It was Easter Sunday. One thousand, seven hundred fifty showed up for worship that day. Boy, was this place full! And it really felt good. We sang some of the same hymns as today. I gave the kids red Easter eggs and my sermon title was: “Don’t Be Alarmed.” The main idea was that Christ is alive and with us, so there need not be any event or situation in our lives here that should scare us. In addition, even at our death and the death of the people we love, we need not have any fear since Christ has come out of the grave and has arranged for us to do the same!

Today, two weeks later, I want to consider what difference it has made in our lives that Easter happened again this year. I want you to think over, with me, the last two weeks and consider just how alive he has been with you.

The gospel for the day records: They were startled and terrified, and thought that they were seeing a ghost. He said to them, “Why are you frightened, and why do doubts arise in your hearts? Look at my hands and my feet; see that it is I myself. Touch me and see; for a ghost does not have flesh and bones as you see that I have (vv. 37-39).”

Probably today our Lord would say: “Check my vital signs and you can see that I’m alive.” There are different ways you can test out whether a person is really alive. The medical profession tells me that the vital signs are respiration, pulse and heartbeat, temperature, and something they call response.

There are different ways you can test out whether Christ really did come out of the tomb two weeks ago and has changed your life as well. Whether we still worship a dead martyr or a living presence is crucial to our faith, to the life of this congregation, and to the people who know us. Just like we have vital signs that tell whether our body is alive, we also have vital signs that we can check to see if the Body of Christ, this congregation and we, as individual Christians, are alive.

A woman devoted to Christ once adopted a peculiar method of shaming her Christian friends. She was found testifying to her faith before a wooden Indian in front of a cigar store. She was chided for the scene she created and then defended herself by saying: “I would rather be a real Christian and talk religion to a wooden Indian than a wooden Christian who never talked religion to anyone!”

Perhaps the best vital sign of all is whether anyone has noticed the difference since Easter. One of the vital signs that is checked to see if a person is alive is called respiration. That is, we check to see if breath is going in and out of the body.

When Jesus came out of the grave that first Easter and then became an alive presence with his disciples, it made them different people. Some accused them of being drunk; later many were nicknamed “Fools for Christ.” Others said they were crazy. They were so excited about his not being killed forever that they just had to share that risen Savior.

Verse 48 of the gospel for the day says: “You are witnesses of these things. And so when additional disciples were selected, they were always selected to be ‘‘witnesses to the resurrection.”

Has your life changed any in the last couple weeks since Easter and the resurrection? After all, the Christian faith is a lot like the measles -- you catch it -- It’s a holy infection!

A stranger came into a doctor’s office and said, “I just dropped in to tell you how much I benefited from your treatment.” The doctor replied, “But you are not one of my patients.” “I know,” the stranger replied, “but my uncle was and I’m his heir.”

Sometimes our witness is so dull. We seem like a dead corpse instead of a living presence.

If Christ is alive and with you, he’ll be noticed. He’ll be obvious to other people who see the way you make up your priorities and live out your Christian faith. I suppose we could say the respiration hasn’t been quite as exhilarating or as obvious as it was on Easter morning for the Body of Christ, called this congregation. About half of the people who were there that day are here today. One little committee went out and made some evangelism calls since that time. Some shared about a percent and a half of their income in the offering. A small group sang in the choir the second Sunday of Easter.

Do you really think that’s vitally alive? Do you think people who have never been here before, worshiping with us for the first time today, can see a vital sign of our lives being changed and our worship being enthusiastic and so the respiration of this body giving a positive, alive, vital sign? Let’s remember Easter morning and all that means to how we ought to be since that day.

Breathe on me breath of God, Fill me with life anew,That I may love all that you love, And do what you would do.Breathe on me, breath of God, Until my heart is pure,Until with you I will one will To do and to endure.-- Edwin Harch 1835-1889 (From LBW-1978)

Another vital sign is the heartbeat or pulse. This has to do with the blood racing through the body. One of othe signs of the “live Christ” with the disciples was in the way they got together and communed. It began as a celebration of his real presence. He was known to them by the way he broke bread.

We offered that same bread and wine on a Sunday of Easter, and he was here with us. Seven hundred and sixty of the 1,700 present took of that sacrament. That’s 46 percent of the body that decided to be here when he had promised to be with us in a special way.

