Gettysburg Presbyterian Church

Think Resurrection
Luke 24:1-5; I Peter 1:3-9
Gettysburg Presbyterian Church
Harry G. Winsheimer
April 12, 2009 - Easter

Dreams. Visions of the future. Have you any dynamic ones? An upcoming marriage? This spring, making the baseball squad? Graduating and getting a $60,000.00 first job. Kids achieving to their potential? A promotion? Dreams catalyze us. They energize us, don’t they?

Or, had you dreams? Had you visions that died? An awesome wedding that veered into a junkyard of a marriage? No place on the team? A career that feels like being on our town’s square, going round and round, and not getting where you planned to go? Too low of a score on the S.A.T.? Crucified dreams hurt so much. Crashed visions feel like Calvary and it is all over.

"I had a dream." "I had a dream" is the way one young man put it. Writing to his church's newsletter, he expressed despair, cynicism and pessimism over the "death of idealism, of passion and dreaming ... of transforming vision." He complained of the almost ubiquitous death of dreaming among his peers He must feel as if he is on Calvary, at 2:00 Good Friday afternoon.

Peter, Andrew, Mary Magdalene, Joanna, the others--they had a dream–a transforming vision in which Jesus starred. They committed themselves to him. He was the answer. He was the revelation from God. They cheered till hoarse as he entered Jerusalem. Then, on Friday, the dream bled and sighed its end. Joseph from Arimathea mustered the nerve to ask Pilate for the corpse. Wrapping it in linen cloth, he laid it in a cave carved from solid rock, the elegant hole which he planned for himself. A large disk of rock was rolled over the entrance. Soldiers were placed on guard. No shenanigans allowed. Sealed up. Stoned shut. Over! You can't have a rotting corpse for a star. How do you dream next to the tomb?

The Tempter exclaims in glee, “Got you! Got you!” The Tempter would have us be self-absorbed, ruminating on how we are cheated, fantasying about giving comeuppance, focusing our thoughts on avoiding failure, and feeling defensive. The Tempter teases: "Think victim! Think victim! Dream escape! Dream escape! You are on the cross! You are on the cross, and you don’t deserve to be! Whine: I had a dream. I had a dream."

In contrast, God would have us dream of life-giving possibilities. Think resurrection! Dream resurrection dreams. Visualize a new approach. Go ahead--let your imagination create! Use resurrection thinking!

Dale E. Galloway wrote of inspired imagination in his book, titled, “Rebuild Your Life,” in which he used Christian thinking to help people recover from a crisis. It is a simple, and very helpful little book.

Two summers ago my wife Margi and I attended Dr. Robert Schuller's Institute for Successful Church Leadership in Garden Grove, California. We met people who had dared to dream some pretty fantastic dreams. One man I met, whom I judge to be in his sixties, had ten years previously become burdened for young single adults, and dared to dream a beautiful dream. Single young adults in most churches are left out, and yet their needs are unequaled by any other age group. His dream was to create an alive vital program to meet the needs of single young adults. Here was a man in his fifties without training, without experience, without funds, but with a beautiful dream of helping [young singles] ... . He went to work, wholeheartedly giving himself completely to the fulfillment of the dream. Today there are hundreds of single young people involved in that great Christian single adult program. It all started with a layman who had a [God-inspired] dream.

The long months following my [Dale E. Galloway's] father's death were sheer pain, grief, and loss for my mother. At sixty-nine years of age, when the man for whom you have lived your life is suddenly gone, what do you do? You go out in public and you feel like a lost soul in the middle of the crowd. You drive past a restaurant, and your heart is pricked with pain as you remember that this is the place [where] you ate every Saturday night. At night in the big house you are alone, and you are afraid. How do you fill up all the endless hours? What do you do? How do you put it all together?

Two thousand and five hundred miles away, Margi and I did not know what we could do to help. We would call Mom each week and talk to her, but we felt so helpless. She seemed so full of gloom, despair, and loss. [Cross time] If it were not for her faith in God, I do not know how she would have made it through this time of brokenness. Mother had always been a very active person, and all the inactivity was killing her inch by inch.

Then a miracle started! I received a letter. In it Mother shared with me about a possible opportunity to form and direct a senior citizen's ministry in a large church in Mt. Vernon, Ohio, where she lives. For the first time since my father's passing, the letter had some hope, optimism and cheer in it. Mother wanted to know what I thought. I immediately wrote back and said: "Get involved. Dream a new dream."

At seventy years of age my mother's life has come alive again--because she has dreamed a new dream. What a difference in her letters, in her conversation, in her outlook. Her new dream has given her a new lease on life. Days are filled with planning, programming, directing the new Joy Club. J - O - Y, she tells me, stands for "Just Old Youth."

