Easter Sermon (2025)

John 19:28-30

John 19:28-30 

English Standard Version 

  Most of us leave places when it's made clear that we're not welcome.  Have you ever been at someone's house past dinner and you've suddenly noticed they are becoming less and less subtle that it's time to go?  Or maybe you were at a restaurant and you looked up and noticed they were stacking chairs on tables.  It might be easy to miss the signs at first, but once they become clear, we usually head out.

  Jesus stayed.

  How hard it must have been.  He didn't have to hang there on that cross.  He could have left.  He could have noted that it was clear he was unwelcome and left us behind.  Humanity rejected him, but such was his love, such was his heartbreak, that he stayed.  He stayed because he knew we didn't fully realize the treasure we were giving up.  He stayed because he knew how broken we were, how powerful sin is, and so he stayed, because his beloved children were held under death's power, and he was unwilling to give us up.

  And so he stayed until the end, until it was finished, because there was work to be done, and he was unwilling to lose a single lost sheep.

  Thanks be to God.

Sermon for April 30, 2023 -- 'How do we know that it's true: Fulfillment of Prophecies'

Luke 2:1-7

Luke 2:1-7 

English Standard Version 

  Every year, we come to this point, and every year, it's a miracle unfolding before us.  A baby, fragile and vulnerable, entering a world of poverty and danger, all of it woven together to help us see the breadth of the love of God.  You'd never write the story this way -- you'd have the Prince of Peace coming into a castle, with a throne inlaid with gold waiting him, but that's not the way the story goes.  If Jesus came into wealth and power, only the wealth would understand him.  Instead, Jesus comes in poverty, and we see dependence and need, and the entire world looks upon him and can identify.  We're all in need.  

  So let us come to the manger and peer in with anxious hearts, ready to be comforted, trusting in the God who comes to us in mysteries, in riches, in love.  May we come this Christmas and hear the story again, and as it comforts our weary hearts, may we be enrobed in light and love and encouraged once more to love the world with the same selfless love with which God loves us.

  Merry Christmas!!

John 20:30-31

John 20:30-31 English Standard Version 

The Purpose of This Book 

  There's so much we never see.  We don't know the half of what goes on with most news stories, but reporters summarize the events to give us an understanding of the most important people and newsworthy items.  When you're telling someone about your day, do you tell them every little detail?  Or do you summarize and capture the most important moments?

  Likewise, when John is trying to tell you about the life of Jesus Christ, he summarizes.  He would've run out of paper if he'd tried to tell you everything.  All the parchment in the world couldn't contain that.  But he tells you the most important things that you need to know, and we can trust that the things that are left out are similar enough to what is in there that it fits with the image of Jesus portrayed in the Gospels.  

  So we can believe based on what we have read, and trust that we'll know the remaining details someday.  

John 20:26-29

John 20:26-29 

English Standard Version 

  There are so many people who think God is out to get them.  As though God, the perfect Creator of the universe, would need to play 'gotcha' games to find a reason to smite anyone.  

  What Jesus is showing us here is that it is the will of God to save.  Jesus wants Thomas to believe -- he goes out of his way to give Thomas the proof.  Jesus doesn't tell Thomas that he needs to believe more or figure it out on his own.  Jesus reaches out in grace and love to bring Thomas in and speak to his doubts.

  Jesus looks at you and I the same way -- through a lens of grace and love.  Jesus wants you to believe, to have faith, and sends out the Holy Spirit to speak to our doubts and questions.

John 20:24-25

John 20:24-25 

English Standard Version 

  For the record, this seems like an entirely reasonable position that Thomas takes.  Also, it reminds us that the 1st century disciples weren't any more likely to believe that dead people came back to life than we are.  If we were told this, we'd want a little evidence, too, and more than just an online video.  We'd want concrete proof, and would be unlikely to settle for anything less.

  So let's not be too hard on Thomas, and may we pray for God to soften our hearts around areas where we struggle to believe.  

John 20:19-23

John 20:19-23

English Standard Version 

  In the 21st century, it's easy to think that the disciples were gathered together, perched on the edge of their chairs, waiting for Jesus' resurrection.

  No, they were in a locked room, afraid for their lives, wondering if the Romans would kill them, too, as an effort to completely crush the movement.

