Resurrection Hope
Notes
Transcript
Resurrection Hope
Easter Sunday 2023
Sermon Slide
Good morning and welcome to worship on this Easter Sunday! What a joyous day as we celebrate our Resurrected King! We are filled with a renewed hope because Jesus is alive! He is Risen… He is risen indeed.
You know… there is a theory among preachers that on Easter Sunday, you should preach something elaborate and catchy. Since you will have guests that you don’t usually have, and you will have the Chriesters (the Christmas and Easter only Crowd), then you should give them something memorable. I’ve always thought that the Resurrection of Jesus Christ was about as memorable, elaborate, and catchy stories I could ever tell. So that is the sermon you will get and we will be looking at the resurrection story as told through the eyes of one of Jesus closest followers – John. So, what is the story?
Today, we remember the day the Disciples discovered that their grief was unwarranted. They had witnessed the brutal beating, the scourging, and the crucifixion of the one they had followed for 3 years. They thought he was the one! They thought he was the Messiah! They woke up that morning in the same despair of the previous day and evening. They were now starting their 3rdday of sorrow and grief, grieving the loss of their friend… grieving the loss of the hope he had offered… grieving the future they thought they understood, only to be catapulted from despair into a resurrected Hope!
But, you know, we have all been where they were. We have all faced times of disappointment in our lives. Some might even say despair.
Whether it’s going for a cookie and realizing someone put the package back empty… or
getting in the car and realizing our spouse left it on empty…
Maybe we thought it was our year, only to end in defeat… Or,
the loss of a loved one.
Loss, grief, disappointment, and despair all go hand in hand.
But, what if, there was a new pack of Oreos behind that empty one…
What if the fuel prices go back down…
What if the Cowboys really do have their year…
AND,
what if there is a resurrected hope?
That is what we are here to discover today!
Sermon Slide
We all need a renewed hope… A Resurrected Hope.
Life hasn’t been easy. I’d say it’s been a rough year… but then I’d have to remember that 2021 came before 2022… and that 2020 came before 2021… and 2019 came before 2020… we have had a rough season! The loss of loved ones, COVID, Disaffiliation, Drought, and the list goes on and on.
Here is something to remember!
Whatever we are going through… whatever you have or are facing – God is not done. Remember that. That is what Easter is about!
The story of Easter, the Gospel message is that right in the middle of the disciples’ darkest hour comes the light of hope.
Point 1: Hope Appears When We Least Expect It.
Early in the morning on the Sunday after Jesus’ death, One of Jesus’ followers, Mary Magdalene made her way to the tomb to care for the body of her friend…
of the man she had thought would be the savior of the world…
of the man who had rid her of her demons and given her a new life…
of the man she thought was to be the long awaited Messiah…
She went to the tomb full of the despair that comes when all hope is lost. Then… as if things couldn’t get any worse, she found the tomb empty. The body of the one she was there to care for was missing. I can only imagine the thoughts that went through her mind! She thought someone had stolen the body and she is devastated! Turn with me to John 20 now. We are going to pick up the story at verse 11:
John 20:11-14
Mary was standing outside the tomb crying, and as she wept, she stooped and looked in. She saw two white-robed angels, one sitting at the head and the other at the foot of the place where the body of Jesus had been lying. “Dear woman, why are you crying?” the angels asked her.
“Because they have taken away my Lord,” she replied, “and I don’t know where they have put him.”
She turned to leave and saw someone standing there. It was Jesus, but she didn’t recognize him.
Everyone always asks, “Why didn’t she recognize the angels?” Well, maybe the angels appear to be in human form… maybe through the tears she couldn’t see clearly… or maybe her focus was on the slab of rock and the linens where Jesus’ body had been laid.
This is what can happen to us when we lose hope. When our dreams are shattered and our future becomes unclear, it becomes all too easy to fixate on what has NOT happened, what we DON’T have, what THEY did not do, and what is MISSING.
Point 1 slide
In fact, she turns around and is standing face to face with Jesus… Again, why didn’t she recognize him? Through the tears and the fog of despair why would she?
He was dead… she saw his dead body.
She saw the wounds.
She helped take him down from the cross and place him in the tomb.
Why would she expect to see him alive?
We see with Post-Easter-Eyes, Mary didn’t yet have that privilege. But even within Mary, hope was about to be awakened.
