Sermon Illustration: Preacher, Please Don’t Do This

Last updated on: March 30, 2018 at 10:26 am by Matt Pearson

Sermon Illustration: Preacher, Please Don’t Do This 2018-03-28T20:42:02-05:00 Matt Pearson

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Preacher, this Sunday is April 1st.

This Sunday is also Easter Sunday.

Thatâ€™s right – Easter Sunday is on April Foolâ€™s Day.

For those of you who know me, you know I am ALL about using anything to get peopleâ€™s attention.

Even at the risk of being cheesy.Â Sometimes way too cheesy.

So maybe this is a warning to myself as much as it is to any preacher who reads this. If you are anything like me, you will be tempted to start the sermon with a quip about how Jesusâ€™ bones have been found; or that it was determined recently that we have been wrong about the location of the tomb of Jesus; or something similar. You might be tempted to go on and on and on about how JesusÂ really didn’t rise from the dead.

Why might you be tempted to do this? To set up the audience so you can deliver the â€œApril Fools!â€ line. Then, if you really want to lower the boom (I am kidding here, of course), you can say, â€œThough it is true that Jesus is alive, how many of you are living as if Heâ€™s still in the tomb?â€

The ultimate Jesus-Juke.

I get it. Iâ€™ve done similar things before and will probably do similar things again. There are times when setting up a congregation in order to drop the proverbial â€œbombâ€ is necessary to bring the truth home.

But not Easter Sunday. Especially Easter Sunday on April Foolâ€™s Day.

Why?

One, because those who will be coming donâ€™t need cheesy. Many of them donâ€™t come at other times of the year because they already think church is irrelevant. Please donâ€™t give them more reasons toÂ verify theirÂ assumptions.

Two, because a majority of those who are sitting in the pews this Easter believe Jesus is alive. They believe He is out of the tomb. Most of them have heard it all of their lives. An April Fool’s joke will bomb because theyÂ will know they are being set up.

WhatÂ do they need? They need to know whyÂ the resurrectionÂ matters.

They don’t need a trick. They don’t need to be beat up. They need to be reminded that it’s true and that, becauseÂ ain’t no April Fool’s joke, it changes everything.

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