If ye then be risen with Christ, seek those things which are above, where Christ sitteth on the right hand of God. (Colossians 3:1)

An always grouchy husband arrived in heaven along with his wife. After a quick tour and being shown their accommodations, the wife declared: "This is so beautiful – the music is fantastic, there is always a heavenly banquet, heaven has everything and more than we'd ever dreamt of, and there's no fees, no taxes, our health is fantastic." But the husband only grunted, shrugged and frowned. "Why aren't you happy?" she asked. "What's wrong with you?"

The husband replied, "If we hadn't eaten all that miserable oat bran, we could have been here ten years ago." Of course, the truth is that we don't usually think that way, do we? We try to eat right, try to exercise, go to the doctor when we are ill. We believe in heaven but we are in no hurry. There is a country song that declares "Everyone wants to go to heaven, but nobody wants to go right now."

But the fact is, while in Christ, we are promised eternal life, it is also important that in Him we are also promised a new and better life here and now.

The punch line of the joke about bran muffins aside, our passage from the Epistle to the Colossians exhorts the Christians there to focus on heaven as their eternal home even while they strive to live a better life now. Earlier the Colossians had been told that through the sacrament of Holy Baptism; they had died and risen with Christ. Now, continuing with that line of thought, they are instructed: "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 things that are above, not on things that are on earth, for you have died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God."

In other words, they are to live, to act like Easter people in the here and now. They are to live and act as resurrection people here and now. This is true, because for St. Paul, the resurrection is something that has already been accomplished. It is not only a future event St. Paul writes "you have been raised with Christ," an action, a fact that has already occurred – not "you shall be raised with Christ" in the future. The resurrection is an accomplished action; a victory won; a fact that has now become part of Christian salvation history, says the writer of Colossians with utmost confidence.

Our second lesson reminds us that hope of eternal life comes only after we have faced the reality of eternal death. We have all done that when we were baptized. In baptism we were buried with Christ in his death and in baptism we were raised with Christ to new, resurrection life. Therefore, the writer exhorts the Colossian Christians to focus on this new reality of resurrection. Resurrection, says the writer, is to be the Christian's entire orientation in life. Resurrection is the key, the guide, the reason for living life now in this world. Resurrection is the Christian's life focus. What does that mean? Does it mean that we're so heavenly minded that we're no earthly good? No, not at all! That is to misunderstand the message of our passage. Rather, it is to live life on earth in light of the reality, the accomplished fact that Christ, through his death and resurrection has won the victory for us and for everyone – that is why he is now "seated at the right hand of God." This picture of Christ being exalted, by sitting at God's right hand is a Jewish concept of future reward in heaven; it is giving Christ the ultimate honour as the Messiah. It reminds one of a winner, victor after a great battle. Christ is the Victor, Christ is the Ultimate Conqueror. Hence militant Easter hymns like "The Strife Is O'er, the Battle Done," which we are singing this morning or "Thine Is the Glory" which we sing every other Easter are most appropriate as we celebrate the truth of Easter Sunday and the power of the resurrection. Christ has defeated the powers of sin, death and evil. If that is true, says our second lesson, then the way we live as Christians each day points to that reality of the resurrection.

A Methodist minister I once knew greeted his congregation every Easter by wishing a happy new year to all those whom he had not seen since Christmas. A priest I knew used to ask this rhetorical question of his congregation at Easter: "Have some of you ever wondered what goes on here between Easters?" Regardless of the motivation, what does Easter mean to you? That answer will actually declare what Christ means to you.

Do you see him merely as a notable historical personage like Socrates, Buddha, or Gandhi? Do you follow him, like Thomas Jefferson did, as the greatest ethical and moral teacher of all time? Or do you believe that he overcame the sharpness of death, and rose again, sitting on the right hand of God, where he is not only the Jesus of history but the Jesus of eternity – alive and at work in the world, and that he reigns forever and ever? If you shy away from that last question, dismissing it perhaps as mysticism or symbolism, take another look at the facts. Christianity is something more than hero-worship. It is not just the perpetuation of a great memory. The evidence of the resurrection is that of eye witness testimony, declared when there were still many present who had seen the risen Christ. Furthermore, the Christian faith is a relationship to and a fellowship with a Christ who is "alive for evermore." Everything in Christianity depends on the reality of the resurrection of Christ, on the fact that he rose from the grave, appeared to his disciples, made his presence felt in their lives, and still makes his presence felt, is in our generation as great an actuality as he was to his first followers. All too often either a superficial religiosity or a sentimental Christ the social reformed mentality can sap the real message of Christ and of Easter from us. Too often modernist Christianity begins to resemble Unitarian-Universalism – a sometimes useful humanist substitute for the real Gospel neatly packaged in social responsibility and feel good-ism. There is a problem with universalism: it has no answers for the ultimate meaning of life – only questions.

Do you know how can you identify a Unitarian-Universalist extremist group? They burn a question mark on your lawn. Along the same lines, What do you get when you cross a Unitarian with a Jehovah's Witness? Well, when he knocks on the door, he doesn't know why he's there. What does Scripture say? Well St. Paul writes:

"If Christ has not been raised from the dead, your faith is in vain and you are still in your sins." Paul affirms: "But Christ is risen from the dead…" He also writes in Romans 6 "Christ being raised from the dead dieth no more; death hath no more dominion over him. For in that he died, he died unto sin once; in that he liveth, he liveth unto God. Likewise recon yourselves to be dead indeed unto sin, but alive unto God through Jesus Christ our Lord. The risen Christ is eternally with us – past, present and in the glorious and final appearance when he comes in glory.

Everyone has heard the story of Stanley and Livingston. "Shall I tell you," David Livingstone asked the students of Glasgow University on his return from sixteen years spent in Africa, "what sustained me amidst the toil and hardship, and loneliness of my exiled life? It was the promise, 'Lo, I am with you always, even unto the end.'" For multitudes this is life's most precious conviction. When they speak about Christ, they use not only the past and future tenses but the present tense as well. "Lo, I am with you always." That is the heartwarming, heart-gladdening fact we celebrate this morning.

For we who are Christians, our ultimate security; our eternal home; our most healthy state of being is in heaven with God in Christ. That does not mean we are so heavenly minded that we are in a hurry to get there. That is for God to decide, oat bran and all. Rather, what St. Paul calls the "sure and certain hope" of the resurrection means living out the baptismal vows we have made in our covenant with the Lord. Having been "raised with Christ" means that we are new men and new women in Him. The resurrection is an accomplished fact that shapes all of our history, personally and collectively. In light of this fact, our life on earth can bring resurrection where there is death; hope to the hopeless; love to the unloved. In the face of all sufferings and failures – there is healing and ultimate victory thanks to our risen Saviour Jesus Christ for we "have been raised with Christ!"

If ye then be risen with Christ, seek those things which are above, where Christ sitteth on the right hand of God.