Easter Sunday Sermons

An examination of the necessity of the new birth as it appears in Resurrection Sunday sermons.

This sermon was doctrinally strong because it clearly taught Christ’s resurrection, bodily resurrection, Adam and Christ, union with Christ, and even the necessity of being born again, but its chief weakness was that these truths were stated more than they were pressed upon the congregation as present spiritual diagnosis and summons.

Even at the sermon's moment of application, there is no searching question, no repentance, no confrontation with sin, no “Are you justified?”, no summons to bow before the risen Lord. The conclusion summarizes labels rather than pressing the claims of the risen Christ upon the conscience.

Although this Easter sermon contains strong doctrines of sin, judgment, substitution, reconciliation, and resurrection hope, its refrain that “Jesus undoes death” flattens the twofold nature of death and risks weakening the necessity of the new birth.

Believing that the resurrection happened is not the same as being born again; saving faith is the Spirit-wrought coming to the crucified and risen Christ as one’s own Lord and God. This sermon had great warmth but not enough heat to press the need to be born again.

A warm evangelical Easter sermon that invites a human response, but blurs resurrection into ascension and Pentecost, speaks vaguely of new life, and fails to press that sinners must be born again by the Spirit to come savingly to Christ.

This sermon mishandles the necessity and meaning of the new birth by reducing regeneration to inward resurrection power for fighting sin, rather than grounding it in Christ’s atoning work, imputed righteousness, justification, adoption, and the regenerate believer’s present communion with God.

This Easter sermon presents the risen Jesus as a glorious, sovereign, comforting Friend who is present with his church and in control of the future, but it largely omits the Reformed doctrines of sin, atonement, new birth, repentance, justification, and true gospel comfort.

The wounded and risen Christ reveals himself through his atoning wounds, seeks out unbelieving hearts, and calls us through the written Word to believe and have resurrection life in Christ's name.

This sermon misuses Ezekiel 37 by stripping it of its covenantal-exilic context, turning a vision of God raising his judged people by Word and Spirit into a therapeutic message of hope over death, thereby weakening sin, Christ’s atoning work, and the urgent necessity of the new birth.

Easter does not proclaim the improvement for slaves within the bondage of sin, but instead the new birth of the dead into resurrection life through union with Christ.

This excerpt is wonderfully scriptural in showing Mary recognising the risen Christ only when he personally calls her by name, yet the sermon does not press upon the hearer that we too remain blind until Christ effectually calls us and gives us life.