Sermon April 12, 1998 A Beyond-Death Experience based on Luke 24:1-11
He is risen! He is risen, indeed! Amen.
The women came to the tomb early in the morning and found something wrong. It was not as they expected. The stone was rolled away. Jesus' body was missing. They wondered about this. What could explain this situation?
We know what happened. Jesus had a "Beyond-Death" experience. He died on the cross and then three days later rose to life. He moved beyond death. He was raised in a glorious, immortal body. In this same way, we who trust and follow Christ will be raised. Jesus' beyond-death experience previews for us what our beyond-death experience will be like.
Our world today is not very interested in talking about resurrection and Jesus' beyond death experience. Instead, "Near-Death" Experiences are the current rage. What is a near-death experience? Perhaps you think you know what a near-death experience is, but you may be working with an old definition. A near-death experience used to mean a close-call. It meant narrowly avoiding death in a car accident, almost falling off a cliff, or almost getting shot.
Today's definition of a near-death experience is mystical, psychic experience of dying and then coming back to life. People report certain sights and feelings that supposedly happened while they were dead and then they come back to life and remember these things. The Gallup Organization and near-death research studies have estimated some 13 million adults' near-death experiences in the US only. Others suggest more than 20 million.
If you start exploring the World Wide Web on the subject of near-death experiences, you find a world of information. You can read thousands of individual reports of what the near-death experience was like for certain people. These near-death experiences, also called barado experiences, are tied into a variety of other ideas, such as Eastern mysticism, New Age Philosophy, Out-of-body experiences, and UFO-mania. I found several web sites with phrases like: "You are gods." And one had the words, "the truth is within you," flashing in red letters. Among those claiming expertise in near-death experiences, there is much interest in Christian reincarnation. Reincarnation is certainly not Christian, however, since it suggests that our souls have always existed and simply move from other person to another until we are good enough to stay in heaven. Christianity teaches, not reincarnation, but resurrection, where the believer is brought back to life with the same body which is transformed into a heavenly, spiritual body. We also teach that unbelievers are resurrected, but they are sent to eternal punishment in hell.
It is not just on the internet, you also have books on the subject of near-death experiences. Betty Eadie had a New York Times bestseller called "Embraced by the Light." She gives one of the most detailed and most profound near death experience ever documented.
George Anderson is a psychic who claims to speak to the dead. He offers Grief Support Programs. In his supposed conversations with dead spirits, something God strictly forbids us to do, he claims to have learned all about what happens after death. He says:
"We're working our way up...When we pass on, we do go into the tunnel, we can go through these little darker levels, which can represent a form of hell or purgatory, because these are the two negative levels, or the darker ones. But if we've been a good person, we generally just seem to pass through them very quickly and then we go on through the third and fourth levels of consciousness...It depends on the person. You're in control. You hold the reins."
These sorts of ideas are clearly of the devil, for they directly contradict with the primary teaching of Christianity, that we cannot save ourselves and are completely dependent on Christ. We believe that we cannot work ourselves to heaven, for our lives are full of sin, and we have a sinful nature since conception. Yet, God in His mercy sent His Son Jesus who died on the cross, paying the penalty for our sins. Then He rose again, showing us that we have a future life, a resurrected life to look forward to. This is communicated to us by God's Word, our source of truth.
We have to wonder at the truth coming out of near-death experiences. Certainly we cannot claim to know if all these 20 million people have had these experiences. You cannot disprove someone else's experiences. However, there are other explanations, such as Susan Blackmore proposes in her book, Dying to Live. The author says most of these near-death experience reports can be accounted for by purely physiological causes, the result of the brain shutting down, along with a person's preconceptions.
The danger is that many people are following these people who are speaking errors rather than God's truth. Many people would much rather pay to listen to a psychic rather than read or come hear God's Word for free. People are being sucked into believing those who claim to know what lies after this life. They are being led away from the truth.