Do you think 46 percent heartbeat or pulse rate is about right? Do you think that is an accurate reflection of how alive the Body of Christ is here?

Easter came on the first day of the week, and ever since that great event his followers have gathered on Sunday to worship him and to be with him. Remember Easter? Check it out this way -- how often have you been at worship since that day of lilies, Easter eggs and fine clothing?

The risen Christ, if he is alive and with you, will certainly make you want to be with his people and a part of that pulse and heartbeat which says that he is alive here.

Last week we saw the danger of doubts and disbelief Thomas ran into when he was not with the other believers. It sounds to me like we should sing, “He is risen and out of my hair,” rather than, “He is risen and with me now. Alleluia.”

Bruce Baxter tells of an unusual custom which is observed in a small English chapel at evening service. “At the end of each pew is a tall candlestick. When the family that customarily uses that pew is ushered in, the candle is lighted. When the family is not present, the pew remains dark. Obviously, the amount of light in the chapel is determined by the number of families present that evening.”

Whether or not we come to worship is more than a decision about our busyness at home or desire to do other things. We are a part of the pulse of the Body of Christ and one of the vital signs that communicates to the rest of the people around us whether Christ is really out of the grave and alive again.

Jesus gave us another test. He said, according to John’s gospel, “Those who love me will keep my word, and my Father will love them, and we will come to them and make our home with them (John 14:23).”

In other words, if he is really alive and with us, we will obey his commands -- his rules of conduct for us.

One of those commands was very specific. Jesus told his disciples that when someone was hungry or thirsty or cold and we gave help, we were actually ministering to him. So being an alive Christ means being very concerned about people -- whether they are a prisoner, an alcoholic, someone suffering injustice because of color or age or creed or sex or political beliefs. In the Scripture today our Lord asks, in verse 42, to receive a piece of cooked fish, and he ate it in their presence. He later claimed that when we fed someone who was hungry, we were actually doing the same as those disciples were when they gave him that fish.

When John the Baptist’s disciples went to Jesus to see if he was real, Jesus told them, “Go back home and tell John what you see.” What they saw was that the blind were healed and the lame walked. People are helped in whatever situation they are in; this is called Social Ministry in our congregation. It’s really God’s hands in the community; it’s the risen Easter Christ alive through this congregation of believers. It’s one of the great vital signs of the church. When people are fed, clothed, comforted, and have their dignity restored, the vital sign says that Christ is indeed alive here.

If we have ignored the appeals for world hunger and for justice, if our congregation is not moved by the poor who live in our community and those who have no power in our society, the vital sign is not there. That means that Christ did not come out of the grave for us and he is still in the tomb, and we gather this day to put flowers around that tomb and simply sing sentimental hymns to his memory.

Reliable reports state that up to 500 million people are suffering extreme hunger in our world. According to United Nations’ statistics, “The single most devastating indictment of our current world civilization is the continued existence of stark, pervasive poverty of more than two-thirds of the world’s population.” If Christ is really alive, then we’re pouring out our resources to try to help this situation. It’s certainly one of the vital signs.

The medical people have another vital sign which they call response. It checks out with persons how they respond to stimuli, whether they can talk to us and answer questions, whether they say “ouch” when we pinch them, and just how much they respond to what they see and hear around them.

Certainly this also would be a vital sign that we could use to test if Jesus really came back from the dead on Easter morning and lives with us now, or if he is still in that grave.

One of the ways that we can test if he is alive, and if we are properly responding, would be with where we spend our money. Our Lord told us that to have him with us meant a new set of priorities. He told us in Matthew 6 not to save treasures for ourselves here on earth where thieves can break in and steal. He alerted us to the fact that our heart will always be where our riches are. So, if Jesus is really alive with us, our offerings will have said so by now. If we’re still giving the one dollar per Sunday that we gave 10 or 20 years ago, Christ did not come out of that grave. He’s still in there deteriorating.

The doctor was taken to the patient’s room but came down in a few minutes and asked for a screwdriver. Five minutes later he was back and asked for a can opener. Soon after he returned and demanded a chisel and hammer. The distraught husband could not stand it any longer. “Please, Doc, what’s wrong with my wife?” “Don’t know yet,” the doc answered. “Can’t get my bag open.”

Response is to open our bags and billfolds and respond to the needs of people all around us.

