By: Robert H. Schuller

Happy Easter to you all. What a wonderful day it is to be able to celebrate the birth of life again. It was not just for Jesus but for you. And Easter is the time to take a new fresh look at your life and say, “There is a God and he does want to connect with me and he does love me. He’ll do anything to give life to me.” The words of Jesus: “I have come that you might have life and have it abundantly.” So now dream a big dream. Make your plans big enough for God to fit in. Think in such a dimension that you’re destined completely to fail unless you have God with you. That leads to life abundant and eternal and we can have it because it’s Easter. Our God is alive and Jesus Christ is alive and He’s inspiring us. So thank you for coming here and catch the Easter message in your life, because Easter does answer the five fundamental questions.

One is – is there a God? Isn’t reality religion? Or is it a fantasy faith? Is there really a God? Number two – does He really care about me? Does He want to connect with me? Is it true that the Bible says, “God has a plan for my life?” Wow! And is life eternal with rewards and blessings to those who follow Him? Easter answers the ultimate questions. It’s the only place where you can get solid answers. You can’t get it in any university, you can’t get it in any other institution, you can’t get it in any post-graduate course. It only comes through Easter because Easter is the celebration of the life of Jesus Christ from the open tomb. Wow!

You know, a member of my board until her death was Athalie Clark. I called her the First Lady of Orange County. She was married to James Irvine the 2nd, and they owned what was called the Irvine Ranch. Anyway she used to tell me about the time that Einstein came to Irvine Ranch here in Orange County. He wanted to test a new theory that he called ‘relativity.’ He tried to explain it to her and she didn’t know if she completely understood. But he had to build a pipe a mile long and there couldn’t be any curve or bend in it. And she tells me about that. Then she says now Einstein struck her as being a very spiritual person. Interesting. He was a brilliant physicist. And many, if not the majority, of physicists today in the world are spiritual and they have a spiritual world view. They do not have a cold world materialistic view.

But Einstein, she said, said, “There are only two ways to live: Live as though nothing is a miracle and there are no miracles. Or live as if everything is a miracle.” Wow!
If you embrace Easter in your life you will be a miracle in your heart driven person. You’ll expect miracles. You’ll set your soul for miracles. And today, after living a Christian life for over 70 years, I have to tell you I’ve come to see everything as a miracle. A flower that blooms, a person that’s alive, every person living here, listening to the sound of my voice, is a miracle. You and I have no idea how many times we came a hair’s breath from being killed or picking up a germ that would have taken our life. Every single one of us is a miracle. That’s the kind of faith Easter gives me and that’s the kind of faith I want you to walk out of here with this morning.

Yes, Einstein’s right. Everything is a miracle. Well how about some of you that are agnostics? Or atheists? You really don’t know about God or you think it’s a superstition and you’re listening to this Easter service today to please someone, but you’ve got the idea it’s all a myth.
Well let me tell you about a man that’s one of the most remarkable Christians in the past 100 years and his name is C.S. Lewis. C.S. Lewis was a brilliant professor at Oxford and for most of his life, well until he was in his 30’s, he was an absolute, solid core atheist and he liked to run around with some of the other Oxford professors that were atheists also. But later on he would say, when he described his conversion, first to a belief in God, then to a belief in Jesus Christ, and then to accepting Jesus Christ as his Lord and Savior. He went the whole way from nowhere. Amazing. He said, “You know there was a time in my life starting when I was young, when I felt, well I’m young there’s something missing in my life but I’m young, I’ll get it.” And he grew a little older and there’s something missing in my life, I just don’t know what it is. And he said he tried to define it and he said it’s like a desire but it’s not really a desire, but I can feel it inside of me, something is missing. And he said, later I began to think that something that’s missing that’s calling out to me saying, ‘Find me, find me. Learn to know who I am.’ It became a voice, it became a God. God. And when I said, “That’s God? That feeling that there’s something missing? Is God in me saying, take Me, embrace Me, love Me, connect with Me? When I made that decision I was moving from atheism to solid theism.” What a change.
Well, he said, “It happened largely because of Tolkien.” You know Tolkien, author of “Lord of the Rings.” Tolkien was a very strong believer and they were out talking one evening and they got talking about myths. And C.S. Lewis said, “But this story of Jesus coming down to be God on earth in human flesh, and then dying and then rising again. He said, “I can tell you that same story out of pagan mythology. This is nothing but another myth. It’s nothing new.” And then Tolkien began to challenge him and as he looked in it more deeply, Tolkien said, “Just read the story of Jesus and you’ll find out it’s not a myth, not at all. It’s totally different from mythology.” And being an authority on mythology C.S. Lewis started to read it and said, “This is not a myth. It’s not a myth.” The story was told to all the disciples, all 11 of them. All 11 saw the resurrected Jesus. They told others who saw the resurrected Jesus. Myths don’t do that. A myth is a creation of a fantasy novel in one human brain and that is taught by one teacher to be a reality. Myths never originate in a group where others can check up on it and correct misstatements. So he embraced Jesus Christ. And looked at what happened to his life.
Now I ask you something, do you have that feeling that maybe something is missing in your life? And you think maybe you haven’t lived long enough learn it? Or you haven’t taken the right courses of study to discover it? Is there something missing in your life? If you are a follower of Jesus Christ and if He’s in your life, you won’t have that feeling. You’ll know what you know, what you know.