Today we celebrate the resurrection of Christ. One day in a year is probably not enough to remember something which is so important and central to our faith. 1 Cor 15:14 says "And if Christ is not risen, then our preaching is empty and your faith is also empty." Without the Resurrection, our faith is empty, meaningless. It goes on to say, "And if Christ is not risen, your faith is futile; you are still in your sins! Then also those who have fallen asleep in Christ have perished. If in this life only we have hope in Christ, we are of all men the most pitiable." See how the entire basis of our faith is the resurrection. Without it, we should be pitied. Without it, we are still in our sins, for either Jesus Christ was not who He said He was, or God doesn't keep His promises. If He was not raised, then Christ's death was not the perfect sacrifice for sins and we still have a permanent death to look forward to as the punishment for our sins. However, our faith focuses on Christ being raised. Christ's death was the perfect sacrifice-it was acceptable in God's eyes, and He therefore raised Christ again.
Without the resurrection, those who have fallen asleep in Christ, believers who have died, have perished. They are lost, and there is no hope for them, unless Jesus was raised from the dead proving that we too will be raised from the dead.
If we only have faith for this life, we should be pitied. We should be pitied for our false hope. Doesn't it seem as if unbelievers have an easier time of it in this life. They can live their life without a care about offending God, chosing to sin freely. We, on the other hand struggle to resist sin's temptation. If we have no hope for the resurrection, then we are just fools for following Christ. Yet, He was raised and we too will be raised. This is the central focus of our faith. This is the confidence we should all look towards. This is where we set our sights. This is where God leads us, to the truth of the empty tomb and the risen Christ.
God's Word leads us to the truth. We cannot always trust our experiences. We can trust God's experiences, however. Jesus experienced more than near-death. He experienced full-death. He went through-death, and beyond-death, into resurrected life. This resurrected life is promised for us also.
We are at risk when we begin to trust the experiences which other people report having. We run into trouble trusting human experience, for our sinful nature wants to deceive us and lead us away from God. The Devil is also constantly at work, and could well be working through various evil angels speaking to mystics and psychics. These people are reporting things which don't agree with God's Word, and therefore we must reject it.
God is the only reliable source we have for knowledge about the future. He is in charge and determines the outcome. Our Lord has promised us a resurrection as Jesus experienced. We are promised a glorified body. We are promised life-everlasting when Christ returns. This we believe and trust, because God is speaking it to us.
We also trust, because Jesus' resurrection was vastly different than the near-death experiences people are claiming. They claim to experience the afterlife, but their bodies remain. They claim to have had an experience, but the world does not see any results. There are no physical signs. Only one person witnesses to what they said happened.
Jesus did not just claim some experience. He did not experience only the feelings of resurrection, He really was resurrected. And there were the physical signs. There was the open, empty tomb. There were the grave cloths. There were the angels, who told the women that they should not look for a live man in a place of the dead. And there was Jesus walking around, talking to people, even eating with a body. Jesus appeared to many people following His resurrection, but prior to His ascention. Jesus' resurrection was witnessed by many and reported to us in God's own Word of truth. In combination with all this evidence, we have Jesus' promise to rise again, which He spoke over and over before He was crucified. The angels remind the women of this promise of Jesus in our text, and then the light-bulb clicks on, and they believe the resurrection.
We can only pity those who find it easier to believe the psychics and mystics and the near-death experiences of others. They are putting their hope in themselves. They believe that they are gods. They believe all sorts of nonsense, but they find it hard to believe that Jesus was resurrected. They have therefore rejected their only source of hope. They have cut off their future in heaven and have condemned themselves to eternal punishment.
Let us, instead, follow our Lord Jesus. He was no longer among the dead when the women went to look for Him. "He is not here, He is risen," said the angels. Let us follow the one who died for our sins, and rose so we might rise into eternal life, Jesus Christ. Amen.
The peace of God which passes all understanding keep your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus. Amen.