I believe that the practice of serious stewardship is a direct vital sign on the liveness of Christ in any congregation of believers. In fact, sometimes it appears as though we have a dead Savior on our hands, or at least one who is in a coma and getting weaker and weaker each Sunday that we come together.

After all, we live in a society where cash is very important to us. Is Christ alive in us if we spend three to five dollars to see a movie and give 50 cents a week in the offering? I do know that if we tell our spouses that we love them very dearly and then are terribly stingy with them, they know that something is wrong and we really aren’t being truthful.

Some could say that this vital sign should never be mentioned in the pulpit. Yet, two-thirds of our Lord’s parables have dealt with this very subject. I’m not just making a plea for your money today; I’m making a plea for Christianity to be practiced. For the vital sign of response to be real in this congregation, Christianity is not just alive in our checkbooks like we said he would be on Easter morning! Our offerings are more like buying a spray of flowers for the casket at the graveside rather than supporting a live and vital God in our midst.

A. J. Gossip said: “You will not stroll into Christ-likeness with your hands in your pockets, shoving open the door with a careless shoulder. This is not a hobby for one’s leisure moments, taken up at intervals when we have nothing much to do, and put down and forgotten when our life grows full and interesting.”

Very often in our Sunday to Sunday lives we are guilty of living by a comparative religion. Our giving and our doing “for Christ” are very carefully measured by what others around us are doing. Instead, we need to realize that our trusteeship of life is a gift from God. As trustees, we have opportunity to use all he has given us in a faithful way as if he is really alive and with us here.

Do you, when you give your offering, sense the living Christ within you? Does your offering say that he came out of the grave or that he’s still buried? It is one of the vital signs.

Of course, response of an alive body here is more than money. But we Americans understand money. It’s our language, our way of life, so it’s definitely a vital sign called response. Response of the live body is also how we respond to all God has given us, how we respond to the sacraments, the means of grace. When we are asked to serve in a special way, when Sunday school teachers are needed, people to help with vacation church school, youth sponsors, volunteers to call and pledge -- the test is continually applied to the body to see if it is alive and real or dead and beginning to get stiff!

One other test -- have your words been kind? In a time when criticism is so easy and judgment so prevalent, we need to remember that tender attitude of our risen Christ. “… and in his name the message about repentance and the forgiveness of sins must be preached to all nations, beginning in Jerusalem.” Remember our Lord said, “… be kind to each other?” Have you done that? Remember Easter? The God that couldn’t stay killed on Calvary was a God of love. That love ought to radiate from us as a congregation and as an individual these two weeks that we call Easter weeks. It was said of Henry Ward Beecher that no one ever felt the full force of his kindness until he/she did Beecher an injury.

Life is most froth and bubbles, only two things stand like stone, kindness and another’s troubles, courage and your own.

When Eugene Debs was imprisoned as a conscientious objector, he became interested in a black prisoner who was said to be incorrigible, devoid of a spark of goodness. Since the black person would not speak to anyone, Debs started a campaign of kindness by leaving an orange on the black’s bed and going off without a word. In spite of many rebuffs, he gradually penetrated the hard exterior of the man, and the two became fast friends. Years later, at the news of Debs’ death, the black person, now a useful citizen, made this comment: “He was the only Jesus Christ I ever knew.”

If we continue to gossip, to judge, and to slander, to put the worst construction on our fellow person’s actions. Christ is not alive in us. He has been killed again and we have need of yet another Easter and another resurrection.

Congregations can be mean. Christians can be mean. The way we present the good news can be all law and terribly demanding. If someone is checking the vital signs of the risen Christ and sees this kind of attitude, that person will be sure he is dead and never came out of that grave.

Love is a beautiful thing. The God of Easter is a God of love and he wants one of the signs of the congregation to be an accepting and beautiful love that is not sentimental but is carried out in actions and justice.

When I came home after preaching to those 1,700 people, I promised myself that in two weeks I would revisit that “Easter high” and test out if it was really true that you and I had experienced again God coming out of the grave so that he might be with us. Today we have applied the medical vital signs to test if that body is alive. We have checked the pulse, checked the respiration, looked at the temperature, and watched for response. You decide. Is he alive and with us, or have we just gathered to remember again his burial?

“You are witnesses of these things.” Amen.