  They didn't fully realize how much more powerful Jesus was than the Roman empire.  If they had known at the time, then maybe they wouldn't have been sitting inside behind locked doors, but would instead be sitting in the garden, unafraid of the Roman guards, waiting for the resurrection.

  But they weren't.  They were hiding, afraid.

  What's amazing is that after Jesus ascended to heaven, this group of scared disciples would go on to transform the world, and they'd do so unafraid of death.  Most of them would be publicly martyred, killed for their proclamation.  They were afraid here, but not later on -- they went boldly into public, each of them proclaiming what they believed to be true.

  What changed?

  Jesus came into a locked room and breathed the Holy Spirit upon them.

  It is my solemn prayer that the same Holy Spirit come into the locked doors of our hearts and continue to breathe that same peace upon us, that we, too, may go out into the world with joy and boldness.

John 20:18

John 20:18 

English Standard Version

  What would you say if someone came up to you a few days after a funeral and told you that they'd seen the deceased at the grocery store? Would you laugh in their face?  Silently make a note to call friends and family later?  Be so upset that you'd cry?

  There's all sorts of possibilities, but I doubt you'd immediately jump to belief that the person had risen from the dead.  These things don't happen.  It's easy to assume in our modern day that people were simpler and more gullible 2,000 years ago.  But they understood life and death -- what do you think they had all those purity codes for?  They didn't have the same level of scientific knowledge, but they were just as skeptical as we are of the idea of someone rising from the dead.  

  But Mary saw enough to convince her to go and tell the story.  She understood and believed, and then was the first witness to the resurrection to invite others to explore this possibility that opens a window into a new reality.

  May we pray for the wisdom to have open minds and open hearts.  Open minds to listen to what God has to say to us and is calling us into, and open hearts to love those that God puts in our path.

John 20:17

John 20:17 

English Standard Version 

  Jesus has been resurrected for less than a day and he's already pointing people towards one another.  Christianity isn't meant to be just 'me and Jesus', but rather there is a horizontal component that is just as important as the vertical -- we do faith with one another.  This is where a lot of spirituality programs fall short -- they miss that Jesus is always sending us out into the world together, to love and serve one another.  I think we miss this a lot in church, too -- church isn't just about showing up once a week to serve God individually.  It's about building relationships with one another, building a community of faith that worships together, as one body, and complimenting each other's strengths and weaknesses.  We do this together, not individually, and we're better for it, even as we're occasionally in conflict, because we all have some sharp edges that run up against the sharp edges of other people.  

  May we love and serve together, and recognize the ways Jesus sends us into the community.

John 20:16

John 20:16 

English Standard Version 

  There's a delicate and intimate nature to Jesus' interactions with us -- in the midst of the cosmic work that he's doing, he addresses us by name -- he calls us, the same way he calls us into being.  In the midst of a billion souls, Jesus knows your name and speaks it over you.

  And to hear Mary's response -- Rabbon means great master, while the 'i' on the end is possessive, meaning 'My Great Master' or 'My Great Teacher'.  This is the highest designation a teacher can receive, and isn't it amazing that it's Mary that bestows such a title upon Jesus?  It's not a lifelong student or someone with a clean background, but Mary Magdalene who calls Jesus this name.  Jesus addresses her by name, and in response, she gives him honor. 

  What Jesus is telling us is that on the other side of the resurrection, we are known by name and interact with Jesus on an individual level.  Again, this is all regardless of our backgrounds -- Jesus loves us and calls us by name.  

  What a gift.  What love is poured upon us, and even on the other side of the grave, we have the opportunity to respond in praise.

John 20:14-15

John 20:14-15 

English Standard Version 

  Martin Luther talked about the human heart as a factory of idols -- in summary, he said we have an amazing ability to turn almost anything into an idol.  Augustine talked about it as a disordered loves, in that we love other things more than God.  We look at the world, and we see other things to worship, and we neglect the worship of God.

  Mary falls prey to the same temptation in a different way.  She's not guilty of idolatry, but she looks directly at Jesus and sees a gardener.  She's despondent and wracked by grief, so it makes sense, but it's strange to picture, this woman who knows Jesus looking directly at the resurrected Savior and assuming it's a stranger.  

  We do the same thing.  God shows up and is active in the world and in our lives, and we assume that it's something else.  Our eyes aren't clouded by grief, but usually by some other worldly desire, and so we're caught up chasing the world's success, and we miss God in front of us.

