Everyone needs an Easter

Anthony W. Franklin

Easter 2017 • Sermon • Submitted 7 years ago

Colossians 3:1–4

John 20:1–18

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Connecting salvation and discipleship through the resurrection

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Long week

Always learning. Sometimes from books. Sometimes from real life. Sometimes that’s not fun. Sometimes it is cheaper and less painful to learn from the book than from real life experience.

Much help, many thanks. responsibilities spread around but stressful nonetheless

I imagine the disciples felt even worse the week that Jesus died. Things got out of hand from the moment they set foot in Jerusalem, and the Jesus they could never quite control, went way beyond their comfort zone - kicking the merchants out of the temple and saying things that really stirred up trouble with the leaders in Jerusalem. It was not so much what He said, but how He said it - particularly, without an army standing beside Him.

By the time the Last Supper came about and Jesus took off his outer garment and began washing their feet - they had no control of the situation any longer. It was all His show from that point on and the best they could do was sit back and watch. It must have been frustrating.

It must have been frustrating for Jesus as well - having spent 3 years with most of these men and women and they still didn’t believe what He taught them. They had seen miracles, but kept thinking that somehow this death on the cross thing was a metaphor for something else. When they found out it was not a symbol for something else, but that a cross was a cross - they all abandoned Him in mass confusion.

Jesus worked all Holy Week, while His team did all the worrying, and that is probably the best way to describe my week as well. I didn’t do all the work, but I did quite a bit of the worrying.

The Mess of Easter

Have you been in those messy places in life where you can’t understand why everything all seems to happen on the same day? It would make more sense and probably make us all a little saner if we could spread out some of the stressful events in our life more evenly across the weeks and months each year. But life doesn’t work that way. Even the events that were planned from the foundation of the world seem to all fall on the same few days. Life is a mess and it often leaves us a mess, leaving us like the bad thief on the cross saying -

“If you really are God, why don’t you come down and save us instead of hanging up their dying and taking us with you.!”

We want saved and we want saved now. But we don’t want to be a disciple and we certainly don’t want a cross with our name on it - one that we will have to die on ourselves someday.

All of this mess makes an empty tomb often seem more confusing than joyful. Where’s Jesus? Now, not only has He died, but now He’s gone! What does this all mean anyway?

The Empty Tomb

God

John 20:1–18 NRSV

Early on the first day of the week, while it was still dark, Mary Magdalene came to the tomb and saw that the stone had been removed from the tomb. So she ran and went to Simon Peter and the other disciple, the one whom Jesus loved, and said to them, “They have taken the Lord out of the tomb, and we do not know where they have laid him.” Then Peter and the other disciple set out and went toward the tomb. The two were running together, but the other disciple outran Peter and reached the tomb first. He bent down to look in and saw the linen wrappings lying there, but he did not go in. Then Simon Peter came, following him, and went into the tomb. He saw the linen wrappings lying there, and the cloth that had been on Jesus’ head, not lying with the linen wrappings but rolled up in a place by itself. Then the other disciple, who reached the tomb first, also went in, and he saw and believed; for as yet they did not understand the scripture, that he must rise from the dead. Then the disciples returned to their homes. But Mary stood weeping outside the tomb. As she wept, she bent over to look into the tomb; and she saw two angels in white, sitting where the body of Jesus had been lying, one at the head and the other at the feet. They said to her, “Woman, why are you weeping?” She said to them, “They have taken away my Lord, and I do not know where they have laid him.” When she had said this, she turned around and saw Jesus standing there, but she did not know that it was Jesus. Jesus said to her, “Woman, why are you weeping? Whom are you looking for?” Supposing him to be the gardener, she said to him, “Sir, if you have carried him away, tell me where you have laid him, and I will take him away.” Jesus said to her, “Mary!” She turned and said to him in Hebrew, “Rabbouni!” (which means Teacher). Jesus said to her, “Do not hold on to me, because I have not yet ascended to the Father. But go to my brothers and say to them, ‘I am ascending to my Father and your Father, to my God and your God.’ ” Mary Magdalene went and announced to the disciples, “I have seen the Lord”; and she told them that he had said these things to her.

If we think back through the many miracles of Jesus, they seem to build up upon each other. The power of God they show and the truths they reveal about Jesus and ourselves may vary slightly, but it seems that each one is shown to a slightly larger audience each time.

