“In Heaven and On Earth”

(Col 3:1-4; Mtt 28) JG White ~ 10:30 am, Resurrection Sunday, April 5, 2026, FBC Amherst

It has been quite a week. Would you agree? For several reasons, I’d say, not just Holy Week for Christians and Passover for Jews. Not just Bill Riley’s funeral here yesterday with hundreds of people.

We saw the Artemis II Mission launch. I watched some of the live broadcast. With our Canadian astronaut on board. Exciting, and makes one think and wonder. I wonder about a few things. Of course, there are still a few people who deny the original Moon landings half a century ago. They were faked, apparently. 

Maybe that’s like folks who think Jesus the Christ did not actually exist, back in history. Or many others who simply don’t believe much of the story we tell, from the Bible. We are speaking an ancient story, told from the world view of two thousand years ago in the Middle East. Even though we have it in English, it is like it is still in a different language. In our modern, Western world, we learn to ‘speak’ this language, and interpret it. We keep talking of Heaven and Earth, even though most of us do not expect to live in the afterlife out in space somewhere. The full Bible explanation actually has our afterlife here, upon a new earth with new heavens above.

This resurrection celebration, Easter, we tell the stories in the old-fashioned way. This year we heard the version from the first Gospel. Matthew’s telling of the resurrection is dramatic and brief. And he zooms ahead to end with Jesus meeting the disciples back in Galilee to give them one final pep talk before He leaves them. Jesus uses that up there and down here language, of course. “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Go therefore and make disciples of all nations…” 

The heavens, the realm of God and many spiritual beings, was for those ancient peoples up in the farthest reaches of the sky. When God and the heavens reached down to earth, and touched, that was holiness and power. No wonder mountaintops were sacred. Along with special places like the Tabernacle in the wilderness, or the Hebrew Temple in Jerusalem. 

The story of Jesus’ sufferings, death, and resurrection, stir us to rejoice in this great connection of God with us and our world. God comes into our earthy life, and our life is lifted up into God. Our heavenly images are united with our earthly, mortal existence. 

Christians keep using these Bible pictures. We sing them. Last week I noticed in a songbook at Christ Church a popular tune I learned in the 90s, ‘Lord, I Lift Your Name on High.’ To Jesus:

You came from heaven to earth, to show the way;

From the earth to the cross, my debt to pay;

From the cross to the grave, from the grave to the skies;

Lord, I lift Your name on high.

We honour and worship Jesus today, of all days of the year. The One who brings together the heavenly and the earthly, the mortal and the eternal, the sadly separate and the blessedly together. Think: where in your life have you been touched by resurrection? Where have you seen heaven come down and overlap with your life? 

Often, in April, I remember David. Rev. David Porter. A few years older than me, I first met him before he was Reverend, but was a mature student at Divinity College. David’s wife and three children cheered him on as he entered the ministry. Many people did. He was a big personality. A capable businessman, a fast driver of his motorcycle, uh… what else can I say about him? He had come out of the Windsor Baptist Church, where I became Pastor, and had a lot of friends there who had a lot of stories about David’s adventures. 

I remember his ordination, as he started ministry at the Scotch Village Baptist Church, an old, historic, country church. 

I remember the next year when he became ill and was in hospital in Halifax. The illness was debilitating and mysterious. What was it that affected his mobility and his vision and so on? He was miserable. We never quite found the answer. I remember the special prayer service one evening in the Scotch Village Church. The place was packed. I recall I gave a very long heartfelt prayer that night. 

And then I remember Easter Sunday. That year it was on April 11^th. David died that Resurrection morning, in hospital. He was forty years old. So I often think of David on April 11^th, and on Easter, which usually are two separate days. 

The extravagance of God was seen in the life of David Porter. And the hope of resurrection sustains us even yet, remembering him gone, but not dead for good. In Christ, David is alive. 

That was an Easter time funeral – which I don’t really remember. The other side of this is that I don’t think I have ever been to an Easter wedding. I had grandparents who got married on Christmas Day, 1945; but I haven’t heard of Easter weddings. They do happen. And they too can celebrate the Resurrection. 

Such as this one. A couple out west, years ago, named Margaret Smith and David Gilchrist. Listen to these bits from their wedding invitation. Imagine getting a wedding invitation like this…

Margaret and Alan Smith settled in Three Hills a decade ago, after serving as minister in Zambia, Montreal, Saskatoon and Stettler. A couple of years ago, Alan was diagnosed as having Pseudo Bulbar Palsy, which took his life in January, 1990 after eight years of physical but not mental deterioration. 

David and Margaret Rose Gilchrist moved to Innisfail 13 years ago, after serving churches in Morse, Uranium City and Calgary; and visited the Smiths a couple of times before her cancer was diagnosed. She suffered for two years before death brought her respite in August, 1989.

Last fall we decided to accompany each other to a concert and discovered that we had a lot more in common than a love of music and a distaste for loneliness. (Ralph Milton, Sermon Seasonings, 120-121)

We have both experienced a kind of descent into Hades, and now there is an element of resurrection for us. So Easter seemed an appropriate time to do it. Both the wedding and the supper to follow are open to all. We hope you’ll join us. 

How’s that for a wedding invitation? How’s that for a resurrection? 

 Heaven comes to Earth, so to speak. Heaven even descends into hell. That’s what gets said about yesterday, Holy Saturday. Jesus descending to the dead, or into hell, as the ancient Christian creed says. Psalm 139 prays: If I ascend to heaven, you are there; 

if I make my bed in Sheol, you are there.

Not that those ancient people of faith saw heaven and hell the same way we might. They didn’t. But resurrection can touch every imaginable place of life, and death, and things that are worse than death. Jesus reaches everything, and reaches out for everyone. 

As Matthew has Jesus say, all authority ‘in heaven and on earth’ is given to Jesus. In spite of the world as it is, Jesus lives!

That bit of scripture from Colossians is also in the language of the heavens and the earth. It’s short; hear it again and see that imagery. So if you have been raised with Christ, seek the things that are above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God. Set your minds on the things that are above, not on the things that are on earth, for you have died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God. When Christ who is [y]our life is revealed, then you also will be revealed with him in glory. The things that are ‘above’ are available to be seen, here and now, thanks to God in Christ Jesus. 

We think of the last words of Matthew’s Gospel as the last words of Jesus on earth to His disciples. What are they? “And remember, I am with you always, to the end of the age.”

Jesus, gone, but not gone. This is our resurrection. This is our life. Hallelujah! Amen.