  May we pray for clear vision, for God to direct the eyes of our heart, that we may see when God is in our lives, leading us forward, and follow God wherever we are led.

John 20:12-13

John 20:12-13 

English Standard Version 

  I imagine people who are born and raised in San Diego don't truly understand winter.  They might know what winter is conceptually, but the idea of being cold because it's negative 5 degrees and the wind is howling is so foreign as to be incomprehensible.

  The angels have the same problem.  They can't understand weeping. They've seen the Gospel narrative unfolding, and they know Jesus has been raised from the dead, so all they know is joy.  Weeping from sorrow doesn't occur to them.  

  One day, when we're on the other side of the veil, we won't know sorrow.  We won't know heartbreak.  We won't remember what it's like to weep with sorrow.  In the meantime, we unfortunately still know this reality all too well.  We lose people.  We experience illness.  Our minds and bodies fail us.  In this world, death is still here -- so may we aspire to the day when we understand the world as angels do, and may we be extremely sensitive to one another as we undergo heartache.  We may not understand why others are weeping, for they may be experiencing heartbreak that we don't understand.  May we listen well, and care deeply.

John 20:11

John 20:11 

English Standard Version 

  I don't like thinking about death very often.  It's not the brightest subject.  But it's real and it's out there, whether I like it or not.  One of our clients lost his wife very surprisingly and far too young the other day, and I can't help but ponder it.  As a Christian, I believe that death is a veil that we pass through into something else.  My belief in this is based on the fact that Jesus Christ died and rose from the dead.  He's the only person in human history to do this, he predicted it, and the foundation of the church that I serve is rooted in this fact.  The apostles went to very, very unpleasant deaths proclaiming this to be true, and if there was a body, the Romans could've produced it at any point to put an end to any resurrection nonsense.  They didn't because they couldn't.

  Therefore, death is truly a beginning -- like a newborn child, when we die, we pass through something immensely stressful, and we enter into a world completely unknown, where our senses are likely to encounter a world unlike the one we've known in our previous experience.  Try explaining the world to a newborn that's spent 9 months in a warm, dark place, listening to its mother's heartbeat and digestive track as it moves food along the process.  It simply wouldn't compute -- the outside world is too different.  No wonder babies cry when they're born.  

  And yet, because it's so hard for us to contemplate, and because we can't wrap our heads around a completely different experience, we end up like Mary here in John 20:11 -- when we think about it, we find ourselves standing outside of death, weeping at the very thought of it.  This world is so beautiful, and so many relationships are so rich, and the next step is so foreign, that we cannot help but weep out of sorrow for what we lose.  Mary, who knew and saw far more than I did, wept at the reality of it.  

  Tim Keller says that the only thing death can do is make us better.  I think about that a lot.  It's an unshakable optimism and confidence in God's sovereign power over death.  I pray for that.  I hope for that.  I don't know that I have it now.  But maybe I'll grow into it.  

John 20:8-10

John 20:8-10 

English Standard Version 

  Verse 10 never fails to amuse me.  We're told that John went in and believed (after John reminds us all that he'd beaten Peter in the race), although they still didn't grasp this in line with the larger witness of Scripture, and then they just went home.  They discovered the largest news event to ever take place, then decided to chill at home on the couch for a bit, maybe grab some breakfast.  It'd been a big morning, after all.

  The movie industry makes us think that change happens radically.  We see it so often on the big screen that we come to expect it in our own lives.  Main characters in movies have radical life-changing transformations overnight, and they go out into the world instantly as new people.  Commercials tell us that changing our lives or bodies can happen in only a few shorts days, so we workout twice and then wonder why our muscles haven't grown.  We are constantly disappointed because our goals are so high.

  But real change takes time.  Allowing the Holy Spirit to work requires great acts of patience.  It's not to be rushed.  God will change you, but it likely won't be quick.  After each encounter, it's helpful to pause and rest, to reflect, like Peter and John do, and see what God has in store.  Don't feel disappointed if you're not seeing instant changes -- be patient with yourself and with God.  

John 20:5-7

John 20:5-7 

English Standard Version 

  What do you do when you see the unbelievable?

