1. Christ is risen! He is risen indeed! Alleluia! The message from God’s Word today as we celebrate the resurrection of our Lord Jesus Christ from the dead is taken from Colossians 3:1-4, it’s entitled, “Middle C and the Rest of the Story,” dear brothers and sisters in Christ.
2. The four verses of our Easter text bring to mind a particular radio program of news commentator Paul Harvey years ago, his daily broadcasts always ending with a human-interest story. This particular day’s story was of a one-room schoolhouse in a remote area of Wyoming, whose teacher one day brought his violin with him to school. Later in the day, when he got out the violin, it quickly became evident that it was seriously out of tune, and his hurried efforts to adjust its strings were of no avail. At this point, as per usual for Paul Harvey, he interrupted the story for a final commercial break, assuring his listeners that he would return to tell “the rest of the story.”
3. Upon returning, Harvey told how the teacher wrote a note to the manager of the Casper radio station, requesting a favor, namely, that the station manager please play a single note, a middle C, loud and clear on the station’s grand piano during the next Sunday evening’s eight o’clock broadcast. Thus, as requested, middle C was heard loud and clear all across Wyoming that Sunday evening, from which the teacher was able to tune the strings of his violin. Paul Harvey then ended the story by signing off the broadcast with his customary words, “And now you know the rest of the story.”
4. You’ve all heard, you know, you believe, you rejoice in the story of our Lord’s resurrection from the tomb at Easter. Christ is risen! He is risen indeed! Alleluia! But have you heard, do you know, the rest of the story? The Glorious Story of Christ’s Resurrection Gives Rise to the Beginning and the Rest of Our Own “Middle C” Stories.
5. In Paul Harvey’s story, middle C was all-important for the teacher to be able to tune and play his violin. But much more important, we who are baptized Christians—even as we live out our lives on this earth—have our own “middle C” in order to keep us in tune with our baptism. Staying in tune was also a dire need of the early Christians in our text, their “middle C” being “Christ.” The earliest Christians confessed their faith and identified with and supported one another by using the simple outline of a fish. Remember, the five letters of the Greek word for “fish” (ichthus) served as an acrostic for “Jesus Christ God’s Son, Savior,” one of Christianity’s earliest “middle C” doctrinal statements.
6. Fifth-century missionary to Ireland St. Patrick was likewise determined to keep his very difficult ministry in tune with “middle C.” He wrote for his own good what is now often called St. Patrick’s Breastplate; here is part of it: Christ with me, Christ before me, Christ behind me, Christ in me, Christ beneath me, Christ above me, Christ on my right, Christ on my left, Christ when I lie down, Christ when I sit down, Christ when I arise, Christ in the heart of every man who thinks of me, Christ in the mouth of everyone who speaks of me, Christ in every eye that sees me, Christ in every ear that hears me.
7. No one has been more intent upon maintaining Christianity’s “middle C” than Martin Luther. In his Small Catechism’s explanation of the Second Article of the Apostles’ Creed, he loudly and clearly sounded the “middle C” for all of our lives as Christians: I believe that Jesus Christ, true God, begotten of the Father from eternity, and also true man, born of the Virgin Mary, is my Lord, who has redeemed me, a lost and condemned person, purchased and won me from all sins, from death, and from the power of the devil; not with gold or silver, but with His holy, precious blood and with His innocent suffering and death, that I may be His own and live under Him in His kingdom and serve Him in everlasting righteousness, innocence, and blessedness, just as He is risen from the dead, lives and reigns to all eternity. This is most certainly true.
8. The thing is, staying in tune with “middle C” can, as we all know, be difficult, given constant opposition from the old evil foe, the world around us, and our own sinful flesh. In the case of the Colossian Christians, it was increasingly so. The apostle Paul had become aware of their struggle with false teachers, whose opposition was growing ever stronger. They were promoting dabbling with cosmic beings, initiations, asceticism, and things of this world. In the verses preceding our text, St. Paul writes: “If with Christ you died to the elemental spirits of the world, why, as if you were still alive in the world, do you submit to regulations—‘Do not handle, Do not taste, Do not touch’ (referring to things that all perish as they are used)—according to human precepts and teachings?” (2:20–22).
9. In the first two chapters of this letter, Paul had already warned all who would read it—including the Colossians and all of us today—of “human precepts and teachings” that “have indeed an appearance of wisdom” but are always seriously out of tune and contrary to the Colossians’ and our “middle C,” Christ.
10. Today, the distractions have for the most part changed, asceticism and worship of angels having been long since replaced by such human precepts and teachings as the historical-critical method, rationalism, modernism, socialism, evolutionism, postmodernism, progressivism, globalism, and transgenderism. Also to be included are DEI, wokeness, CRT, abortion, LGBTQ, and the like. All of these and more belong to the “appearance of wisdom in promoting self-made religion and asceticism and severity to the body” that are “of no value in stopping the indulgence of the flesh” (2:23), seen so readily all around us in our day.
11. In the verses following our text, Paul therefore instructs and exhorts the Colossian Christians and us to stay in tune with Christ, to “put to death therefore what is earthly in you: sexual immorality, impurity, passion, evil desire and covetousness, which is idolatry. . . . You must put them all away: anger, wrath, malice, slander, and obscene talk from your mouth. Do not lie to one another, seeing that you have put off the old self with its practices and have put on the new self, which is being renewed in knowledge after the image of its creator” (3:5, 8–10). Instead, “put on then, as God’s chosen ones, holy and beloved, compassionate hearts, kindness, humility, meekness, and patience, bearing with one another and, if one has a complaint against another, forgiving each other; as the Lord has forgiven you, so you also must forgive. And above all these put on love, which binds everything together in perfect harmony” (3:12–14)—this is what it is to be in tune with Christ, our “middle C.”
12. Questions come to mind after hearing Paul Harvey’s story: Why did that teacher bring his violin to school in the first place? Was it to teach his students about music, or that they would learn to sing in harmony with one another, or that they could participate in a music contest of some kind? Or maybe was it so that the students could entertain their parents during an upcoming open house? We will never know the rest of that story.
13. But here’s a good thing! We can already know the rest of our own stories, provided we, with the help of the Holy Spirit in our baptism and all along the way, strive to stay in tune with our own “middle C.” This is the really good news in our text this morning. It is “the rest of the story” of all who are baptized and thereby have been “raised with Christ” and who “seek the things that are above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God,” who have “set [their] minds on things that are above, not on things that are on earth” (Col. 3:1–2), who have “put off the old self with its practices and have put on the new self, which is being renewed in knowledge after the image of its creator” (Col. 3:9–10).
14. We know this is coming: “When Christ who is your life appears” at the end of this world’s limited time, “then you also will appear with him in glory” (Col. 3:4). This is our happy ending. Except that it is clearly not the rest of our story either. Verse 4 of our text is the really good news for all who are baptized, thereby having already died and been raised with Christ. Our life is now “hidden with Christ in God” (Col. 3:3), so that “when Christ who is your life appears” on this earth’s final day, “then you also will appear with him in glory” (Col. 3:4) to participate in the rest of our story, the one that will have no ending, when we will be numbered with all the saints, who, having lived and died on earth with “middle C” at the center of their lives, will forever from their earthly labors rest. Of course, that will be a whole new story, and most of its marvelous details have yet to be made manifest. We truly have much to look forward to. Amen. Now the peace of God that passes all understanding, guard your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus, until life everlasting. Amen.
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