Beautiful Scars, part 2

Introduction
There are actually seven Sundays of Easter.  The resurrection is so powerful, it takes Seven Sundays to express it fully.  In addition, every Sunday of the year is considered a “little Easter”, the Lord’s Day, the day we worship the resurrected Christ.

However, Eastertide is seven Sundays and 50 days from the first Sunday of Easter until Pentecost Sunday.  Eastertide is like Lent, which is a time of repentance and spiritual preparation, except Eastertide is filled with more wonder and excitement and joy than Lent, which tends to focus on penitence.  Eastertide is a time of anticipatory waiting and expectant prayer and reveling joy that Christ is risen indeed.  Recall that the resurrected Jesus told his followers to stay in Jerusalem and wait until the Holy Spirit came to fill them with power (see Luke 24:49).  Today, I want us to consider the beautiful scars of Jesus and what we could gain by rediscovering the practice of the Eastertide tradition as many of found in the Lenten observance.

John 20:19-24
19 That Sunday evening the disciples were meeting behind locked doors because they were afraid of the Jewish leaders. Suddenly, Jesus was standing there among them! “Peace be with you,” he said. 20 As he spoke, he showed them the wounds in his hands and his side. They were filled with joy when they saw the Lord! 21 Again he said, “Peace be with you. As the Father has sent me, so I am sending you.” 22 Then he breathed on them and said, “Receive the Holy Spirit. 23 If you forgive anyone’s sins, they are forgiven. If you do not forgive them, they are not forgiven.” 

24 One of the twelve disciples, Thomas (nicknamed the Twin), was not with the others when Jesus came. 

Christ is Risen, and He Appears to Many
One of the key things that happened during Eastertide, the 50 days between Easter and Pentecost, is Jesus appeared to many people.  Paul wrote in 1 Corinthians 15:5-6 – “He was seen by Peter and then by the Twelve. 6 After that, he was seen by more than 500 of his followers at one time, most of whom are still alive, though some have died. 7 Then he was seen by James and later by all the apostles. 8 Last of all, as though I had been born at the wrong time, I also saw him.” 

What would it be like to see the risen Christ?  I know we can see Him in many different ways However, what was it like to seem Him in bodily form?  Perhaps that is something you could strive for during Eastertide.  Let’s examine what it was like for the Disciples to see Him.

Behind Locked Doors
The disciples were afraid.  Even after we’ve walked with the Lord for a long time, we can still experience fear.  So, the Disciples we hiding behind locked doors.  Christians were never meant to meet behind locked doors.  We don’t need to be afraid of rejections, persecution, intimidations, sickness or tribulation.  In Christ, we have nothing to lose.  We’ve already won.  In Christ, we are accepted, valued, and protected.  Even if we die, we’ve lost nothing.  This world has nothing for us and when we die we are raised to new life, true life, eternal life in Paradise.  Therefore, we don’t need to hide behind locked doors.

Jesus is Here, in the Flesh
The Disciples plainly see Jesus is alive!  Even though He is a physical being, He can somehow still come to be among them.  No matter where you are or where you try to hide or what experiences you feel separate you from Christ, nothing can keep Him from you. 

Furthermore, Jesus is the first fruit.  That means, His resurrection is the example of what our resurrection will be like.  We will have bodies like Jesus had a body.  But our bodies will be new and improved.  You think the next version of yoru smart phone will be something great?  Wait until you see the second version of your physical body in the Kingdom of Heaven.  Apparently, if Jesus is the example, locked doors will not be able to hinder your passage. 

We All Have Wounds & Scars
Jesus had scars, but His scars were not shameful or disfiguring.  Jesus’s scars were glorious because they tell the story of who He really is.  He can show them to us and prove that it’s really Him.  He’s the one who loved us so much He laid down His life for us and won our freedom from sin and death!  And so, the sight of His scars brings us joy!

 What stories do your scars tell?  It could be that they tell the story of foolish choices.  You did something stupid and have scars (whether physical or emotional) to prove it.  I hope more of my scars will show how I sacrificed for others.  A few weeks ago, a Christian came from Pakistan to tell how He runs a Christian school in Pakistan, a country that is 97% Muslim, where Christians are persecuted and even killed for their faith in Jesus.  The man told me, “Chris, real Christian love always hurts, because it means you must sacrifice like Jesus sacrificed.” 