I shall never forget the time I walked the brilliant daughter of Mikhail Gorbachev out of this church through that door. And we walked around the corner and the doors were opened and she looked up into it and said, "You know, Dr. Schuller, I believe. I never had good thoughts about church but I sure do now.”

Something missing in your life? Get active in the church, embrace Jesus Christ. This Bible is reliable. It’s not a bunch of myths. It has been affirmed and affirmed and affirmed and it’s an amazing thing to me that archeology has never ever discovered anything that blows the Bible out as a pack of lies. But every time a discovery is made, frequently by non-believers, it affirms and it substantiates a miracle told in the Bible. Jesus is alive, it’s not a myth, it’s a reality. There’s no substitute for getting in touch with Him. Because He’s resurrected you can talk to Him. Then He’ll become your best friend, then it’ll be like you were born again. Then you’ll get dreams. You’ll begin to believe in yourself again. You’ll begin to think the impossible, it may be impossible but I can make it possible.

“I have come that you might have life and have it abundantly.” So now believe in Jesus Christ. He’ll motivate you. He’ll give you inspiration. Pray to Him daily. Worship Him regularly. Get in close contact with this living Jesus Christ. Why, His salvation will take away your guilt. It’ll take away your depression. You won’t live in fear, you’ll live in hope. You’ll live in faith. You will come alive on Easter morning if you embrace Him as your Savior.

I remember a time that when Carol, my daughter, lost her leg and fortunately they saved her life though she took 17 units of blood, almost died. And she would be in St. Joseph’s Hospital for seven months before she would get home to see her dog and her horse. Seven months away from your dog and your horse and your own house is a long time. And of course, from the beginning, every night my wife would go and my wife would sleep with her in the room. Well that had to terminate at a time and so one time my wife said to her, “Carol, I’m going home tonight. You have to learn to sleep alone.” And it really hurt her but she said, “Jesus will be with you.” The resurrection, Easter, life. He can connect with me; I can connect with Him. Wow!
So her mother said good-bye, and then the nurses came as they always did, finally, lights out. And for the first time in many a month Carol was alone. It scared her. But the Catholic priest at the hospital hung a beautiful picture of Christ above her and she started thinking about Jesus and said, “Jesus, I’m scared. I’m scared being all alone. It’s so dark. Come, come, come to me. Can You sleep with me?” And then she sensed the presence of Jesus in that room. And she sensed the presence of Jesus lying down, comforting her, whispering to her. To her it was very real. She slept. It was the beginning of her coming out of her tomb. It was an Easter for her.

Many of you need an Easter this morning. You need it desperately. Let it come. Let it come. Some of you think something’s missing. Yeah. There’s something, you don’t know what it is. Yeah. You have a desire for that something but you don’t even know what to call it. It is God calling out and saying, “Embrace My Son, Jesus Christ.” It’s a decision. You make it now and move on from here. Happy Easter. Let’s pray

Lord, many people I feel and sense are embracing You now, accepting Jesus Christ. And this is going to become the most important Easter of their life. O God, thank You that there’s something that’s been missing is the person I can talk to alone, anytime, day or night and His name is Jesus Christ. I open my heart; I’m choosing to be a believer. I’m walking away from that life of questions and questions and doubts and skepticism. I’m going to become like a child; a child who loves the mother and the father, holds the hand. I’m becoming a child of Yours, God. Hallelujah. Amen.