Happy Easter!  A joyous Resurrection to each of you!  In spite of Daylight Savings Time, I hope you're still smiling at the blessings God has given you this Easter.  The gifts of Easter are far greater than those of Christmas.  The newborn baby Jesus is great, but the risen Savior of Easter is far better.  At Christmas it's the peace of a holy family, but at Easter it's the peace that surpasses all understanding.  At Christmas we're given a promise, but Easter is the promise fulfilled.

          "So what did the Easter Bunny bring you?" we ask.  Now that doesn't mean we think an almighty rabbit has gone to every house with a bagful of eggs and chicks.  We're asking whether this Easter was any different from past Easters.  Giving gifts, you know, is big business.  Gifts at birthdays, anniversaries, or weddings are a big time enterprise.  Our going away gifts, house warming gifts, appreciation gifts, and romantic gifts all keep flower shops, Hallmark Cards and Wal-Mart humming along.  Did you know there are only 261 shopping days left till Christmas?  Better yet, there are only 28 shopping days till my birthday, but of course I don't expect anything.  (Not that I've haven't been dropping hints here and there!)

          Oh, how we love to get gifts!  But how are we at giving them?  I think there are three kinds of gift-givers:  1) those who love giving them,  2) those who struggle even to remember giving one much less finding a good one, and  3) those who don't give gifts at all.  I'm the second.  I want to give gifts, but am not very good at it.  I usually rely on Carol who's an expert at that.  She loves the giving and the shopping that goes with it, and claims to have invented the term, "power shopper!"

          God loves to give us gifts, too.  He showers us with them, and they're always the right ones.  We may want a certain thing, but He gives us what we need.  We may want something tangible, but He gives us something lasting, like joy and peace and hope and friendship.  Our gifts will grow old, or break, or get lost in the closet, or fade from memory, but not His.  God's gifts are eternal, for they come from the Almighty and Eternal One who knows our needs and still provides them.

          St. Peter's words in today's text talk about two precious gifts from God - Hope and Inneritance.  Hope is for life today and Inheritance is for life in heaven.  What incredible gifts they are!  Hope keeps us going in this life till we get the Inheritance, and the Inheritance joins us together with God in the endless joys of heaven.

          Both are perfect gifts.  They are needed, appropriate, timely, and precious.  They're always in style, and can't be worn out, stolen or broken.  God's gifts of Hope and Inheritance have a special quality unlike any other gifts - you can give them away, yet still keep them.  They're meant to be shared.  Both have a common element - faith.  You pass on your Hope in Jesus, thereby sharing your Inheritance in Jesus.  You keep them both by giving them away.

          What's so great about hope?  Well, in order to live, you and I need a future - that's pretty obvious.  Hope belongs to life.  The things we hope for, and the way we hope for them, make us what we are.  Hope is the expectation of something good.  I suppose a person could have a hope for something bad, but there'd be something grossly wrong with that person.  Godly Hope is seizing the promise of life and salvation by faith.  To have Hope is to have a future, and even if the future might contain trouble or turmoil, that future is good, because it's a future that includes God.

          This morning some of us saw a video called, "The Whirlpool of Depression."  It featured a lovely and successful Christian artist who got caught in the hopelessness of sin and failure.  It seemed a strange topic for the Sunday after Easter, but depression strikes whenever it wants.  It takes a powerful gift to overcome depression, a gift only God can give.  It takes hope...

          In 1994, the city of Sarajevo was under siege.  Mortars and artillery fire had transformed once beautiful buildings into rubble.  Sarajevo's citizens were frightened, weary and increasingly despondent.  Then, one February day, a mortar shell exploded in the market killing 68 civilians and wounding many more.  That day a cellist with the Sarajevo symphony could no longer stand the death and destruction.  He took his cello to the market, sat down amidst the rubble and played a concert.  When he finished, he picked up his instrument and left.  Every day, for 67 days, he came to the market.  Every day he played a concert, his gift of love to the city.  He did it because he felt his community needed hope.