To love like Christ means being vulnerable.  Sometimes when you love others, they will use or abuse your love and it hurts.  You will be tempted to withhold love next time, but don’t do it.  Real love hurts sometimes.  It may even leave you wounded and scarred.  But don’t’ give up.  Jesus will heal you and empower you to love again.  And the scars you bear will tell the glorious story of how you loved like Jesus loves.  Your scars will be a beautiful crown of glory!  So just keep loving!

Peace & Forgiveness
At first, it puzzled me that Jesus gave the Holy Spirit.  I always think of the Holy Spirit coming to the Disciples at Pentecost in Acts chapter 2, which happened 50 days later.  However, then the Lord reminded me, the Holy Spirit comes at many different times for many different reasons.  In this instance, the Holy Spirit was given to impart peace and the ability to forgive.  In Acts 2, Spirit imparted the power to speak boldly in ways that everyone everywhere could hear and understand the Good News about Jesus Christ.  God gives us His Holy Spirit when we believe in Christ to help us overcome any obstacle.  If you ever feel inadequate to complete a task God gives you, do not fear.  God is about to show His power through His Holy Spirit! 

The Disciples need to be able to forgive.  Even though it was an amazing revelation that Jesus was alive and not dead, the Disciples still had a lot to be angry about.  The were angry at the Romans and the Jewish leaders for crucifying their Lord.  They must have been hurt and angry that one of their own number—Judas Iscariot—betrayed them and Jesus and then committed suicide.  They were surely also angry at themselves for their own shameful behavior, fleeing in terror, abandoning their Lord, and Peter denying he even knew Jesus right after boldly telling Jesus he was willing to die for him.  The Disciples need the Holy Spirit to help them forgive others and even themselves.  So Jesus breathed the Holy Spirit upon them and gave them the power to forgive.

Have you eve considered what a tremendous privilege it is to be able to forgive?  One of the reasons the religious leaders criticized Jesus was he forgave people’s sins.  They scoffed, “No one, except God, can forgive sins!”  So to prove that He had the power to forgive sins (and that He was God), Jesus did something dramatic.  In Luke 5, a some people brought their paralytic friend to Jesus for healing.  Jesus told the man, “Your sins are forgiven.”  When the Pharisees scoffed, Jesus said, “Is it easier to say ‘Your sins are forgiven,’ or ‘Stand up and walk’? 24 So I will prove to you that the Son of Man has the authority on earth to forgive sins.” Then Jesus turned to the paralyzed man and said, “Stand up, pick up your mat, and go home!”  25 And immediately, as everyone watched, the man jumped up, picked up his mat, and went home praising God. 

So you see, Jesus is God and has the power to forgive sins (and heal a paralytic).  And now, Jesus has given His followers the power to do something that formerly only God had the power to do.  When you forgive, you are doing God’s work by the power of His Holy Spirit.  It is a tremendous privilege.

Poor Thomas missed out on this whole episode.  Apparently, he was away doing someting else.  We don't know what.  Thankfully, Jesus came back another time so that Thomas wouldn’t be left out.  no one gets left behind in God's Kingdom.  We will look at Thomas' the story next time. 

Invitation
I want to challenge you to devote yourself to spiritual renewal as we lead up to Pentecost on June 5^th.  Pentecost is six weeks away.  Pray each day about how God wants to transform and empower you.  How might God want you to serve Him this summer?  Pray about it and let Him tell you.  And I also challenge you to read the Book of Acts.  If you read one chapter per day Monday through Friday (taking the weekends off), you should finish the 28 chapters of Acts by Pentecost Sunday.  Acts is the story of the earliest believers going out to tell the world about the risen Christ.  As they did, they transformed the world.  And the cool thing about Acts is, it is an unfinished book.  It’s unfinished, because we are writing the last chapters today.  We are the people of Acts and we are continuing their mission—sent by Jesus Christ to tell the world God’s Kingdom has come.

