Although I was baptized in infancy, raised in the church during my early childhood, and attended groups and events for Christian children and youth until my adulthood, I still had a powerful conversion experience. In fact, I daily have a powerful conversion experience. It is so, that every time I hear the gospel read, preached, sung, or spoken, I am brought from death into life. This goes hand in hand with Baptism as Luther teaches in his Small Catechism, when he says that the meaning of Baptism, which is a one time objective event that is done to us, is that every day the old Adam in us should be drowned and die with our sins and evil desires by our turning away from them toward Christ in faith, and that we rise again together as new creatures in Christ Jesus righteous before God for the sake of Christ our Lord. We are baptized once into Christ, and indeed all who have been baptized have put on Christ, yet, this is not a past, but a daily and present reality. This is not so different from my call to preach the Gospel. When some people speak of their call to the ministry they speak about a particular experience where it dawned on them how they should be using their skills, gifts, and desires for the good of their neighbour. Some speak of an internal feeling that they have. Others talk about a gradual process of God placing them in a particular context among particular people who they naturally serve in a pastoral manner. For myself, at least on this occasion, I want to talk about the call of Easter, the call to preach.
Luke 24: But on the first day of the week, at early dawn, they went to the tomb, taking the spices they had prepared. 2And they found the stone rolled away from the tomb, 3but when they went in they did not find the body of the Lord Jesus. 4While they were perplexed about this, behold, two men stood by them in dazzling apparel. 5And as they were frightened and bowed their faces to the ground, the men said to them, “Why do you seek the living among the dead? 6He is not here, but has risen. Remember how he told you, while he was still in Galilee, 7that the Son of Man must be delivered into the hands of sinful men and be crucified and on the third day rise.” 8And they remembered his words 9and returning from the tomb they told all these things to the eleven and to all the rest10Now it was Mary Magdalene and Joanna and Mary the mother of James and the other women with them who told these things to the apostles
What makes the call of Easter so special, is that it has no special claim upon a particular walk with God, an experience, or a feeling. In fact it isn’t actually a claim to authority, it isn’t really even an office. It is truly in the barest sense, a call. For the majority of my youth, I attended Christian youth groups faithfully. But I did not hear the gospel preached. I knew that Christ was resurrected, but I had no idea what that meant. I knew that Christ died, but I didn’t know that He had taken my sins. I had thought for my whole life up to that point that Christ was a moral teacher who instructed me in the way of salvation, even the one who made it possible for me by helping me, and giving me grace when I slipped up. But nobody had bothered to explain grace to me. For all of the youth group skits, the analogies and illustrations, and even youth group sermon props, the forgiveness of sins was never uttered out of anyone’s mouth. This may seem crazy to you, but this is just what happened in the case of Jesus’ disciples. They had misunderstood Christ being the Messiah to mean that He would save Israel from Roman oppression and lead a military revolt, reinstating the kingdom of David and a new golden age of material prosperity, even moral holiness. They paid attention to Christ’s miracles, and observed His holy life, but every time He preached the Gospel to them saying that He would be delivered to sinners to be crucified by them and on the third day rise they closed their ears and hardened their hearts. These women, going to the tomb expected to find a failed hope they expected to find a dead body of the man who was supposed to be their great political leader. But instead they found the Gospel. Why do you seek the living among the dead? Don’t you remember what He told you? As I heard the gospel preached for the first time I was utterly shattered. The preacher began by telling me that I didn’t just need a little help, I wasn’t just struggling to walk the way of salvation, but I had in fact torched the bridge to the other side and broken my own legs. There was no race to run. The was no ladder to climb. The grace that I had been taught up to that point didn’t account for hopeless situations, it still made demands, and requirements of me. I was brought face to face with a failed hope. Just as the disciples hope of a political leader was lost by Him surrendering His own life to the Roman authorities that He was supposed to crush in military combat, so I had lost my hope in earning salvation through being a good person by the preaching of the Law which told me that I was condemned to eternal death before a holy and righteous God. But then as the preacher continued, I heard that Christ’s death was suffered for my sake and in my stead, that His righteousness was counted as mine, and that my sins were utterly and completely forgiven. And just as with these women, who in their culture would have caused disgrace doing what they did. They had no authority, no office, men and women didn’t even have equal rights. You can bet that they didn’t have an internal feeling that they ought to or maybe even want to do this. And yet the Angel said, “Go quickly and tell his disciples that he has risen from the dead” (Matt 28:7). It was no different for me. As soon as I returned home from my youth camp, I dug into Scripture, I joined a local church, and I asked to preach at my youth group, and then was invited back, and then was invited to other churches in area to serve their youth groups, I was a man of singular obsession, and still am. I am first and foremost a preacher of the Gospel. Every time my eyes see the salvation of the Lord, every time my ears hear the good news of Christ Jesus, every time my mouth tastes the body and blood broken and shed for the forgiveness of sins I am called again to preach the gospel of Christ Jesus crucified for the forgiveness of sins. I am totally and completely possessed by the gospel of grace given to us in Jesus Christ our risen Lord. “I am compelled to preach. Woe to me if I do not preach the gospel!” (1 Cor 9:16).