Here they are:

1. Changing water into wine:

2. Healing the Nobleman’s Son:

3. Healing the Man at the Pool of Bethesda:

4. Feeding the Five Thousand:

5. Walking on the Water:

6. Healing the Man Born Blind:

7. Raising Lazarus from the Dead:

1. No one noticed the wine incident other than the servants and Mary, the mother of Jesus

2. No one saw the healing of the Nobleman's son except the nobleman and his household

3. The man by the pool would have been seen by the other sick there who knew him, plus the disciples

4. The feeding of the 5,000 could have included that many if they were all paying attention to how much food they started with... probably though it was mostly seen by the disciples and the boy who brought lunch that day.

5. The disciples all saw Jesus walking on water (this is one place their may have been fewer people around than the previous miracle)

6. The blind man was seen by the disciples and probably a few onlookers... but then he was brought before all the Pharisees and religious leaders so he actually got a pretty big audience

7. Lastly, Lazarus had a big funeral crowd, as the Bible says many Jews from Judea had come to visit. Not only would this be a bigger crowd, but this would have involved some influential leaders from Jerusalem.

In each case though, Jesus only does each miracle once.

The resurrection is different though. Jesus could have just appeared once and headed back to heaven. He could have trusted a few disciples to witness His return from the dead and share it with everyone else, the way He did with the transfiguration.

But no. Easter is different. Everyone needs an Easter and they need one of their own.

The empty tomb is not enough. Oddly enough, when confronted by evidence that Jesus has raised from the dead, just as He promised, the first inclinations Mary, Peter, and John had was not that God fulfills His promises, but that someone had robbed the body. Even in the face of all the evidence against that idea: the guards, the huge stone… there is just confusion and sadness.

The resurrection for the disciples was about meeting Jesus again for the first time. It was about re-hearing everything He taught from the very beginning - but this time paying attention as though they really believed it instead of thinking this kingdom of God stuff was all symbolic of bringing back the good old days. Those good old days were gone for good. Jesus was bringing in something new and something so much better so that the past would pale and fade away in comparison. Those who knew the Law and traditions of Jewish worship well would find it fulfilled in Christ, but it would look completely different so that those who were just participants and not teachers would think it was an entirely new thing altogether.

But this was not just about changing worship styles or rules to follow. That is superficial stuff. The change that Jesus brought was in the lives of the disciples themselves. After they met the risen Christ, they were no longer the same people.

Paul writes:

Colossians 3:1–4 NRSV

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. When Christ who is your life is revealed, then you also will be revealed with him in glory.

Paul was not there at the resurrection, but he too needed an Easter, an encounter with the risen Christ to change his life. He too needed that personal, life-changing miracle that picked him up where he was and moved him somewhere else entirely.

He believed that so much that his writing suggests that we have never really lived until we have found our life in Christ.

What does that mean?

What Easter means to you

It's not like Christmas, where we celebrate a gift given for us 2000 years ago. Easter we celebrate a victory that we have been invited to walk in ourselves. It is bigger than having your favorite team win a basketball championship. It like more like, as they are winning, being invited to join the team yourself and stepping out on the floor in the final minutes of the game.

Jesus wins. Love wins. Mercy wins. Righteousness wins. And you will win too if you join the team. We have a jersey for you today, (although to be fair, in church we call them choir robes). We would love for you to be part of our church, but you may already have a church home... or perhaps God is simply calling you to serve elsewhere. It's all the same team when you are serving Jesus and we will celebrate that today with you as well as when Jesus returns in His final victory. Just know you are welcome here.

The game is not over, but time draws short. Will you join the team and join in the victory dance or will you refuse the offer and settle for being an observer of the faith? Will you allow Jesus to raise you to new life today or are you going to satisfy yourself watching others live out their life instead? Don't settle for just watching. Step up and take part yourself. God created you to make a difference in this world.

…and for us

Don't do it for yourself. Getting saved doesn't get you out of trouble. When Peter confessed Jesus as his lord and savior, Jesus did not envision Peter as somehow safe and sound for the rest of His life. No, instead Jesus called him a "rock" that He would build a team around, not to stay in one place, but to be launched at the gate of hell in order to set all those prisoners free. If we get saved, Jesus is going to send us to the gate of hell and expect us to pull our lost brothers and sisters out. We cannot save them on our own, no, but the power of Christ at work in us can and will.

Their first Easter may not be an appearance of Jesus alone, it may be an appearance of Jesus in us.

Everyone needs an Easter. You. Me. And everyone else that God is sending us to. If you won't join God's team for yourself, join it for everyone else who needs you to bring the new life of Jesus to them.

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