Jesus Rises from the Grave

Introduction

Where do you find ultimate meaning in life?  Do you even think such a thing exists?  That is the subject of today’s message.  The Christian faith promotes a relationship with Jesus as the way to ultimate meaning in life.  The Disciples thought they had found ultimate meaning, but then they suffered the great disappointment of Jesus' arrest, crucifixion, and death.  Suddenly, their faith was called into question.  On that first Easter morning, they were still in shock, trying to figure out what was going on.   

Slides – Luke 24:1-12

¹But very early on Sunday morning the women went to the tomb, taking the spices they had prepared. ² They found that the stone had been rolled away from the entrance. ³ So they went in, but they didn’t find the body of the Lord Jesus. ⁴ As they stood there puzzled, two men suddenly appeared to them, clothed in dazzling robes.

⁵ The women were terrified and bowed with their faces to the ground. Then the men asked, “Why are you looking among the dead for someone who is alive? ⁶ He isn’t here! He is risen from the dead! Remember what he told you back in Galilee, ⁷ that the Son of Man must be betrayed into the hands of sinful men and be crucified, and that he would rise again on the third day.”

⁸ Then they remembered that he had said this. ⁹ So they rushed back from the tomb to tell his eleven disciples—and everyone else—what had happened. ¹⁰ It was Mary Magdalene, Joanna, Mary the mother of James, and several other women who told the apostles what had happened. ¹¹ But the story sounded like nonsense to the men, so they didn’t believe it. ¹² However, Peter jumped up and ran to the tomb to look. Stooping, he peered in and saw the empty linen wrappings; then he went home again, wondering what had happened.

The Empty Tomb

At Easter, we celebrate the resurrection of Jesus from the grave.  But in this Easter reading, Jesus does not yet appear.  The women went to put spices on the dead body of Jesus; but when they arrive at the tomb, Jesus is not there.  Peter rushes to the tomb to see the body, but Jesus is not there—dead or otherwise.

Usually when I think of Easter, I think of the radiant, resurrected Christ smiling and saying, “I told you so!  I told you I would come back to life!”  But here in this passage, we have only an empty grave and a pile linen.  It is the absence of Jesus in the passage that strikes me.  For those of us who know the way the story ends—we want to jump right to the point of acknowledging that Jesus is alive.  But let’s not get ahead of ourselves.  

            As I pondered this passage, it occurred to me that these twelve verses illustrate three common attitudes people have toward spirituality.  First we have the women—Mary Magdalene, Joanna, and Mary the mother of James.  They didn’t come seeking the risen Jesus.  Such a thing never occurred to them as a possibility.  They were looking only for the dead body of Jesus.  It was customary in that day to put fragrant spices on the body of the dead as a way of honoring those who had passed—much the way we place flowers on the graves of our deceased loved ones today.  We don’t go to our deceased grandma’s grave with flowers expecting to see her risen to life.  We go to remember the dead.  And so it was for the women in this passage.  They sought only to remember a dead Christ, not to see one risen in power and glory.

Dead

It strikes me how much that attitude prevails in church people these days.  These women came to the tomb in grief and sorrow.  They were looking for a dead man’s body.  They are like people who go through the motions at church, but aren’t truly seeking the living Christ.  They say and do the right things, but they only come to pay tribute to a dead man.  Their lives do not display the power and glory of the risen Christ and they do not reach their full spiritual potential.  It doesn’t matter how many flowers or spices they use to make it look or smell good, it’s still just dead and lifeless.  No wonder people turn away from a church that worships God like that.  

Alive

But then, the women in our story saw something amazing that dramatically altered their state of mind.  They saw two men in dazzling clothes that appeared and told them the good news—Jesus is not dead!  He has risen from the dead, just as he said he would!  This sight seized their attention and they forgot all about their religious duty to put spices on a dead body.  Suddenly, they were filled with excitement and hope and they rushed off to share this astonishing story with the Disciples.

I have known quite a few church-goers who for years just went through the motions. They really didn’t come to church expecting anything exceptional. They were—in a sense—just seeking a dead man’s body. But then something shook them from their spiritual slumber and they forgot about their dead religion and started seeking the risen Christ. And suddenly, they began to worship and live with a new passion. They even begin to tell others about their wonderful new experience of life. 