The resurrection is God's dramatic infomercial for dreaming godly dreams! Jesus was dead. The stone sealed the tomb. It was over. But, God rolled away the stone! God raised him to life! God imagined a new life for him.

Are you imagining a future in Christ’s service? In your dreams, in your vision of your future, do you see Christ and serving people?

You may be saying in your mind, “Preacher, I don’t have any visions. I can’t dream any new dreams.” If you are saying to me, “No, pastor, I can’t picture myself doing anything,” then I challenge you in Christ’s name. I am telling you to question your self-understanding. You are well-enough and strong enough to come here this morning; then you have abilities that God may use. God can stimulate your imagination.

Don’t follow the strategy of this man! He was bitter and discouraged. He had a right to be. His life had been flipped over. He was on his back, literally and emotionally. “I can’t make it. What am I going to do? The problems just keep growing! There is no solution.” He had taken to his bed, because he did not know what else to do. I said to him, “Take a small step today. Be nice to the nurses. Smile at the other patients when you go for a walk, even if you don’t feel like it. Ask them how they are and about their lives.” He replied as if I had not spoken, “I don’t know what is going to happen to me. I don’t know who is going to take care of me. I don’t know what I did wrong that God is punishing me.” Bad thinking! Self-destructive thinking! He had the ability to smile, to be nice to the staff. But he did not have the thinking. If you cannot dream any dreams of serving God, if you are excusing yourself, then examine your thinking. Discipline yourself to ask different questions. Pray for God to help you think new thoughts. Pray that God support you in doing something different and helpful, even if you don’t feel like it–until your feelings catch up.

Take pen in hand. Write down a dream of joining God in improving the world. God will work with and through you. Write down a dream.

Examine your dream. Does your dream bless only you? Then you need to ask for a second dream. God's dreams for us never are just for ourselves. Always God's dreams bless someone else. Jesus' death and resurrection were God's dream, but they were not just for Jesus. They were to bless us. In the name and spirit of God, I challenge you. The resurrection is not just to be celebrated. We celebrate with music and flowers, as we should. But, the resurrection was not intended as an occasion for beautiful services, Easter bunnies, Easter outfits and parades. It was a lesson in living! It was a lesson in thinking! Peter, Andrew, Mary Magdalene, Joanna and the others--they were there. They knew the resurrection. Then, did they walk through their lives seeking relaxation and avoiding pain? Did they go off to live in isolated fun in the Bahamas? NO! A thousand Nos! They shouted to the world: Jesus lives! They announced the Gospel.

And, hope is so like God! Resurrection is consistent with God’s personality and modus operandi. The psalmist refers to God as the Good Shepherd who “restores my soul.” That could be translated as the Good Shepherd who “brings back my vitality.” I like that. Nicodemus sneaked to see Jesus during the night to question him privately. Jesus told him something strange, “No one comes to see the kingdom of God, unless he is born again.” Reborn. Peter wrote with delight, “By God’s great mercy, God has given us a new birth into a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ”. The Apostle Paul describes converts to Christ as so significantly changed in their relationship with God, their values, and relationships with people that they are “new creations.” Out of love, the core energy of God, God inspires hope through the resurrection. Resurrection thinking is hope-thinking. It is trusting God to renew life on April 12, 2009, April 13, April 14.

Take pen in hand. Pray. Write down a dream. Write down at least one godly dream that will bless someone. Use resurrection thinking.

We visited my father, one of the church's saints. Perpetually moving, never twiddling his thumbs, always busy from before dawn till after dark, he was an incredibility vibrant man. He was born at home and at age 86 spent his first night in the hospital when he had a heart attack. A year later, Charlotte and I visited. Charlotte was doing his wash and vacuuming the house. I was cleaning the bathrooms. I walked by the dining room. There he sat in the old rocker in front of the window, motionless, staring out – a self-sufficient man now dependent. After composing myself, I took Windex and paper towel and washed the outside of his window. Unrealistic to expect him to use much resurrection thinking to bless someone. No longer could he imagine grand dreams for this world. But, he could think resurrection! He could imagine the ultimate: seeing Jesus, face to face. I began with a young man who felt that he was on Calvary, full of self-pity and whining. God wants him to hop off his cross, look to the resurrection, dream, use resurrection thinking, and join God in creating a better world. He will have a fuller life. I close with an old man who still could dream the ultimate resurrection dream, one for all ages of life: seeing Jesus, face to face.

Leonard I. Sweet, Homiletics [Vol. 7, No. 2, April-June 1995], p. 12, as quoted by Sharon Dawn Johnson, "Vision in Mission," The Gospel and Our Culture 5 [September 1993]: p. 5).

Dale E. Galloway, Rebuild Your Life, (Portland, Oregon: Scott Publishing, 1975), pp. 94-96.