  Usually, when presented with evidence that something miraculous has happened, we try and come up with some explanation, and there usually is.  It's unlikely that a true miracle happened -- there's probably some perfectly plausible reason.

  When Peter and John went into the tomb, what do you suppose they thought?  They saw the linen cloths lying there, and the face cloth wasn't with them, but folded up on its own.  There was no body, which was unexpected, because they watched Jesus die.  Usually, when people die, the body hangs around.  It could've been grave robbers, but what grave robber takes the time to fold a cloth and place it elsewhere?  Was there some sort of gang of impeccably neat grave robbers?  Unlikely.  But Peter and John had to consider every option... because there's usually a way to explain a miracle.   

  But sometimes, it really is a miracle.  

John 20:3-4

John 20:3-4 

English Standard Version 

  For two thousand years, no one has been asking whether Peter or John reached the tomb first, and yet John was certain to note in his Gospel that he was faster than Peter.  It's amazing to think how much we want to know, like more details about what Jesus said and did after his resurrection, and what details we do know, which is who would run a footrace between Peter and John.  

  But this is also one of those details that helps us see the Gospel as a true account.  They wrote what they remembered.  They weren't certain as which details would be the most important, so they recorded what stood out to them, and we've been piecing things together ever since.  

  We don't know everything we want to, but we know enough to believe.  We take the rest on faith.  But, if challenged to a race once you reach heaven, opt to race against Peter, not John.

John 20:2

John 20:2 

English Standard Version 

  Maybe some of the most powerful words in the English language are 'I don't know.'

  So often we're trying to fake it.  We want others to think that we're competent and capable and all those things -- we need to be respected and maybe even admired.  We have a self-image and we want others to see us the same way we see ourselves, so we often project knowledge, even if we're not as sure as we're pretending to be.

  Admitting that we don't know can be hard.  Especially if it's something that we've been doing for years -- over time, we become more trapped and more committed to making others think we know.

  It can be so liberating to admit that we don't know, to rely upon the wisdom of the group.  To admit that we don't know is to allow room for others to come alongside and help us figure it out.  It creates space for others to say that they also don't know.  It transforms the atmosphere, because we're no longer performing, but all figuring it out together.

  Mary was willing to say she didn't know, and then Peter came along with her to find out.  Together, they started putting the pieces together on what God was doing.  Admitting she didn't know created a community where they discerned together what God was doing.

  There's a long, long, long list of things I don't know.  I pray for the wisdom to admit them when they come up, that we may work together to listen to what God is saying and how God is moving.

John 20:1

John 20:1 

English Standard Version 

  Discipleship is hard.  The world places so many demands and so many distractions on us -- I get caught up in so many other things I'm trying to do.  These things seem more pressing, even though they're not as important, but the repercussions can be more immediate.

  I wish I had the same mind that was in Mary Magdalene.  She got up early and went to the tomb.  Maybe she knew exactly what she was doing, or maybe she wandered there by accident, lost in her grief, but regardless, she got up and went to the tomb, and because she showed up, she was the first witness to something incredible.  The resurrection of Jesus Christ has changed the entire world, and she was first, because she got up early and went to the tomb.

  I truly believe that getting up early and starting the day with Jesus has the ability to change our lives as well.  I don't do it often enough. I get busy.  I make excuses.  But showing up, day after day... who knows what God might do.  There's no guarantee that every day we'll witness something amazing, but if we don't get up and spend time with Jesus, we'll definitely miss it.  So may we imitate Mary and show up, day after day, trusting in God to be at work.

John 19:38-42

John 19:38-42 

English Standard Version 

  When we think about stewardship, we often think about giving money, but stewardship goes far beyond that -- it's not just about money.  Sometimes, we realize we have just the right gift that's needed at just the right time.  Joseph of Arimathea was a secret disciple of Jesus, and when Jesus died and needed a tomb, Joseph happened to have just the place, a tomb where no one had ever been laid.  It turns out this resource he had was exactly what the church needed at exactly the right time.  I doubt he had ever thought about how this resource might be beneficial to the church, but when the time came, he was ready to give.

  May we have the same spirit -- one that looks at the world and wonders how we might use our resources to meet the world's needs.  Joseph hadn't planned on this, but when the need presented itself, he was ready and willing.  May we live the same way, ready and willing to help when we see needs, looking at our resources as potential ways to help one another in times of need.