          Hope is music in the heart.  It is a gift given each of us to see us through the night.  Once you've lost hope, you have little left at all.  Hopelessness kills everything it touches, but a living hope gives us strength to continue, whether it be in a marriage worth saving, a situation worth salvaging or a life worth living.  Hope is a Godly, spiritual thing.  When all is in chaos and ruin, hope from God is the knowledge that the music still goes on.  In this vast and infinite universe, we are not alone.  During those times when all may seem to be crumbling down around you, listen for the music in your heart -- the song of hope given you by the Lord.  Listen carefully, for it is there, played for you by God who loves you.

          The events of September 11 have brought us to the edge of hysteria.  We're all more than a little paranoid about our safety.  Since last fall, we've lived looking over our shoulder, waiting for something else bad to happen, waiting for the other shoe to drop.  Or we live expecting the worst is yet to come.  Some of us believe the fellow who said, "If it weren't for bad luck, I'd have no luck at all."  We believe life will club us over the head when we're not watching.

          It's hard not to get paranoid when you're terrorized by the trivial.  It's hard not to lose hope when you feel swamped by nonsense.  The expectations of our godless culture today are like Minnesota mosquitos that bite at you and pick at you and simply won't go away.  We're so often busy feeling guilty for not doing the right things, not thinking the right things or not acting the right way, that hope just flies out the door.  So why is life still such a problem?  With all this technology, life should be perfect.  We must not be doing it right.

          In such an atmosphere, hope is easily lost, especially if we believe we are the source of hope.  And most people do believe that.  "If it's going to be, it's up to me!" they learn in self-improvement seminars.  People are led to believe they're the source of everything.  Look deep inside and they'll find the solution.  But the real problem is not lack of human potential, it's an overabundance of sin.

          Sin robs us of hope, because it only shows our failures.  Sin is a killer problem and we'll never find the solution inside ourselves.  The only real solution is with Jesus.  He's our only source of true hope.  He gives us today that we can't get by ourselves.  Without Him you and I are truly hope-less.  We all want security in life, but sin keeps us uneasy, restless and always wondering if we've done enough.  Only in Jesus, the resurrected One, do we have hope and peace for today.

          And that's where the Inheritance comes in, the second gift of Easter.  Peter tells us of the Inheritance we'll receive.  "Blessed be God and the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ!  By His great mercy we have been born anew to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, and to an inheritance which is imperishable, undefiled and unfading, kept in heaven for you...."  Leah's essay told us of the hope we all can have through God's love for us in Jesus.

          Several years ago I received a small inheritance from my Aunt Marie.  She died just short of her 96th birthday, and because she had never married, we were her kids, so she left a small amount to each of her dozen nephews and nieces.  I felt funny getting it, knowing she had worked so hard as a nurse for 53 years, living on meager wages.  But her Will was made out that way, so I bought something as a remembrance of Aunt Marie.  Sadly, I can't remember now what it was.  Her real inheritance to us were the memories and the attention and the love she gave all of us, the things money can't buy.

          Contrast that inheritance to Stanley McKenna Walker, the son of a wealthy British shipbuilder.  At age 50, he was heir to a $20 million fortune in England, but he had become a drunk on Chicago's skid row.  For years, he barely survived by eating garbage and sleeping in two-bit hotels.  When his inheritance was due him, authorities searched the saloons and flop houses.  When they finally located him, they learned that he had just died the night before in an alley behind a Chicago rescue mission.  His inheritance was great, but he never got a penny of it.

          To get an inheritance, someone has to die.  Our inheritance comes because Jesus died for us.  Through His death, we have an inheritance more precious than anything.  In His resurrection we have hope that we'll be in heaven.  This inheritance and this hope will never fade away.  They are the Easter gifts from God to all who believe Jesus rose from the dead for our salvation.

          These are wonderful gifts of Easter and we need them.  They're timely and precious - and they're ours!  They're always in style and can't be worn out.  They'll never be stolen or broken.  We can return them or reject them, but who would want to?  "Blessed be God and the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ!"  Let's give them away.  God would want that.  Freely we have received, so let's freely give.  Share your faith!  Invite someone to church.  Give them the gift that lasts.  Amen!

Copyright © 2002 by Pastor Bob Tasler.  All rights reserved.