Disbelief

Next in the story are the Disciples.  If we examine them, we also see an attitude that is common in our day and age.  They took the women’s story to be nonsense.  The Greek word Luke uses to describe the women’s story is the same that Greek physicians used to describe the babbling of a fevered and insane mind.[i]  And that is how the disciples took the women’s story—it seemed like nonsense to them.  You can almost hear them saying to the women, “Why, just this morning you were going out the door, carrying all your spices to put on his dead body.  Now you claim he’s alive?!?  You must be sick with grief.  You're not making any sense.”

This is much the same as cynics in our time who say there is no real meaning to life (or that such meaning is unknowable).  They shrug off the stories of those who claim to have had deeply spiritual experiences.  Yes, and many people in our age look at the church and scoff.  They think these stories Christians tell about changed lives and divine power is a bunch of non-sense.  “Why, I’ve seen the way you worship at church,” they say.  “It’s boring and lifeless and dull.  If you ask me, you’re just worshiping a dead man.” They dismiss the church; they dismiss Christ; they refuse to believe. 

Hope

            But then there is Peter.  He hears the women’s story and he rushes out the door to investigate for himself.  And when he arrives, he sees that indeed the stone is rolled away and the tomb is empty.  All that’s left are the empty linen wrappings.

It’s ironic how things turn out.  According to Luke, Peter is the only one who runs to check out the women’s story.  Peter was not a particularly “spiritual” person in the sense we might think.  He was not a monk or priest or holy man of any sort.  He was a fisherman, a sailor, a common worldly man.  (Today, we use the expression, "He cusses like a sailor" for a reason.)  By Peter's own estimation the first time Peter met Jesus in Luke 5:8, Peter exclaimed, “I am too much of a sinner to be around you.” And yet it is Peter who goes to look in the tomb when all the other Disciples dismiss the story.  And it says when Peter saw the tomb was empty, he went away wondering what happened.

Peter reminds me of people in our age who are sincerely looking for meaning in life.  They may or may not consider themselves to be particularly “spiritual” people, but something prompts them to take a deep look at themselves and they recognize, “Huh… Something really important is missing.  I wonder where it is.”  And they start to honestly search.  They might look in quite a few places.  They might look for ultimate meaning in their career.  They might look for it in another person—a spouse or a friend.  They might look for it in a cause or in a family or in some other place.  But everywhere they look, they find only an empty tomb.  Where is that Most Important Thing that they crave? 

Which Are You?

The Christian faith teaches that life’s ultimate meaning is found through a relationship with Jesus Christ.  But some people miss out on the fulfillment that comes from a relationship with Jesus because they are like the women.  They are really only looking for a dead man.  Others are like the Disciples; they think the story of Jesus’ resurrection is a bunch of non-sense.  And still others are like Peter—they hear the good news, investigate for themselves, and discovered that the tomb is indeed empty.  Who do you resemble?

Are you looking for a dead man instead of a risen Savior?  Is your religious devotion helping you experiencing the life changing power of God or are you just trying to put sweet smelling spices and flowers on something dead?

Or maybe you are like the Disciples; you think all this talk about a risen Savior is just a bunch of non-sense.  You think, “There is no Higher Power and people don’t change.”  Maybe you’ve dismissed Christ and the church.  If so, I hope you will listen.  I hope you will take an honest look for yourself.  Maybe then you will see that there are a lot of empty, meaningless tombs in your life.  Maybe then you will say to yourself, “Huh…  Something important is missing in my life.  But maybe it’s out there somewhere.  Maybe what those Christians say is really true.  Maybe Jesus is alive.  And maybe Jesus is what I really need.”   

Dear God,

            Thank You for glorious hope of Easter—Christ is risen, just as he said.  Help us to see the empty tomb.  Jesus is not there.  Help us to see the lifeless parts of ourselves where Jesus cannot be found.  By Your grace, help us to surrender these to You, to let them go so that we can experience the divine, life changing power of the risen Christ living in us.  In Jesus name I pray.  Amen.

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[i] William Barclay, The Daily Study Bible Series, the Gospel of Luke, revised edition; page 292