Easter is a reminder that God is in the business of awakening hope within us. He does this in many different ways that can be subtle and can be missed if we aren’t careful. Maybe hope comes through a simple conversation with a friend. Maybe hope is sparked by a small, answered prayer. Hope can be found in an unexpected text or a letter in the mail. It could come by noticing the beauty of a sunrise or the smile of a child. Hope can be found in taking time to be grateful for what we do have rather than being frustrated by what we don’t have. The key is our expectation level. Just like a child searching for eggs in the yard, we need to search the horizon for God’s subtle signs of hope.
Because, so often, when we are about to give up… that is when God’s hope shows up!
Point 2: Easter Comes at Just the Right Time.
A couple of years before the crucifixion, Jesus told us why he had to die. In his conversation with Nicodemus, he said:
John 3:16-17
“For this is how God loved the world: He gave his one and only Son, so that everyone who believes in him will not perish but have eternal life. God sent his Son into the world not to judge the world, but to save the world through him.
It was Jesus’ passion and compassion for you and me that allowed him to sacrificially give up his life. Jesus loved you so much, the he wanted to make a way for you and I to spend our life and our eternity with him!
This story of the resurrection is a story of Jesus compassion, and you can see it in his first words to Mary when he sees her…
John 20:15-17
“Dear woman, why are you crying?” Jesus asked her. “Who are you looking for?”
She thought he was the gardener. “Sir,” she said, “if you have taken him away, tell me where you have put him, and I will go and get him.”
“Mary!” Jesus said.
She turned to him and cried out, “Rabboni!” (which is Hebrew for “Teacher”).
“Don’t cling to me,” Jesus said, “for I haven’t yet ascended to the Father. But go find my brothers and tell them, ‘I am ascending to my Father and your Father, to my God and your God.’”
Can you not hear the compassion in his words as he asks, “Why are you crying?” Yes, she thought he was there to tend the garden… and maybe he was.
Not the Garden of the tomb, but the garden of our lives… maybe – just maybe he was there restoring what had been lost in the Garden of Eden with the first sin of humanity.
Point 2 Slide
It is in that moment, the moment when Jesus speaks her name, that she recognizes him and calls him her beloved teacher. In the midst of her darkest moment, Easter came… the hope of resurrection changed everything!
I don’t thing there is any coincidence to the fact that we celebrate the Resurrection in the Spring. With Easter comes the long awaited Spring… life from the death of Winter.
Everywhere we look things are beginning to green up… the flowers are starting to bloom… butterflies are flying through the yards… hummingbirds are once again visiting.
The seeds he had buried, as though they were dead, have suddenly resurrected into life!
What was a season marked with bleakness has blossomed into something beautiful!
It is like Martin Luther once said: “Our Lord has written the promise of resurrection, not in the books alone, but in every leaf in springtime.”
The seasons of life remind us that God brings life from death. He can bring life to our most hopeless of places.
God is always right on time.
You can feel the shift in tone in this story as Mary recognizes that Jesus is alive. Her hope is resurrected. She comes back to life. The dream of restoration and healing is once again a possibility. I wonder what would happen if today you were able to see Jesus all around you, maybe even in the places you have been missing Him. Easter is when we look at Him face-to-face and hear Him call us by name and know that we can hope again because Jesus is alive.
Point 3: The Resurrection is Victory over Death
Mary came to the tomb expecting the finality of death. She expected to embalm the body of the one she loved, only to be surprised by hope! The one she had hoped would be her savior in fact was her savior, her hope had not been misplaced. Jesus had risen from the dead and with that resurrection he had overcome sin and death!
But, she and we should not be surprised. According to John’s Gospel, the story of the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus, He had already defeated death. He had already told us who he was!
Jesus arrived at Bethany 4 days after his friend Lazarus had died… Martha met him on the road and said, “If only you had been here…” But Jesus said to her and he says to us today, “But I am here.” Not only that,
John 11:25-26
Jesus told her, “I am the resurrection and the life. Anyone who believes in me will live, even after dying. Everyone who lives in me and believes in me will never ever die. Do you believe this…?
Jesus said to His followers then, and to us now that He is the resurrection and the life. He is the hope of life eternal and the key to true life now. It is our belief, not just an intellectual exercise but a deep trust in Him, that ensures that the worst things that may happen to us in life will not be the last things that happen to us. We have hope that is resurrecting all around us for a full life in Jesus now and forevermore.
And so, this Easter day, I want to invite you to believe in the resurrected Christ. I want to invite you to give Him your life and allow Him to birth new life within you and the world around you.
