are my words which I spoke to you, while I was still with you, that everything written about me in the law of Moses and the prophets and the psalms must be fulfilled. ⁴⁵ Then he opened their minds to understand the scriptures, ⁴⁶ and said to them, Thus it is written, that the Christ should suffer and on the third day rise from the dead, …

[Luke 24:44-46]

God had planned Christ’s suffering and resurrection from the beginning, and so the prophets of the Old Testament foretold it all. You could say that in order to start at the beginning of Jesus’ story, we would have to go back to the beginning of time!

It is important to know that when we tell the story of Jesus’ life, death, and resurrection, we are not telling events that just happened to occur – we are telling events that were under the complete control of God the Father Almighty. A sense of the awesomeness of God’s plan is to be found in every detail of the Easter story.

Let’s briefly review the events immediately leading up to Easter. After Jesus was crucified, Matthew’s gospel tells us that a man named Joseph of Arimathea took Jesus’ body and wrapped it in a clean linen shroud, and laid it in his own new tomb, which he had hewn in the rock; and he rolled a great stone to the door of the tomb, and departed. [Matthew 27:59-60] So Jesus was not buried down in the ground but was buried in a man-made cave, with a large stone sealing the entrance.

This all happened on Friday, which we refer to as Good Friday. The following day was the Jewish Sabbath, our Saturday – observed by them as a day of rest – and then the third day was the day after the Sabbath, which we now call Easter Sunday. Here is Matthew’s account of the women visiting the tomb early on Easter Sunday:

¹ Now after the sabbath, toward the dawn of the first day of the week, Mary Magdalene and the other Mary went to see the sepulchre. ² And behold, there was a great earthquake; for an angel of the Lord descended from heaven and came and rolled back the stone, and sat upon it. ³ His appearance was like lightning, and his raiment white as snow. ⁴ And for fear of him the guards trembled and became like dead men.

[Matthew 28:1-4]

The chief priests and Pharisees had sent soldiers to guard the tomb. They wanted to make sure Jesus’ disciples did not steal his body and then make a false claim that Jesus had been resurrected. But, of course, the guards were no match for the angel of the Lord!

Notice that the angel’s garments were white as snow and his appearance like lightning. Many of you ask the question periodically, What is heaven like? And I have to reply that I have not been there recently, so I cannot give you a detailed report! But one thing seems certain: Heaven is a place of light. We have read in the Old Testament that when Moses spoke with God face to face in the wilderness, he came away with his face shining so brightly that he had to put a veil over his face before other people would dare to approach him. And we have read how Jesus’ face and garments were transformed on the mount of Transfiguration, so that they shone brighter than any dye could possibly make them shine. And we have read that, when Jesus appeared to Paul on the road to Damascus, the light was so bright that Paul was temporarily blinded. Finally we have read in Revelation this description of the heavenly city, the New Jerusalem:

²² And I saw no temple in the city, for its temple is the Lord God the Almighty and the Lamb. ²³ And the city has no need of sun or moon to shine upon it, for the glory of God is its light, and its lamp is the Lamb. ²⁴ By its light shall the nations walk; and the kings of the earth shall bring their glory into it, ²⁵ and its gates shall never be shut by day—and there shall be no night there; …

[Revelation 21:22-25]

So we know already